Donald New Years Eve

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Donald "Don" Sylvester (* 20th century ) is an American sound engineer and sound designer . Since the early 1990s, he has worked as a sound engineer in over 100 film productions and has been nominated and awarded several times for various film prizes. At the 2020 Academy Awards , he received an Oscar in the “Best Sound Editing” category for his work on Le Mans 66 - Against Every Chance .

life and career

Donald Sylvester spent the first few years of his life in New Jersey . The family moved to Atlanta , Georgia , when he was eleven , where the father got a new job. He studied journalism at the University of Georgia and completed his studies with a so-called ABJ , a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism , which is only awarded in this form by the University of Georgia. Sylvester was already interested in music in his childhood and youth and then tried his career with moderate success in the music industry, before he realized that the music business was not for him after all. During his college days he worked for the local college radio station WUOG .

It was only later that he came to film through his wife, a film editor , when they had been living in California for a long time . Sylvester's first noteworthy contribution was in 1988 as a special music consultant for the thriller Heart of Midnight with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the lead role. It wasn't until the early 1990s that Sylvester's slow breakthrough in the film industry followed. In the first few years he had always worked on the sound editing of other films, but never considered the projects "his". Only when he began to work seriously as a supervisor from around 2001 - he had already held this position regularly from the mid-1990s - did this change for him.

Over the decades, Sylvester has worked on countless productions that have been nominated for a wide variety of film prizes and have won just as many film prizes, not only on real-life films , but also on various animated films . The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) recorded the first noteworthy nominations of New Year's Eve for a renowned film award in 2001. This year, as part of a team of eleven, he was nominated for a Golden Reel Award in the category “Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects & Foley, Domestic Feature Film” for his work on the film U-571 . He received another Golden Reel nomination together with Tim Chau , Thomas Whiting , Nils C. Jensen , David Kern and Albert Gasser for their work on A Kingdom for a Lama in the category "Best Sound Editing: Animated Feature" .

In 2003 he was nominated for a Golden Reel Award in the category "Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features: Dialogue & ADR" for his work on Antwone Fisher together with Mildred Iatrou . In the following year he was nominated twice in this category: for X-Men 2 (together with John A. Larsen , Craig Berkey , Susan Dawes , Jim Brookshire and Laura Graham ), as well as for Master & Commander - Bis ans Ende der Welt ( together with Richard King , RJ Kizer , Hugo Weng , Michael Magill , Laura Graham, John A. Larsen and Susan Dawes). In 2006 Sylvester won his first major film award. At the presentation of the British Academy Film Awards 2006 , he and Paul Massey , Doug Hemphill and Peter F. Kurland received the award in the “Best Sound” category for Walk the Line . This year he was also nominated for his work on Walk the Line at the International Online Cinema Awards for an IOCA in the “Best Sound Editing” category. In 2007 Sylvester, who has been working as Supervising Sound Editor at 20th Century Fox / 20th Century Studios since the mid-1990s, founded Soundation, Inc. , a company that primarily focuses on editing activities in post-production and has been its president since it was founded is.

For the film Death Train to Yuma by director James Mangold , which for Sylvester himself is one of the best films he had worked on in the course of his career, he received a nomination for a Golden Reel Award in the category “Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film " (along with John Murray , Ted Caplan , Scott Curtis , Matthew Harrison , Steve Bissinger , Simon Coke , Dawn Fintor , Elizabeth Rainey and Alicia Stevenson ), however, came out empty-handed in the end. The film, which was nominated for two Oscars , among other things , received few film awards in general, but was nominated many times for various awards. After he had worked on numerous well-known and award-winning productions in the following years, nominations for any film awards were largely absent in the following years. It wasn't until 2017 that Sylvester was nominated again for a noteworthy prize; At the International Online Cinema Awards he received a nomination for a Halfway Award in the category "Best Sound Editing" for his work on Logan - The Wolverine , but in the end he had to face Julian Slater , who won the award for his work on Baby Driver , give up. For Logan - The Wolverine he was also in the following year together with Wayne Lemmer , Hamilton Sterling , Doug Jackson , Matthew Harrison , John Morris , John T. Cucci and Dan O'Connell for a Golden Reel Award in the category "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing : Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film “ nominated.

The most successful film for Sylvester, considering the various awards, was the sports drama Le Mans 66, released in 2019, directed by James Mangold, at whose side Sylvester was already in Walk the Line , Death Train to Yuma , Knight and Day and Logan - The Wolverine had worked. For his work on the film, in which, in addition to the film editing, he was also one of the main people responsible for the noises, such as those of the racing cars, he was already awarded the 2019 Satellite Awards together with Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Steven Morrow received a Satellite Award in the "Best Sound (Editing & Mixing)" category. For the film, among other things, the sound of an original Ford GT40 , of which only 105 were produced between 1964 and 1969 and which was made available by a collector from Ohio for the sound recordings of the film, was used. After Sylvester, along with Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Steven Morrow, also received a Hollywood Film Award in the category "Sound of the Year" in 2019 , Sylvester received numerous other nominations in the following year.

These include nominations for a Gold Derby Award in the “Best Sound Effects Editing” category (together with David Giammarco, Paul Massey and Steven Morrow), for a LEJA Award in the “Best Sound” category (together with Richard Bullock junior, Paul Massey and Steven Morrow) or for an Awards Circuit Community Award in the “Best Sound” category (together with Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Steven Morrow). At the OFTA Film Awards 2020, Sylvester took second place in the category “Best Sound Effects Editing” - undecided with Gary Rydstrom and Brad Semenoff ( Ad Astra - To the Stars ). At the Golden Reel Awards 2020 he was with Polly McKinnon in the category "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR for Feature Film" , as well as with Jay Wilkinson , David Giammarco , Eric A. Norris , Anna MacKenzie , Dan O ' Connell , John T. Cucci , Andy Malcolm and Goro Koyama nominated in the category “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film” . With a total of nine Golden Reel Award nominations in the course of his career, Sylvester was able to win a Golden Reel Award for the first time in the latter category. At the BAFTA Awards 2020 , Sylvester, who was nominated in the category "Best Sound" together with Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Steven Morrow, did not get beyond one nomination; The winner was the sound department of the film in 1917 . However, it was more successful for the experienced sound engineer at the Oscars 2020 , where he won in the category “Best Sound Editing” against Oliver Tarney and Rachael Tate ( 1917 ), Alan Robert Murray ( Joker ), Wylie Stateman ( Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ) , as well as Matthew Wood and David Acord ( Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ) prevailed and received the first Oscar in his career.

Filmography (selection)

Nominations & Awards

Nominations

BAFTA Awards
Golden Reel Awards
Gold Derby Awards
OFTA Film Awards
International Online Cinema Awards
  • 2006: International Online Cinema Award (IOCA) in the “Best Sound Editing” category for Walk the Line
  • 2017: Halfway Award in the "Best Sound Editing" category for Logan - The Wolverine
LEJA Awards
Awards Circuit Community Awards

Awards

Oscars
BAFTA Awards
Satellite Awards
Golden Reel Awards
Hollywood Film Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Interview with Supervising Sound Editor Donald Sylvester (Logan, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) (English), accessed on February 10, 2020
  2. ↑ Debut for 'last' GT40 , accessed on February 10, 2020
  3. ↑ SOUND: "Ford v Ferrari" Donald Sylvester, Paul Massey, David Giammarco & Steven A.Morrow (English), accessed on February 10, 2020
  4. ↑ THE 92ND ACADEMY AWARDS | 2020 (English), accessed on February 10, 2020
personal data
SURNAME New Year's Eve, Donald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sylvester, Don (short name); Sylvestor, Donald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sound engineer
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century