At Dolby, we love helping artists tell their stories in the best way possible. So it was exhilarating to wake up this morning and see that so many movies that used Dolby® technologies were nominated for Academy Awards®.
Three of the eight films nominated for the top prize, Best Picture, used Dolby Atmos® sound, and two also used Dolby Vision™ imaging technology. Nominees for Best Animated Film and Best Animated Short used Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Dolby Vision films captured four nominations for Cinematography and Visual Effects. And films available in Dolby Atmos dominated the sound categories, with nine of the ten nominations for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. For the first time, all the films nominated for Sound Editing were available in Dolby Atmos.
Dolby Vision, which allows postproduction professionals to create images with more color, brightness, and contrast than traditional cinema projection allows for, debuted in spring 2015, and is already being used in films that got the Oscar® nomination in its first year of use.
Here’s a summary of films with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos nominated for best of category, imaging, and sound awards:
Best Picture
The Martian (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
The Revenant (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Dolby Atmos)
Animated Feature Film
Inside Out (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Short Film (Animated)
Sanjay’s Super Team (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Cinematography
The Revenant (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Visual Effects
The Martian (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
The Revenant (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Sound Editing
The Martian (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
The Revenant (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Dolby Atmos)
Sicario (Dolby Atmos)
Sound Mixing
The Martian (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
The Revenant (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos)
Mad Max: Fury Road (Dolby Atmos)
(Note: The fifth nominee, Bridge of Spies, was mixed in Dolby Digital sound.)
(Mad Max: Fury Road was remastered for home viewing in Dolby Vision via streaming.)
The greatness of these movies comes from the talent and hard work of the artists who created them, but we’re proud that Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision were able to help bring such extraordinary work to life.
Congratulations to the studios, filmmakers, and all involved in these films.
Oscar history
Films using Dolby technology have been winning Academy Awards for decades. In fact, the first Star Wars film, which used Dolby Stereo®, won the 1978 Academy Award for Best Sound. In 1979, Dolby Stereo surround sound was introduced with Apocalypse Now (1980 Academy Award for Best Sound). In 2012, we launched Dolby Atmos with Brave (2013 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film), and in 2015, two Dolby Atmos films received Oscars, with American Sniper taking the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing and Big Hero 6 for Best Animated Feature Film.
Filmmakers praise Dolby technology
Filmmakers say that Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, which allows artists to place and move sounds anywhere in the theatre, including overhead, are transforming the way they can present their stories.
Paul Cichocki, postproduction supervisor of Inside Out, said in the video below, “Dolby is changing the way we experience movies between Dolby Vision, with its brightness and contrast levels, and [Dolby] Atmos, with its immersive sound.”
“I would hope that people who see the film in Dolby Vision would be able to feel and experience the film more intensely, ” explained Pete Docter, director of Inside Out, in the video. “It is not something you are maybe conscious of, but the film ends up having a deeper impact because of the richness and clarity of the visuals.”
Robert Iger, chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, stated in this red-carpet video, “Dolby has enabled us through sound and picture quality to make our stories better for the audiences that are watching them and listening to them.”
“The new technologies that come along make it a more exciting experience, and between innovations with [Dolby] Atmos sound and sounds that actually put you in the middle of the experience, as well as the extended dynamic range, you are going to hear it and see it in a way you haven’t heard or seen a movie before, ” Jon Favreau said in the same video. Favreau’s next directing project, The Jungle Book, will also feature Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos technology.
Moving with Dolby Atmos
Matthew Iadarola, home theater Dolby Atmos rerecording mixer for Mad Max: Fury Road, said in this video, “What I notice with [Dolby] Atmos is you really have the sense that you are moving forward with the people on the screen.
“In particular in the opening sequence, Max has run off and he is being chased by a car that is taking a leap over a precipice, and that sound starts in the back, goes overhead—in the case of [Dolby] Atmos you hear it over you, and then it lands in front of you on the screen, ” Iadarola continued.
“That is the best thing you can do—sort of transcend the space you are in, whether that’s your living room or your theatre, and it feels like you are right there. That was really special, and that’s not available other than [with Dolby] Atmos.”
