Sci/Tech Academy Awards

While most of the media focuses on the Oscars' glamour awards like Best Picture or Best Actor, Popular Mechanics convened a panel of experts that includes past winners, to sort out the
nominees in technical categories. Our award-winning group's insight is the ultimate cheat sheet for those looking to win their Oscar pool
THE EXPERT
Just a few years after making his auspicious debut as a feature film editor with Shaun of the Dead, Chris Dickens collected an Academy Award for his editing of Slumdog Millionaire. Currently, he's teamed up with Simon Pegg again to edit the actor/writer's latest film, Paul.

THE CRITERIA
Dickens says great editing happens when the individual choices of the editor support the film's story on the whole. "Balance from the beginning to the end is crucial," Dickens says. "You can have sequences that are beautifully cut together and exciting action sequences, or the creating of new techniques, but if they aren't hanging together with everything else it's less effective."

THE RUNDOWN
Avatar: "The editing in Avatar is extremely slick," Dickens says. While James Cameron's blockbuster epic clocks in at nearly three hours, "it doesn't feel long at all," Dickens says. "I think that's a success in terms of editing."

District 9: "It's a beautifully told story," Dickens says of Neill Blomkamp's sci-fi apartheid parable. "The way the film develops is very quick early on and as you realize the characters are changing, the pace of the cutting changes. The editing's more obvious than it is in Avatar, but it's quite beautifully done."

The Hurt Locker: Dickens says both the camera work and the editing in this Kathryn Bigelow-directed flick about Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) units in Iraq are very fluid. "The editing really supports the story," Dickens says. "The tension they convey is amazing—there are moments when you're dripping with sweat, aren't you?"

Inglourious Basterds: According to Dickens, Basterds' editing is functional, not showy—and, like Avatar's editing, it helps a long film feel much shorter. "You don't notice the editing very much, but it achieves something as effective as the others in a very subtle way," he says. "It's more of a supporting thing."

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" By Sapphire: The editing in Precious isn't distracting. "It's more invisible and it's really telling the story well with good structure," Dickens says. "It's a hard story and a hard-hitting film. A film like that could be unpalatable if the editing was done wrong, and hard to watch, but it wasn't and it kept me there."

THE PREDICTION
Dickens predicts The Hurt Locker will grab the Oscar but could easily see a scenario where Avatar wins Best Picture and Best Editing because "often what happens is best film takes home best editing as well, and I don't think The Hurt Locker will win best film."