Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
18 I M PS E . O R G STUDENT CORNER BY ZOLTAN JUHASZ W hen I was completing the mix of my final year animation film at the National Film and Television School, my tutor, Chris Pow, made a brief comment as he was leaving our very last review session. "This is going to be a great submission to the 2017 MPSE Golden Reel Awards!" he said in an unexpectedly convincing manner. He sounded way too confident, but he was halfway through the door and already quite far from me, so I was pretty sure I was just misinterpreting his tone. I asked again to confirm, and surprisingly, he sounded the same way for the second time when I could hear him very clearly. Now, you see, this made my heart jump. Chris had a long history of Golden Reel-winning students, so I very much hoped this was his actual professional opinion, not just an act of kindness. We entered our film and the wait had begun. When the nominees were announced, I quickly opened the list to see if my name was on it. I started scrolling down. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled—it felt like the page was endless, my heart was beating like a drum in an action movie's score. I finally reached the very bottom of the page, where I could see the nominees of the Verna Fields Award. And there I was! Flying over to LA from Europe to attend a ceremony like this was a fantastic prize in itself. Seriously, what could be more exciting to a freshly graduated sound designer than this?! Two days before the awards, the MPSE team invited all nominees to attend a series of awesome events, where we met some very inspiring people and visited some very exciting places. MPSE President Tom McCarthy gave us a personal tour at Sony Pictures Studios and our films were played at the Cary Grant Theatre! Meanwhile, this day also featured the heaviest rainfall in LA in a very long time, with little flash floods on the streets of Burbank. Locals were jokingly saying it was the "Storm of the Century." No way anyone could forget a day like that! The night of the ceremony was the most exciting of course. Around the middle of the night, they announced the winners of the Verna Fields Award, and there I was on stage with the shiny award in front of so many talented people. When I was walking up to the stage, I questioned whether I was going to be able to speak English—or in fact, any language. Luckily, I couldn't see much, thanks to the blinding lights, so that made it a bit easier. During these few days and after the ceremony, I met fantastic people and when I returned to Europe, the welcome was overwhelming. Hungary won an Academy Award a week after the 64th Golden Reel Awards and I was presented in mainstream Hungarian media, alongside the Oscar-winning team. Soon after this, I started working as supervising sound designer on my first theatrical feature, and one exciting thing led to another. Winning a Golden Reel was amazing, and it opened a lot of doors, and last but not least, it made my mom very happy and proud—I'm so grateful to the MPSE for this opportunity! Top: Zoltan Juhasz won the Verna Fields Award for Fishwich at the 64th Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards in 2017. Winning a Golden Reel was amaz- ing, and it opened a lot of doors, and last but not least, it made my mom very happy and proud.