As “No Country for Old Men” makes its seemingly inevitable way toward a Best Picture Oscar, and Javier Bardem and the Coen Brothers continue to receive considerable press attention, it’s easy to forget the crafts artists who contributed to the film and its eight nomination total.

“No Country” did, after all, receive four nominations in the “tech” categories. One of those was for “Roderick Jaynes” in the film editing field. Roderick is widely known as being a pseudonym for the Coens and could result in one of four wins for the brothers come Oscar night. The great cinematographer Roger Deakins, meanwhile, finds one of his two nominations this year for his work here. It marks his fourth nod for a Coen collaboration.

The other two crafts nominations came for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. The sound work in this film was, in my opinion, phenomenal. The tension, suspense and even character creation (note the sound of a train whenever Bardem’s character appears) amounted to the creation of a particular mood throughout the film. The work has been a considerable favorite in the sound community, and now it has the opportunity to take things one step further: Oscar glory.

I was fortunate enough to speak with two of the sound artists on this film: sound re-recording mixer Craig Berkey and production sound mixer Peter Kurland. They share the nomination for Best Sound Mixing with Skip Lievsay, who is also nominated for Best Sound Editing, and Greg Orloff, his second nomination since winning three years ago for “Ray.”

Kurland is the first production sound mixer I’ve interviewed for “Tech Support.” His role can be defined as bearing the responsibility of recording sound while on the set. This is his second nomination, having been nominated two years ago for “Walk the Line.”

Berkey, on the other hand, is a sound re-recording mixer – one of the individuals who take the music, sound effects, dialogue and anything else recorded while filming, and produce the mix we hear while watching the film. Originally from Vancouver, Berkey moved to California 15 years ago and earned his first nomination with this feature. But with such a deep history in the industry, it wouldn’t be appropriate to call him an “overnight success.”

Kurland has been working with the Coens for nearly 25 years (he was the boom operator on “Blood Simple”) and loves their joint efforts.

“There’s never any hysteria or screaming on the set,” he says. “They are exceptionally well prepared. It isn’t that there aren’t surprises but there are very few completely unexpected elements.”

Berkey adds to the notion that the helmers know exactly what they want to do, having “the whole thing laid out as they’re writing the script. But they also listen to new ideas regarding sound, having the confidence to have a minimal score in a film like this.”

Having been on the set with the brothers on many occasions, Kurland says new challenges still manage to arise on each shoot. He says this was definitely the warmest set apart from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and that, being out in the desert, wind was a large problem (as it always is for production sound). But the work was particularly pivotal in this film and had to be recorded just right. He also notes a new and somewhat bizarre element on the production called “dusk panic.” Only about 10 takes were done in the daylight and the rest were done during sunset or sunrise, with very little time to get those shots right.

“It was very exciting to have an open palette to create from nothing whereas usually things disappear after we start,” Berkey adds. “It was great to know from the beginning that whatever we did, that was what it was going to be.”

Because Kurland has known re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Skip Lievsay for so long, they had a regular opportunity to speak to each other during filming, adding to the sense of teamwork during the shoot and affording the ability to address specific needs. Despite having talked to Lievsay about the importance of recording everything exceptionally clean, Kurland admits he was surprised that the dialogue and effects elements ended up so exposed. But he says he loves having the work on display, almost taking the place of the absent score.

Berkey notes that he was challenged to come up with certain iconic-type sounds for key motifs in the film, such as the air gun. “We wanted to say, ‘Uh oh, this is not good,’” he recalls. “I treated the wind as if it was the score, akin to a cello playing. It was there and it felt right.” Berkey also says he and his colleagues attempted to keep the mix quiet, at the same time trying to create a “theme” of sound for Bardem’s character akin to what might be present in a score, notably in the fact that the sound of a train almost always accompanies, or slightly precedes, his presence. “We wanted to get the idea that a big bad freight train is coming,” he recalls.

Kurland says he enjoyed being on the set, having previously served as boom operator during his first seven films with the Coens. “I love to see how each thing is done, how lighting is set up, how actors are directed,” he says.

As for the anonymity of the occupation, Berkey says he’s just fine with that.

“I’m really fine with it as long as people enjoy watching movies. I’m not really worried if they know what I do or not so long as I enjoy it,” he explains, though he does add that, for people who really enjoy movies, they could probably get more out a film if they better understood the importance of sound. Berkey is regardless encouraged by the critical and audience approval of the film.

“It’s been interesting to read some reviews and hear mentioning of the sound, without the complaint of being too loud,” he says. “Sometimes in this movie, the sound wasn’t complicated to create but it made the story better, nor was it over-covered by music. “That’s the lesson for me: less is more.”