Sound mixing and music composition may seem to be unrelated tasks when it comes to the creation of a film. But both tasks go to toward the betterment of a given film’s overall soundtrack, the audible experience that can add to the enjoyment of a film as much as the most beautiful of landscapes or the most dazzling of visual effects sequences. I recently had the opportunity to speak to a composer and sound mixer who are in the thick of this year’s award races in their respective categories.

Alexandre Desplat gave us the music for both Stephen Frears’s “The Queen” and John Curran’s “The Painted Veil” and is garnering kudos mentions for each, perhaps heading toward his first Academy Award nomination. Greg P. Russell, meanwhile, added healthily to the suspense of Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” and seems to once again be in the running for a nod, which would be his eleventh to date. Interestingly, Russell’s eleventh nomination would be the nineteenth for longtime collaborator Kevin O’Connell, who holds the unfortunate record of “most Oscar nominations without a win.”

The cinema is largely seen as the director’s medium. So it’s not altogether surprising that both of these craftsmen commented on the importance of the helmer in their work.

“It’s the director you spend the most time with in composing,” Desplat acknowledges. “Most of my best friends are directors. Artists such as Jacques Audiard (‘Read My Lips,’ ‘The Beat My Heart Skipped’) inspire me.”

“Establishing a relationship with a filmmaker builds trust,” Russell explains. “Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott, who we’ve worked with many times, let us put our spin on our work. This is not to say they won’t pick it apart, but we get to assemble it as we think is best.”

Filmmakers also affected the creative directions taken by the two men as they went about work on their 2006 titles.

“Stephen didn’t guide me precisely on ‘The Queen,’ but it was a great collaboration,” Desplat reminisces. “We shared ideas of where and how to place music and what emotions to highlight at certain moments. I had a short time to write, so I appreciated it even more. Stephen is so quick to articulate his ideas.”

With respect to “The Painted Veil,” director John Curran knew Desplat’s work and was a considerable fan. The temp track for the film was already scattered with Desplat’s music, in fact. From there, the composer created a score that would eventually lead to his third Golden Globe nomination. His two films remain apparent as the awards race marches forward.

Russell, on the other hand, mixed the soundtracks of a diverse array of titles in 2006 – seven, to be exact.

“It’s been kind of a wild year,” he says. “It started with Barry Sonnefeld’s ‘RV’ and then ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ which I thoroughly enjoyed as I was looking forward to finally working with Ron Howard. He has a great crew he always works with.

“‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ was a pretty straightforward movie,” he continues. “Gabriele [Mucino] didn’t have many changes to make after we showed him what we constructed. But that’s the exception. A Tony Scott, who we worked with again on ‘Déjà Vu,’ or a Mel Gibson dissects everything, listening to aspects such as dialogue and music, wanting to understand everything and then be able to make their artistic choices.”

Russell also worked on James Gartner’s “Glory Road” and Adam McKay’s “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” in 2006.

In addition to the different filmmakers they work with, both Desplat and Russell commented specifically on the unique challenges of the projects they recently tackled.

“‘The Queen’ is not a movie where you can spread music everywhere,” Desplat begins. “It has to be sparse and delicate. You have to learn to respect what’s on the screen already. I always had to think that ‘less is more,’ from volume to strength to size of orchestra.”

But “The Painted Veil” proved to be a different experience for the composer. “It has the epic feel and takes place in different cultures,” he says. “But it also has the delicate romantic story. These all had to be balanced in the most appropriate ways possible.”

After gaining fame writing scores in the French film industry, Desplat has only recently, though quickly, made a name for himself in the States. He says that the differences between working in the two environments are certainly apparent, but those differences don’t necessarily affect his approach to the work. And his experiences on the more intimate and restrained films that come out of the French market have certainly buttressed his work on equally intimate recent affairs such as Jonathan Glazer’s “Birth” and Peter Webber’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

A particular challenge Russell discusses with respect to sound mixing is that of authenticity.

“What does Spider-Man flying through New York sound like,” he ponders. “We don’t know, so we can choose. Yet this is not the same as ‘Pearl Harbor,’ which we knew veterans were going to watch and they would know if we were being inaccurate. We have to bear in mind the target audience for a film.”

Despite the challenges and continual differences in the films on which they work, it is clear that both of artists love what they do.

“There’s a magical thing in a movie,” Desplat says, “where so many artists are at work. Of course, as the art of the sound has improved, the way one works for cinema has changed.”

“It’s something I’m very passionate about,” Russell explains. “On ‘Apocalypto,’ we combined many types of sound. It’s like painting with different colors and it becomes unique and satisfying. I was so happy when Randy Thom, winning the sound editing Oscar for ‘The Incredibles,’ acknowledged the work consisted of artistic decisions.”

Yet in spite of the intrinsic love of what they do, both craftsmen acknowledge appreciation for any congratulations their work might receive.

“You’re in a studio in silence and you’re alone,” Desplat says. “It’s very lonely, lonely, lonely work. But I enjoy it and I love to go on the set, go to the premiere, meet the actors and cinematographer. You come at the end and you’re the cherry on the cake and you have to respect the work of people who came before you, but it’s great to hear that people like what you’ve written.”

Russell, meanwhile, hopes to see “Apocalypto” among the Best Sound Mixing nominees. But it’s also clear he feels no entitlement during the awards season. He applauds the work of Gregg Rudloff and company on “Flags of Our Fathers,” for instance. “But,” he adds, “we aren’t going to get away from the big musical.”