MUMBAI: Resul Pookutty has become the first Indian to be honoured with a Cinema Audio Society (CAS) award.

Pookutty won the Award for Best Production Mixer for Slumdog Millionaire at the award ceremony held at the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on 14 February. Pookutty incidentally bagged the Bafta award for Slumdog Millionaire just a few days ago, and also has an Oscar nomination for the same film.

The Cinema Audio Society announced winners of its Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing Awards in five categories of film and television over the weekend. The Cinema Audio Society or CAS (USA) is a conglomerate of 550 of the best audio professionals and associates from around the world, which awards sound technicians for their outstanding contribution in the field of Sound Mixing in Motion Pictures and Television Industry. Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke also won the Re-Recording Mixer award for Slumdog Millionaire, the Danny Boyle film that has been mopping up honours at most award functions since the beginning of the year.

In an interview with Radioandmusic.com last week, Pookutty had said, "The nomination itself is a privilege and the award, an honour given to the Sound Mixers for their career achievement in Motion Pictures. CAS is the big pappa of all awards for a technician. The winner can add CAS... after their names in the film screen credit. The previous achievers include multiple Oscar winners like Ray Dolby, Robert Altman, Jack Solomon, and Walter Murch etc."

The sound technician, who started his career with Rajat Kapoor's lesser-known film Private Detective (1997), has more than 20 films on his filmograph. However, it's the song-less movie Black that drew the industry's attention to Pookutty. Ghajini, Sawaariya, Dus Kahaniyaan, Gandhi My Father, Zinda and Bluffmaster made him a name to look for on a film's credit roll.

The other CAS awards given away were

TELEVISION MOVIES OR MINI-SERIES - John Adams, Episode 1: Join or Die...

Production Mixer - Jay Meagher, CAS

Re-Recording Mixers - Mike Minkler, CAS - Bob Beemer, CAS

TELEVISION SERIES - 24: Redemption...

Production Mixer - William F. Gocke, CAS

Re-Recording Mixers - Michael Olman, CAS - Kenneth Kobett, CAS

TELEVISION NON-FICTION, VARIETY OR MUSICAL—SERIES OR SPECIALS - Deadliest Catch: ...No Mercy...

Re-Recording Mixer - Bob Bronow, CAS

DVD ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING - Smashing Pumpkins- If All Goes Wrong

Live Audio Mixer - Jon Lemon

Re-Recording Mixers - Kerry Brown, Kevin Dippold, rian Slack

The CAS also presented Technical Achievement Awards in two categories:

Production Technologies to Sound Devices 788T Digital Recorder

Post Production Technologies to Cedar DNS 3000 Automated Noise Suppression.