Academy Award nominated stop-frame animation film – Head Over Heels - has won over judges at another international awards show in Los Angeles, USA. Having bagged the Annie Award for Best Student Animated Film, plus a host of international festival awards, the NFTS student film has now won a Motion Picture Sound Editor's Golden Reel Award - recognised as the sound world's equivalent to the Oscars.
Student Axle Kith Cheeng (pictured above right with producer Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly) flew out to L.A to receive the Verna Fields Award for Best Sound Editing by a student film-maker. This is the NFTS' 28th nomination and 11th Golden Reel award win since 1996, making it consistently the world's best school for sound editing.
Axle said: "It is a great honour to receive this award amongst the finest sound and music editing professionals. Everyone who is here tonight appreciates the value of the Golden Reel Award because we share a passion and love for sound and music."
The Oscar-nominated film also received praise from Aardman's Nick Park, rave reviews in the world's film Press as well as the public's vote with over 300,000 hits on You Tube and a strong Facebook
Chris Pow NFTS Head of Sound said: "This is an incredible achievement when you consider that the Verna Fields award is open to every film school in the world. Given our repeated success at the Golden Reel Awards it goes to prove that the NFTS MA in Sound Design is among the best in the world. Axles work played a huge part in what makes this film so outstanding."
NFTS graduate James Morgan was also awarded the Mike Hopkins Memorial Scholarship, which was set up in memory of Mike who tragically died at the end of last year. Mike shared Academy Awards with EthanVan der Ryn for work on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and King Kong.
James who flew to Hollywood to attend the Oscars said: "To be awarded by the illustrious sound designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn was a huge honour. The $1000 prize money is most welcome and will be used to help fund this excellent trip to the Oscars, however it's the recognition by professionals in the sound editing industry that means the most to me."
NFTS Director Nik Powell:“For one of our graduation films to be nominated for an Academy Award as well as winning a Golden Reel and an Annie - the pinnacle of awards for animation and sound editing - is an extraordinary feat for the student filmmakers who achieved it! We are very proud of the students for bringing such credit to our film school. And this extraordinarily human and humorous film richly deserves the success and credit it is receiving.”
