Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470109
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 31 might as well enjoy whatever time I have left and move on. You know? SS: You are receiving the Career Achievement Award, the highest honor with the MPSE Golden Reel Awards in the sound community. How's that make you feel? CC: I feel honored. I never saw it coming. And I have to tell you that it honored and thrilled me to be chosen for that award. I couldn't ask for anything more. It's funny because I've been nominated for a Golden Reel several times, Frost/ Nixon was one. And it didn't happen. And certainly when I did Apollo 13, I thought that for sure was going to happen. And even though Steve did the sound effects, we did the dialogue and ADR, I mean, we together as a team should have gotten it. And if it was another time, maybe it could have happened. But because Steve already won like a couple of awards, maybe the people that chose the movies in the Bake Off may have decided that he's had his share and to give somebody else a break. I was relatively unknown. As a matter of fact, when I first came out to LA in 2005, I met Kevin O'Connell who was our mixer. It turned out he was a really sweet guy. Kevin I really appreciate because he said to me, "Why aren't you in the Academy?" He said, "You've done enough movies. You've been a supervisor for umpteen years." I said, well, in all honesty, I felt that as a New Yorker, I never felt part of the film community. When you think about the number of films that were being considered for Academy Awards at the time, the first one was Apollo 13. And, Scott Milan and Steve Patterson were two LA mixers, and Rick Dior was the dialogue mixer and the head mixer. So when he got the win for best sound, it should have been all of us, because when you think about it, the sound recordist records the sound, but we're the ones that prepare it for the mix and a mixer can only be as good as what we do in preparation. So it's really a collaborative effort, but somehow we got left out as editors. So Rick, when he did his acceptance speech, and even though he only had 45 seconds, the first thing he said, he thanked Ron Howard, then he thanked Chic Ciccolini and Lisa Levine. I was dumbfounded. And the phones rang off the hook because there's so many people watching and it's "oh my God Chic, you got it!" you know. But, I figured that was it, I wasn't going to get anything. I've been retired now for eight years, I'm now 72. So I feel really honored. And I'm very happy. It's a collaboration. It's not like you're doing bad work, it's like somebody else is putting a fresh eye on something and saying here, what do you think of this? That's how I worked with my crews. We're as good as the crew, no one was able to do it alone. SS: Well, I have to tell you something, "I get a call from Dan Hanley. And Dan says, 'If you want the job, it's yours.' I said, 'Dan, I am excited, I'm thrilled! What was the deciding factor? You know, why me over some of the others that applied?' He said, 'We like a guy who's in touch with himself…' And I thought, 'Oh, my sainted aunt!'" Chic, I owe you big time in your contributions to my career. I am honored to be the one to be able to write about you and I am deeply honored to be a part of your career journey and your life. CC: Of course you're a part of my life. You know, when I saw Lynn (Sable), she said to me back when we were together here that she owes me because of the fact that I introduced her to Dan Sharp. If she didn't come out with me, they would never have met. (They're now married.) There is so much how we affect people, we don't necessarily know. So I'm very grateful that I have had the opportunity for somebody to come back to me to say, "thanks to you..." And it's all good. Thank God that I'm where I am today. SS: I'm very grateful to know you. You're great! Thank you, Chic, for your time and your wisdom. CC: My pleasure, Solange.