Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1057439
by James A. Corbett CAS MPSE, Historian, Melissa Hofmann CAS, and Mark Rozett CAS A History of the CAS Awards T he Cinema Audio Society had its start in 1964, but it wasn't until 1971 that the CAS presented its first award. It was called the "Man of the Year Award" and it was presented to Gordon Sawyer by actor Gregory Peck. Murray Spivack received the next "Man of the Year Award" in 1973. After that, there were a number of years when few or no awards were presented (record-keeping was spotty back then). When Jim Corbett became president of the CAS for the second time, he started the tradition of giving yearly awards. In 1986, the CAS began presenting plaques to the Emmy ® winners and Oscar ® nominees in Sound. They also presented the first CAS Life Achievement Awards to "Tex" Rudloff and Carroll Pratt. It had, however, been a longstanding dream of the CAS to have its own awards for sound mixing. In 1993, during the tenure of President Ed Somers, a new awards committee was formed. Co-chairs Melissa Hofmann and Mark Rozett, together with Glenn Berkovitz, Jim Cook, Steve Hawk, Tom Huth, and Mark McNabb undertook the creation of the CAS's own awards for sound mixers. The task facing them was to devise a meaningful award that would be a unique entity, offering recognition of the craft of sound mixing for film and television. Most importantly, the recipients would be chosen in democratic voting by the practitioners of that craft. THE CAS AWARDS FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING TURN 25!