In the words of two-time Oscar winning sound editor Randy Thom, awards such as Best Sound Editing, though often referred to as “technical” awards, “are given for artistic decisions. And sometimes we make them better than others.”

Considering the fact that most of the individuals responsible for a film’s creation are not “above the line” talent but rather technicians behind the scenes, it seems more than appropriate that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences extend nominations and Oscar awards to these unsung masses. But such individuals seem to be woefully unrepresented by the world of awards coverage, both sanctioned and unsanctioned.

Can you envision the Coen brothers’ “O Brother Where Art Thou?” without Roger Deakins’s textured cinematography? Would Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” be the same experience without the extraordinary sound work provided by perennial AMPAS favorites Michael Minkler and Wylie Stateman (as well as their respective teams)? Is Oliver Stone’s “JFK” remotely the same film without the tapestry-like film editing of Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia?

Furthermore, the technical branches of the Academy represent a sizeable share of Academy membership. Their opinions of films in play are bound to affect the overall flow of an Oscar race. As such, the fact that these branches are more or less ignored in the media is a startling fact indeed. “Tech Support” at In Contention hopes to shed light on these individual races, which combine to establish nearly half of the yearly Academy Awards ceremony.

Dozens of columns could be written on any specific category alone, and eventually, we’ll look more purposefully at the individual races and branches. But until the race really begins to firm up later into the fall, these preemptive columns will take a broader, hopefully more observational glance.

In many ways, the technical races are not that different from the “major” ones. Just as is the case in, say, the directors’ and actors’ categories, there are many talented craftsmen and women who have produced steady memorable and/or acclaimed work in the past, yet have gone unnoticed by the Academy at large. This year will afford the chance for many of them to get their first mention, and so I’d like to take the opportunity in these first two introductory installments of “Tech Support” to address such respective hopefuls.

A couple of people who should be considered kings of the “due for a first nomination” variety – seamless editor Dylan Tichenor (“Boogie Nights,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Royal Tenenbaums”), for instance, or “he of memorable themes” composer Michael Nyman (“The End of the Affair,” “Interview with the Vampire,” “The Piano”) – do not have films in release this year.

Moreover, craftsmen such as cinematographer Christopher Doyle (“2046,” “Hero,” “The Quiet American”) and production designer Alex McDowell (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Minority Report,” “The Terminal”) do not seem to be contenders either. With Doyle’s M. Night Shyamalan collaboration “Lady in the Water” stinking up the joint and McDowell’s designing Anthony Minghella’s contemporarily set “Breaking and Entering” (the art department is rarely spotlighted for contemporary design), these two individuals may have to hold out even longer for their first nominations as well.

Other contenders, however, seem to have the makings of genuine candidates – the sort who have come close before, often expected to score, yet ultimately fell short. We’ll avoid mentioning names like “Dreamgirls” cinematographer Tobias Schliessler and “The Prestige” costume designer Joan Bergin because, though they are undoubtedly talented and are shaping up as formidable contenders, they’ve not necessarily threatened a nomination in the past.

Production design, awarded alongside set decoration in the Academy’s category of Best Art Direction, is a tricky business. One has to not only appropriately create the world in which the film is set, but also tangibly design the elements so that they can endure the process of film production. With period and fantasy work usually being more difficult and, thusly, more memorable, it’s not surprising that the overwhelming majority of nominees in this category are responsible for designing such films.

K.K. Barrett (“Adaptation,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Lost in Translation”) and Philip Messina (“8 Mile,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Traffic”) are relative newcomers to the world of production design. In spite of this, they’ve both worked on high profile films that have garnered major awards attention, each of them boasting a guild nomination to show for it. Those films certainly can’t hurt their chances this year for traditional Oscar fare in “Marie Antoinette” (in the case of Barrett) and “The Good German” (in the case of Messina). Neither have exactly been major contenders to date on account of the fact that they’ve mainly worked on contemporary films.

Nathan Crowley, on the other hand, managed to score guild and British Academy of Film and Television award (BAFTA) mentions last year for his work on Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins,” blending the striking cityscape of downtown Chicago with painstaking set construction on London soundstages to create a memorable and innovative Gotham City. Despite being relatively new to the game, missing out with the AMPAS after garnering such precursor attention would have to be considered a slight. This year, he’ll be working again with Nolan, mixing fantasy into the period environment represented in “The Prestige.” In what looks like a relatively weak year for the art direction category, this strikes me as a perfect opportunity for the branch to make things up to Crowley.

Branching now into the category of Cinematography, it’s worth mentioning that Harris Savides has, in recent years, somewhat established himself as the king of eerily memorable photography in smaller cinematic endeavors. Take a look at Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant,” “Gerry” and “Last Days” for proof of this, or Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth.” Yet perhaps on account of his atypical choice of films, Savides has never really come close to an Oscar nod, despite amassing three Independent Spirit Award nominations and a New York Film Critics’ Circle award. His collaboration with David Fincher on “Zodiac” (which may or may not be released as a platform in December to qualify for awards consideration) should be sumptuous and potentially the film’s best shot at a notice, given how stylistic and visual Fincher is as a filmmaker. From this vantage point, I have the suspicion he could be that token guild nominee who annually comes up short at the Oscars.

Lance Acord’s dazzling creation of an overwhelming metropolis in Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” garnered him immense praise in 2003, including a BAFTA nomination. This year, even those who have not championed Coppola’s “Marie-Antoinette” on the whole have still offered considerable praise for Acord’s photography. However, I can’t help but doubt how well the film will do overall with the Academy. It does not sound “Oscarish,” necessarily, and is likely to be extremely divisive. Regardless, Acord is a talent (also with Spike Jonze’s “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich” in his repertoire) one would think would be recognized eventually.

In my humble opinion, the person most likely to fill the void of “due first-timer” amongst the cinematographers would have to be Tom Stern. Here is a man who worked as an assistant photographer on films for twenty-five years before Clint Eastwood adopted him as his cinematographer of choice earlier this decade. Stern lensed “Mystic River” for Eastwood in 2003, generating some minor Oscar buzz, before offering some very memorable work in “Million Dollar Baby” (a film I personally found excessively dark, but to each his own). This year, Eastwood’s double bill of Iwo Jima films, “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” (which also may turn out to be a 2007 release), ought to give Stern the opportunity to capture memorable battle scenes on film, combined with eerie, potentially Pavlovian landscapes. The timing seems right for a first nomination.

Next week we’ll continue our look at prospective first-time nominees in the costume design, film editing and music branches. But I’d like to close today by mentioning the state of this column as it pertains to predictions.

Many of you may be familiar with my columns of a more predictive nature at Oscarwatch.com. I have recently finished up my stint writing for Sasha Stone’s website, and therefore it is important to clarify that any predictions represented at In Contention remain solely the opinions of the site’s editor. I am happy to talk predictions via email or in the comments section of the column, but it is my intention to represent “Tech Support” as a commentary rather than yet another set of predictions in the online world of film awards coverage. And I certainly hope you enjoy reading the column as much as I enjoy writing it.