The Fugitive producer Peter Macgregor-Scott has been tapped to present the Motion Picture Editors Guild's prestigious MPEG Fellowship and Service Award to previously announced honoree, re-recording mixer Donald O. Mitchell, today, October 5, 2013, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel.
The Fellowship and Service Award was established seven years ago by the Guild to recognize an individual who embodies the values that the Guild holds most dear: Professionalism, Collaboration, Mentorship, Generosity of Spirit and a Commitment to the Labor Movement. The ceremony will be held at a sit-down dinner on October 5, 2013 at the Sheraton
Universal Hotel in
Universal City, California.
Macgregor-Scott was co-producer on The Fugitive and produced Batman Forever, both of which garnered Mitchell Oscar nominations for Best Sound from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The pair also collaborated on Under Siege and Batman & Robin.
ABOUT PETER MACGREGOR-SCOTT
After starting his career working in the sound department at Pinewood Studios, Macgregor-Scott moved to the United States from England in 1970, and immediately began work on the Philippines-shot Ride the Tiger.
Working his way up through the ranks of the industry, Macgregor-Scott soon became known as one of the best creative and hands-on producers in the business, with such hit comedies as Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, The Jerk, Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. In 1993, he produced The Fugitivestarring Harrison Ford.
Ever-present on the set and often working into the wee hours, Macgregor-Scott coordinates every minute detail of each department (at times more than 40) and multiple shooting units. Films like Batman and Robin and Batman Forever presented some of the more complex interdepartmental challenges. His creative solutions to technical challenges are most evident in The Fugitive train crash and the dam jump to the roiling seas of The Guardian.
"I am involved in the day-to-day operations of any film on which I work," Macgregor-Scott says. "My major responsibility is to have a vision about what is most practical and economical, and anticipate where the problems lie. There will always be challenges on any production, but as long as you have the solutions, the problems don't really exist."
ABOUT DONALD O. MITCHELL
Veteran re-recording mixer Donald O. Mitchell began his four-and-a-half decade career in the film and TV industry at
20th Century Fox as a draughtsman in 1955. Moving into the sound department, he loaded mag dubbers, handled recording duties and performed some engineering functions. One day, his boss told him, "You're mixing dialogue today." And that was the beginning of his career in sound.
His first film at Fox, The Paper Chase, garnered him his first of 14 nominations from AMPAS. Mitchell's resume contains 120 films that span a career as a re-recording mixer that began in 1973 and ended in 1998, the year of his retirement. In 1989, he won the Academy Award with fellow mixers Gregg Rudloff and Elliott Tyson for Best Sound for Edward Zwick's Glory. He has also been nominated 13 more times in the same category for The Paper Chase (1973), Silver Streak (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Terms of Endearment (1983), Silverado (1985), A Chorus Line (1985), Top Gun (1986), Black Rain (1989), Days of Thunder (1990), Under Siege (1992), The Fugitive (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994) andBatman Forever (1995). Mitchell's work on The Fugitive also earned him a BAFTA Award for Sound from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and a CAS Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Feature Film from the Cinema Audio Society.
As a re-recording mixer, Mitchell was a member of IATSE Local 695, the Sound Technicians local. Less than a year before his retirement in November 1998, he and his fellow post-production mixers in 695 were brought into the Editors Guild, on January 1, 1998. An active member of the AMPAS Sound Branch Executive Committee for a number of years, Mitchell served three terms on its Board of Governors and, with sound editor Kay Rose, he successfully advocated to keep the Sound Editing and Mixing awards as part of the televised Academy Awards when there was a proposal to move them to the non-televised Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony.
Mitchell, an avid sailor, is enjoying his retirement and his 50-foot fiberglass-bodied boat, the Orion,which he built in his backyard in the San Fernando Valley during his spare time over a period of 20 years.
ABOUT THE MOTION PICTURE EDITORS GUILD
The Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG) is a national labor organization currently representing over 7,200 freelance and staff post-production professionals. MPEG is the world's premiere craft Guild that sets the standards for excellence in the post-production industry. The requirements to become a member of the Guild and to be placed on its Industry Experience Roster ensure the highest level of professionalism.
As Local 700 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE <
http://www.iatse-intl.org/index_flash.html> ), an international union over 100 years old, MPEG is allied with some 500 affiliated locals <
http://www.iatse-intl.org/directory/search.asp> in the United States and Canada with a combined membership of more than 104,000. This strength increases its collective power at the bargaining table and results in better contracts with superior benefits.
MPEG negotiates new collective bargaining agreements (union contracts), enforces existing agreements with employers involved in post-production and provides assistance for securing better conditions--including but not limited to financial (better pay), medical (better health insurance), safety (turnaround time) and artistic (assignment of credit) concerns.
