NUTSHELL: There isn’t much that has changed over the last week and a half in the tech categories, though my eyes were certainly plastered to the BAFTA Awards for a few of these races. Take Best Cinematography, for instance, which shares the same five nominees between BAFTA and AMPAS. Something has always felt wrong about predicting “The Dark Knight” (even though it deserves it), and I have a hunch “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” will falter here and there. The Brits may have cleared that up, we’ll soon see. But “Slumdog Millionaire” makes more sense now than ever. There are similar instances throughout. We’ve also added the shorts and docs to the charts, so here’s your cheat sheet.
Column: Main Categories/Technical Categories
| ART DIRECTION | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Donald Graham Burt; Victor J. Zolfo |
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| 2 | “Changeling” James J. Murakami; Gary Fettis |
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| 3 | “Revolutionary Road” Kristi Zea; Debra Schutt |
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| 4 | “The Duchess” Michael Carlin; Rebecca Alleway |
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| 5 | “The Dark Knight” Nathan Crowley; Peter Lando |
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| CINEMATOGRAPHY | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Slumdog Millionaire” Anthony Dod Mantle |
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| 2 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Claudio Miranda |
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| 3 | “The Dark Knight” Wally Pfister |
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| 4 | “Changeling” Tom Stern |
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| 5 | “The Reader” Roger Deakins, Chris Menges |
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| COSTUME DESIGN | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “The Duchess” Michael O’Connor |
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| 2 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Jacqueline West |
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| 3 | “Revolutionary Road” Albert Wolsky |
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| 4 | “Australia” Catherine Martin |
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| 5 | “Milk” Danny Glicker |
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| FILM EDITING | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Slumdog Millionaire” Chris Dickens |
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| 2 | “The Dark Knight” Lee Smith |
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| 3 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall |
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| 4 | “Milk” Elliot Graham |
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| 5 | “Frost/Nixon” Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill |
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| MAKEUP | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Greg Cannom |
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| 2 | “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” Mike Elizalde, Thom Floutz |
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| 3 | “The Dark Knight” John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan |
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| MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Slumdog Millionaire” A.R. Rahman |
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| 2 | “WALL-E” Thomas Newman |
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| 3 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Alexandre Desplat |
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| 4 | “Defiance” James Newton Howard |
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| 5 | “Milk” Danny Eflman |
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| MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” Peter Gabriel; Thomas Newman |
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| 2 | “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” A.R. Rahman; Gulzar |
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| 3 | “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire” A.R. Rahman; Maya Arulpragasam (M.I.A.) |
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| SOUND EDITING | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Wall-E” Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood |
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| 2 | “The Dark Knight” Richard King<.em> |
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| 3 | “Iron Man” Christopher Boyes, Frank Eulner |
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| 4 | “Slumdog Millionaire” Glenn Freemantle, Tom Sayers |
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| 5 | “Wanted” Wylie Stateman |
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| SOUND MIXING | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Slumdog Millionaire” Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Ian Tapp |
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| 2 | “Wall-E” Ben Burtt, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick |
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| 3 | “The Dark Knight” Lora Hirschberg, Ed Novick, Gary Rizzo |
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| 4 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Mark Weingarten |
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| 5 | “Wanted” Chris Jenkins, Petr Forejt, Frank A. Montaño |
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| VISUAL EFFECTS | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Burt Dalton, Steve Preeg |
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| 2 | “Iron Man” Shane Mahan, John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick |
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| 3 | “The Dark Knight” Chris Corbould, Nick Davis, Paul Franklin, Tim Webber |
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| DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Man on Wire” James Marsh, Simon Chinn |
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| 2 | “Trouble the Water” Tia Lessin, Carl Deal |
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| 3 | “The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath |
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| 4 | “Encounters at the End of the World” Werner Herzog, Henry Kaiser |
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| 5 | “The Garden” Scott Hamilton Kennedy |
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| DOCUMENTARY SHORT | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Smile Pinki” Megan Mylan |
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| 2 | “The Final Inch” Irene Taylor Brodsky, Brad Grant |
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| 3 | “The Conscience of Nhem En” Steven Okzaki |
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| 4 | “The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306” Margaret Hyde, Adam Pertofsky |
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| SHORT FILM (ANIMATED) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Presto” Doug Sweetland |
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| 2 | “La maison en petits cubes” Kunio Kato |
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| 3 | “This Way Up” Alan Smith, Adam Foulkes |
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| 4 | “Lavatory — Lovestory” Konstantin Bronzit |
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| 5 | “Oktapodi” Emud Mokhberi, Thierry Marchand |
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| SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Spielzeugland (Toyland)” Djochen Alexander Freydank |
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| 2 | “Grisen (The Pig)” Tivi Magnusson, Dorte Høgh |
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| 3 | “Manon on the Asphalt” Elizabeth Marre, Olivier Pont |
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| 4 | “New Boy” Tamara Anghie, Steph Green |
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| 5 | “Auf der Strecke (On the Line)” Reto Caffi |
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