USA - Peter Jackson's epic remake of King Kong has won the Oscar for Achievement In Sound Mixing at the 78th annual Academy Awards, held in Hollywood on Sunday March 5th. Already an Oscar winner for his work on Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, sound mixer Hammond Peek relied solely upon the HHB Portadrive to record the dramatic location sound on King Kong, on an often arduous shoot that lasted some nine months. "Solid build, eight track flexibility and reliable hard disk recording made Portadrive the recorder of choice for King Kong," reports Stephen Buckland of HHB's New Zealand distributor Sound Techniques, himself an experienced sound mixer. "The Portadrive also excelled in trials to check compatibility with post-production workflow, a very important consideration for the production." [More]