Lindsay resident Christian Cooke will be heading to London’s Royal Albert Hall in February for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards.
Along with Brad Zoern, Nathan Robitaille, and Peterborough native Glen Gauthier, Cooke is one of the team nominated for a BAFTA — the British equivalent of the Oscar — for best sound for the critically acclaimed The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Cooke and Zoern are sound re-recording mixers at Deluxe Toronto, part of the Deluxe Entertainment Services Group. For post-production on The Shape of Water, del Toro went to Deluxe Toronto, which he had used for previous projects including Crimson Peak and Pan’s Labyrinth.
The Shape of Water leads the BAFTA Awards with nominations in 12 categories, including best film, director, cinematography, and sound. For sound, it’s up against some tough competition, with the other nominees being Baby Driver, Blade Runner 2049, Dunkirk, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Cooke first began working in sound mixing in 1978, when he filled in for a couple of weeks at SoundMix, his father’s company. He never looked back and, in the past 40 years, has worked on many feature films, television movies, and television series including Hamburger Hill, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Dieppe, Ready or Not, Billable Hours, Being Erica, and Bomb Girls.
He’s won multiple awards in the past, including Gemini Awards for sound for Being Erica (2010 and 2011), Billable Hours (2009), and Shades of Black: The Conrad Black Story (2007), as well as Genie awards for A Dangerous Method (2012) and Eastern Promises (2008).
In 2012, both Cooke and Zoern won an Emmy for sound mixing for the Hatfields & McCoys miniseries on the History Channel, and also won a Cinema Audio Society in 2013 for their work on the series. Cooke was nominated for an Emmy in 2015 for his work on Texas Rising.
Former Peterborough resident Glen Gauthier is also part of the sound team nominated for the BAFTA Award.
Gauthier, who left Peterborough as a teenager, also has a long list of film and television credits, including IT, Molly’s Game, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Spotlight, Pixels, Being Erica, A History of Violence, Dolores Clairborne, The Shipping News, and Parenthood. He also previously worked on Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 robot epic Pacific Rim. He has won multiple Gemini and Genie awards for his work.
Gauthier, who runs his own sound company Noise Boys Inc., is a location sound mixer. A member of the film crew who’s responsible for recording all sound on set during film-making, his work includes minimizing extraneous noise during filming rather than in post-production.
“There was always running water and steam pipes and lots of visual effects that create a lot of noise,” Gauthier says of The Shape of Water, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, The Shape of Water is an other-worldly fable set against the backdrop of Cold War era America in the early 1960s. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
VIDEO: The Shape of Water Trailer
The film, which has been nominated for seven Golden Globes, received the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.
The BAFTA Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, February 18th at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. Absolutely Fabulous actress Joanna Lumley will host the ceremony.
