George Watters II was honored as the 2012 MPSE career achievement recipient, presented to him – after much good-natured ribbing – by director Jon Turtletaub. The award-winning supervising sound editor garnered Oscars in 1990 for The Hunt for Red October, and again in 2001 for Pearl Harbor. He has eight Academy Award nominations including Top Gun (1986), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991),Crimson Tide (1995), Armageddon(1998), Pirates of the Caribbean: The

Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest (2006). He is a four-time MPSE winner and has been nominated for three BAFTA awards. During the course of his distinguished career, Watters has supervised 76 feature films over the last 33 years, including creating 24 movie soundtracks for producer Jerry Bruckheimer. He has collaborated on multiple films with heavyweight directors such as Tony Scott, Michael Bay, Jon Turtletaub, Gore Verbinski, and Leonard Nimoy, among others. Following 19 years on staff at Paramount, Watters worked at Universal, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and finally Walt Disney Studios from 2000-2011. Receiving the best sound editing, short form dialogue and ADR in television Golden Reel award for the Game Of Thrones episode “Cripples, Bastards And Broken Things,” supervising dialogue editor Peter Blayney perhaps summoned up the feeling of the night best when he thanked the MPSE by saying, “The better you do dialogue editing, the less it is noticed. So thank you for noticing. 

The Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) honored their own at the 59th Annual Golden Reel Awards with top feature film honors going to War Horse, Super 8, The Adventures of Tintin, The Muppets and Hugo. In all, 21 Golden Reels were presented to sound crews in film, television, direct-to-video and computer entertainment.

By Mary Ann Skweres and Bob Bayless

” The 2012 Golden Reel award winners are:

Feature Films

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in an Animation Feature Film

The Adventures Of Tintin, (Paramount Pictures)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Produced by: Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg

Supervising Sound Editors: Brent Burge, Chris Ward
Sound Designer: Dave Whitehead
Supervising Foley Editor: Craig Tomlinson
Supervising Dialogue/ADR Editor: Chris Ward
Foley Artist: John Simpson
Sound Effects Editors: Hayden Collow, Matt Stutter, Justin Doyle and Frank Lipson
Dialogue Editors: Martin Kwok, Jason Canovas, Chris Todd
ADR Editor: Morgan Samuel
“Snowy” Effects Editor: Justin Webster

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, Adr And Music In A Feature Documentary

George Harrison: Living In The Material World, (HBO)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Produced by: Olivia Harrison, Martin Scorsese, Nigel Sinclair

Supervising Sound Editor: Philip Stockton, MPSE
Sound Designer: Al Zaleski
Music Editor: Jennifer Dunnington

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Foreign Language Film

The Flowers Of War, (Row 1 Entertainment)
Directed by: Yimou Zhang
Produced by: Chaoying Deng, William Kong, David Linde, Leo Shi Young and Weiping Zhang

Supervising Sound Editors: Steve Burgess, Tao Jing, MPSE
Sound Designer: Tao Jing, MPSE
Supervising Dialogue Editor: James Ashton
Foley Artists: Xu Miao, Mario Vaccaro
Dialogue/ADR Editor: Baiyang Wang
Foley Editors: Wei Wang, Yanchao Yang, Adam Connelly
Sound Effects Editors: Hongrui Ji, Yinan Tu, Tian Yong, Chris Goodes, Zheng Huang, Robert Mackenzie

Best Sound Editing: Music in a Feature Film

Hugo, (Paramount Pictures)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Produced by: Tim Headington, Graham King, Johnny Depp, Martin Scorsese

Supervising Music Editor: Jennifer Dunnington
Music Editor: Rob Houston
Supervising Score Editor: Jonathan Schultz
Score Editor: Kirsty Whalley
Additional Editor: Tim Starnes

Best Sound Editing: Music in a Musical Feature Film

The Muppets, (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Directed by: James Bobin
Produced by: David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Don Burgess

Supervising Music Editor: Lisa Jaime
Music Editor: Richard Ford

Best Sound Editing: Dialogue And ADR in a Feature Film

Super 8, (Paramount Pictures)
Directed by: J.J. Abrams
Produced by: J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Steven Spielberg

Supervising Sound Editors: Matthew Wood, Ben Burtt
Dialogue/ADR Editors: Cheryl Nardi, Rich Quinn, Steve Slanec
ADR Editors: Gwendolyn Yates-Whittle, MPSE, Brad Semenoff and Stuart McCowan, MPSE

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film

War Horse, (Touchstone Pictures)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Produced by: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy

Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer: Gary Rydstrom, MPSE
Supervising Sound Editor: Richard Hymns
Supervising Foley Editor: Luke Dunn Gielmuda
Foley Artists: Denise Thorpe, Jana Vance
Sound Editors: Kyrsten Mate, Terry Eckton, MPSE, Tim Nielsen and Colette Dahanne