Winter’s Bone, Palm of His Hand and YPOM Digital

Birth of Your Place or Mine Digital

I took an unplanned sabbatical from the Nashville music business for eleven-years starting August 1996 to work as a technical engineering service rep for MagneTek where I remained a faithful employee until September 2007.  I was released by the company, by then sold and re-named under new management to Universal Lighting Technologies.  They moved my position to a previous plant manager at one of ULT’s ballast manufacturing plants in Matamoros, Mexico.  The shakeup occurred as the cost of copper rose and electrical equipment profits fell.  At that time I had to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life so I decided since I no longer had wives, children and grandchildren to look after I would continue pursuing my lifetime dream of a life immersed in music production and music creation.  I’d learned more than I ever wanted to know about corporate American culture and was ready to get back to where I knew I belonged – starving but happy in the music business.

The Back Story

My lifelong involvement and love of music began as a toddler.  I officially started learning about drums at age five – I’ve been told I received my first play drum kit at age three but those memories are a bit more fuzzy.  I consider learning the traditional military drumstick grip from Hay Long High School band director Don Sain in the Summer of 1956 at age five as my first official musical training.  Mr. Sain was literally my first musical mentor to whom I am eternally grateful for paying any attention at all to a snotty nosed five-year-old kid who lived just a half-block from the Hay Long High School band room.  Thanks to my mom my first full drum kit was a three-piece silver sparkle set of Slingerlands at age twelve at which time I started playing around with friends in my home town, Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee – The (former) Phosphate Capital of the World.   My first gig as a drummer was at age twelve when a friend and personal drum hero of mine, Wendell Hedrick, would allow me to accompany him and my drums to his gigs where he would let me sit in for a few songs.   So I guess I really started off being a roadie – and proof continues to show that some things never seem to change.  My first interest in playing string instruments began with a ukulele at eight and moved to acoustic guitar at ten and on to electric guitar by age thirteen.  Singing in elementary school chorus and at church was always part of the deal.  I played baritone in class brass and had some piano lessons while enrolled at Columbia State Community College.  I hacked at the tenor saxophone and the flute while living in Memphis, Tennessee in ’71 and ’72.  I also worked at becoming a percussionist with congas, timbales, Chinese temple blocks and bongos while in Memphis and even went as far as joining the Memphis A.F. of M. but never booked a session or signed a card.  Heck, I didn’t even know what signing a card was back in those days.  I originally moved to Music City Nashville at the ripe old age of nineteen with a friend named Clifton Miller and we worked together as a carpenter’s helpers doing mostly commercial construction cleanup.  We lived at his aunt’s boarding house on West End Avenue and used to enjoy Bishop’s Pub a few doors down and sitting on his aunt’s front porch sipping brews and watching the traffic go by.  Not long after we moved to Cliff’s aunt’s boarding house I got back together with a girlfriend I’d met in Columbia a couple of years earlier who became my first wife.  We moved to Memphis together and married shortly thereafter.  We moved back to Nashville a couple of years later where I landed my first Nashville band gig as a drummer / road warrior.  Needless to say that is when I learned the hard way that road musicians often did not do very well when it came to marriage.

Back To School

I gave up the idea of playing full-time with bands at age twenty-seven and returned to college (for the fifth time).  I graduated from Belmont College (now Belmont University) in Nashville, Tennessee with a bachelor degree in a new program called Music Business in December 1981.    In February 1982 I was hired as the technical engineer for Soundshop Recording Studios by one of my former college instructors, Travis Turk, who had just been promoted to studio manager by everybody’s boss, Buddy Killen.  Before attending Belmont I was a full-time musician playing drums and singing with mostly Top 40 lounge bands at military bases and night clubs across the Southeast.  I thought pursuing higher education in the new Music Business program at Belmont would give me the opportunity to learn about the insides of the music business and help me to make some inroads into the business in Nashville.  I did learn a lot about the business and I did get jobs related to the music business in Nashville.  In the mid-’80s I attended Nashville State Technical Institute and graduated with highest honors with an AET in Electronics.  I’d already chose to take the route of studio tech and attended Nashville Tech to enhance my technical knowledge beyond the hunt and peck circuit repairs I learned at Belmont.  I’d become a tech to open some doorways not realizing at the time that in Nashville once the existing ‘powers-that-be’ have defined you in their minds as a technician most of them did not have the ability to see you as anything else – especially as a creative sort.  Creative and technical just did not mix in the Nashville music production minds back then.  Most of my recording studio peer group at the time did not even know I was a musician.  I did well as a tech – I worked all the time and at lots of different studios.  There were only a small handful of studio techs in Music City back in those days.  By the late 80′s I had worked at installing and fixing recording consoles, automation systems, rack gear and tape recorders in many major and minor recording studios and duplication houses in Nashville and across the Southeast.  In 1988 after I had spent about two years as the Chief of Technical Services at one of the older major mastering labs at that time with a brand new 20Hz Tom Hidley designed mix room that I installed almost single-handedly in Nashville I found myself unemployed and back to doing freelance studio tech work.  One of my tech clients and eventual friends, John E. Denny, realized I was much more than just a tech and hired me to fulfill multiple functions at his studio and publishing company.  I became Denny Music Group’s studio manager, audio engineer, publishing assistant, copyright administrator, database manager and yes, technical engineer.  I was never a full-time employee and remained a freelance worker for the decade I spent wearing all those hats for John.  I also spent a lot of time working in and around Buddy Killen’s music empire – Tree International, The Soundshop, Praise Hymn, The Tape Factory, as well as working for Randy Blevins at Blevins’ Audio Exchange where we kept MCI and all other forms of pro studio gear alive and for sale.  While with Randy I worked installing and maintaining studios all over the Southeast.  Kevin Nimmo set me up with my first tech gig while I was still a student at Belmont with Norbert Putnam at The Bennett House in Franklin, Tennessee.  While working at Soundshop, Masterfonics, The Bennett House and various other Nashville studios I was blessed with getting to watch and learn from a wide variety of music producers and engineers at work including Ernie Winfrey, Travis Turk, Jimmy Bowen, David Foster, Norbert Putnam, Buddy Killen, Eddie Kilroy, Bob Montgomery, Chet Atkins, John Hartford, Don Cook, Tony Brown, Pat McMakin, Mike Bradley, Milan Bogdan, Bil Vorn Dick, Scot Hendrix, Gene Eichelberger, Chuck Ainley and Billy Strange among others.

One More Bump In The Road

On February 12, 1992 my father was murdered by my half-brother for the proceeds of a $1-million life insurance policy he had taken out on dad about six-months earlier and my life became much more confusing and complicated than it already was.  The crime took place on the shores of Lake Jordan in Elmore County, Alabama and I was in Nashville, Tennessee where my friends and peer group never heard any news about what was going on in the state of Alabama.  I think it just seemed like a fairytale to most of them.  I spent a lot of time telling the story of dad’s death to people who I thought might be able to help me get dad’s case re-opened down there after it seemed that the State of Alabama had dropped the idea of prosecuting my half-brother for the murder.  I started getting a feeling that my friends and coworkers were not taking my pleas for help seriously and that they had in fact began to believe that I had lost my mind.  With the pain of non-support and non-belief of my friends and peer group I decided to move away from the music business and apply for a ‘real’ job somewhere in corporate America.  I eventually landed an interview at the Lighting Products Group of a large electrical equipment conglomerate named MagneTek.  Two months after I accepted the position at MagneTek I received a call at work informing me that my half-brother had been arrested and preparations for his capital murder trial had begun.  About a year later I spent two weeks in Alabama where I sat at the Alabama Attorney General’s table through the trial and penalty phase of my half-brother’s murder trial where he was indeed found guilty and sentenced to life without possibility of parole.  Of course during all this commotion within my life I had left the music business and remained hidden in corporate America until the cost of copper made me expendable to the lighting business.  I did continue to play music almost every Wednesday night with my friend and unflinching supporter throughout the dark period and still today, Slim Stephenson.  We even did a live webcast we called ‘Wednesday Night Live from Slim’s Basement’ in 2002 just as high speed Internet was being implemented.  My chops on the drums improved and were better just playing for fun in Slim’s basement for a decade than they ever were when I was actually attempting to make a living playing on the road.  And during this same I picked up the mandolin and struggled with it long enough to finally start feeling comfortable standing in the circle with other pickers.  Learning the mandolin gave me a whole new appreciation of roots, Americana and Bluegrass music which eventually led to formulating the core mission of YPOM Digital.   After a dedicated eleven years in corporate America Universal Lighting Technologies laid me off.  I took my 401k savings and created Your Place of Mine Digital.

Professional Digital Audio Production Anywhere

Your Place or Mine Digital Recording Services was a name that came off the top of my head that I planned to use temporarily when invited to help out with the sound at an annual ’Weenie Roast’ held at the home of one of Slim’s acquaintances.  I had purchased a hard disk based Tascam recording system along with some microphones, stands and audio production software that proved unable to handle what I wanted it to do at that very first YPOM Digital for-free gig.  It ignited my research for a package of gear and software that would allow me to do pro level tracks-to-masters audio production on location in homes or anywhere I had access to power, and to build it on a limited budget.  Through much trial and error I finally came up with a hardware and software combination that allowed me to produce music from tracks and overdubs all the way to masters that could be loaded into and on top of my SUV.  I found it almost unbelievable that in my eleven years away from the studio business that things had just now reached a point where what I dreamed of in 1992 was finally possible to really do in 2007 – just barely, but possible.  I now had all the elements in place to do professional level studio production out of the back of my vehicle.  In the recent past it would take anywhere from two to four brick and mortar studios or fully equipped mobile studios in trailers towed by tractors to do just a decade ago.  Essentially it can all be done now from a laptop computer.  Soon it may all be done from a Smart Phone…

From Nashville to Blue Ridge

Of course I decide to get back into the business at the height of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing / digital music sharing, i.e. piratcy, and after most of my music business connections had forgotten about me in Nashville.  Most of my Nashville connections looked at me as a technical geek anyway since I only stood in the shadows of their operations as the ‘fix-it guy’ back in the 80′s and early 90′s.  I learned most of what I know about studio production techniques standing in those shadows.  You had to understand how it all worked together if you were in charge of installing and repairing the equipment that make recorded music production possible.  I spent the last four months of 2007 and most of 2008 learning how to make my mobile studio package all work together in a professional manner in my big lonely house on California Avenue in Nashville.  When unable to get any steady business going in Nashville (where there’s only hundreds if not thousands of studios) I took my mobile studio to my friend’s farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia where we eventually set it up in his ~205-year old Cherokee Indian built log cabin with the intention of doing an album of his original material with present and past members of his dance band, Bobby Don Bloodworth and the Gopherbroke Band. Bobby Don had formed and been a part of Gopherbroke since his high school days in Atlanta.  I ended up doing a lot of volunteer work helping my friend with his middle school songwriting classes which I hope helped his students with their creative pursuits and gave them some motivation to pursue their creative dreams.

Producing and Publishing the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album

In September 2009 a mutual acquaintance of Bobby Don’s and mine contracted me to produce a debut album for a musical two-piece she had formed that she named ‘Dirt Road Delight.’  Tedi May signed an album production deal with YPOM Digital in September and we started cutting scratch tracks with her friend and musical partner Daniel Lee Parkin in Bobby Don’s Old Indian Cabin at BD’s farm near Blue Ridge, Georgia.  Neither Tedi or Daniel had ever worked in a real brick and mortar studio so I decided we would use the ‘scratch track’ technique to produce their debut album.  Tedi and Daniel had twelve original songs they wanted to record for the project.  One tune was Tedi’s, two they had co-written, they did a cover of one friend’s song (Barry Ross) and the remaining eight songs were written solo by Daniel.  Since I was giving them such a great per song production deal they offered me the publishing for all the songs on the project as an enticement for me to be extra dedicated and to put in whatever amount of time it took to produce a great final product.  It worked – I spent several hundred hours producing their album.  We started off with scratch tracks where they both played live – upright bass, acoustic guitar and vocals – to a click track to be used as a reference to which they would overdub all the parts individually in order to simulate using isolation booths in a traditional studio but all from a set up in a one-room cabin.  Since this was their first experience in a professional recording environment I recorded from three to six layered tracks one full pass at a time which I edited together with timing and pitch corrections as needed when we reached the edit and mix stage.  As we were nearing the end of recording Tedi and Daniel’s parts an old childhood friend of Tedi’s from Branson, Missouri, Billy Ward came to Blue Ridge to overdub fiddle and mandolin parts on the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album.  I’d never met Billy but it was quick to see he was from a traditional linear recording studio background.  We overdubbed his parts by the stop and go technique.  Billy would play as long as he knew he was nailing the part but stop me to roll back and punch him in whenever he missed a lick.  This was the best way to record Billy because his skill with the fiddle and mandolin is on a professional level and that is what he is most comfortable with.  He’s played many different shows in Branson for most of his professional life and has been a working musician since he was a kid.  He is a very talented and tasteful musician and editing his parts together was simply a matter of cleaning up the punch-ins and rolling with the last thing he played.  His additions of fiddle and mandolin to the project took the entire album project to a whole new level.  While working with Billy and Tedi I learned that Billy had auditioned and landed a role with a band that was thrown together by some Ozark Mountains’ local musicians to perform on and off-screen with other Ozark residents in a film being produced not far from Branson by a director named Debra Granik.  Debra was directing a screenplay she co-wrote with one of the film’s producers, Anne Rosellini.  The name of that film is ‘WINTER’S BONE.’

Mixing and Mastering Dirt Road Delight

Once Billy’s overdubs were in the can we were given the opportunity to move my mobile studio control room to the corner of another mutual friend’s Yoga studio near Cherry Log, Georgia – only about thirty miles from Bobby Don’s farm.  Bobby Don had scheduled a brick mason friend of his to rebuild the stone fireplace in the Old Indian Cabin so to give them room to work we moved the mix and master operation to Ken Banwart’s Yoga studio over his detached garage next to his mountain home.  Not long after we began the mixing process Tedi and Daniel had a falling out and Dirt Road Delight dissolved.  This happened after I’d already invested over two-hundred hours into their project and still had about that much more to go.  With my best efforts and even some help from Ken we were unable to get Tedi and Daniel to reconcile and continue the project as a band.  At that point I shredded the publishing contracts for their songs since they still lacked the Notary Public required on the song transfers because I did not want to be caught up in the middle of their inter-band disputes.  After Daniel went home to Cleveland, Tennessee I continued to edit, mix and master at Ken’s Yoga studio for more than a hundred-hours.  I delivered copies of the finished masters to Tedi on October 30 and the last day of October, Halloween, I packed up my studio and moved my whole operation back to my home town, Mount Pleasant, Tennessee.  I’d been away from Mount Pleasant for more than forty-years.

PALM OF HIS HAND

Not long after getting back to Tennessee Tedi contacted me and contracted me to upload the album to Dirt Road Delight’s Bandcamp account.  In December Tedi called me to let me know that Debra Granik had listened to the music on Bandcamp for the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album and wanted to use Daniel’s gospel song, PALM OF HIS HAND, for a scene within her small independent film ‘WINTER’S BONE.’  Tedi insisted that I re-sign the publishing and handle the film and soundtrack album licensing.  I told her I would but only if Daniel came to Mount Pleasant and we legally sign the publishing agreement and song transfers in front of a Notary Public.  I informed Tedi verbally and via an email that she was the owner of the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album Master which essentially made her her-own Independent Record Label and she needed to strike a separate deal with the film production company in the form of a Master License for film usage of her DRD master.  Daniel agreed to the publishing deal, borrowed one of his good friend’s truck since his would not make the trip and came to stay with me in Mount Pleasant for a few days.  While he was here we went to Mount Pleasant City Hall and finalized the agreements in front of a Notary.

Debra Granik on Dirt Road Delight’s cover of Daniel’s Song

What attracted Debra Granik to Daniel Parkin’s song and Dirt Road Delight’s performance for inclusion in a pivotal and highly charged scene within the body of her Oscar® nominated film?  Here is a direct quote from the Winter’s Bone audio commentary by writer/director Debra Granik and cinematographer Michael McDonough.  Debra Granik – “For some of the very charged parts of the film it was hard to pick the music.  You know it when you hear it.  We came across a very beautiful song called Palm Of His Hand, written by Daniel Lee Parkin and performed by Dirt Road Delight.  This infused the scene with a sensibility that worked well the pictures and with Ree’s feelings and memories.  This is the kind of music that built up to making the soundtrack.  We got really taken with it.”  PALM OF HIS HAND was featured for just over a minute playing on the family radio beneath the scene where Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) and her semi-comatose mother Connie are sorting through a box of family photos with Ree’s younger siblings, Sonny and Ashlee, looking on.  This scene takes place near the very end of the film just before the film’s shocking apex where Merab (Dale Dickey) and her sister Alice come to get Ree to take her on the boat ride in the pond where she finally finds her dad.  Daniel’s inspired vocal performance with Dirt Road Delight of his uplifting original gospel song just prior to Ree finding her dad provides a much-needed lift that casts a powerful message of hope delivering a masterful segue between the horrors Ree already endured and the ultimate horror she’s about to experience.  “May the Lord light your way when you step in paths of darkness – may he hold you in the Palm of His Hand…“ – Daniel Lee Parkin, 2009

Indy Feature Film Synchronization License

Not long after Daniel’s visit Tedi May and Billy Ward visited me in Mount Pleasant and we went downtown to legalize the publishing agreements for her song and her two co-writes on the Dirt Road Delight Debut Album.  Once I had Daniel’s finalized publishing agreement in hand I began a brief negotiation period with Winter’s Bone Producer Anne Rosellini.  I originally wanted the contracts to specify ‘film festival only’ usage for the song with a renegotiation in the event the film was picked up for distribution.  Tedi called me late one Tuesday afternoon as I was on the way to a weekly acoustic jam with friends at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tennessee and told me the Winter’s Bone folks were freaking out because I had not signed the agreement they originally sent me.  I told Tedi there were two problems:  1. They had retitled the song from ‘PALM OF HIS HAND’ to ‘IN THE PALM OF HIS HAND,’ and 2.  They did not want to accept my stipulation of ‘film festival only’ usage.  Tedi informed me they had already sent a finished film print including our credits on the end roll to Sundance for the upcoming 2010 Sundance Film Festival and were worried that I would not give them clearance in time – the festival started in just over a week.  After discussing it with Tedi and deciding it was just another little small budget independent film and the best we could possibly hope for was a little exposure from the credits on the end roll I acquiesced to their synchronization contract with the only changes made being the addition of an A.K.A. (Also Known As) statement specifying the original title of the work and the re-named for the film and soundtrack title of the work.  I figured it was probably just another of thousands of independent films that would just go as far as the festival circuit anyway so I agreed to their terms and licensed the song for next to nothing.  Winter’s Bone Productions actually paid us at the high-end of the then current going rates for indy films for a featured background vocal performance.  Who knew what a phenomenon the film would turn out to be - winning multiple awards Internationally at many film festivals, seven Spirit® Award Nominations with two winners and four major category Oscar® Nominations?  So without the benefit of future-vision and keeping with my efforts to make everybody happy and be a good guy about the whole deal I went ahead and agreed to the film maker’s terms with just the minor yet critical song title corrections printed on the agreement.  The film industry buzz surrounding the film began the night of the first screening of the film at Sundance.  Roadside Attractions jumped right in and signed a distribution deal for the film almost immediately before the festival Grand Jury had their chance to decide the fates of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival entrants.  ‘WINTER’S BONE’ instantly became the hot ticket at Sundance and on January 23, 2010 was awarded the highest honor at the festival – THE 2010 SUNDANCE GRAND JURY PRIZE FOR U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION A.K.A. BEST FILM.  In addition to the GRAND JURY PRIZE FOR DRAMA Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini were jointly awarded the WALDO SALT SCREENWRITING AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY.  Debra and Anne penned the screenplay from Ozark resident and author Daniel Woodrell’s novel of the same name, ‘WINTER’S BONE.’

Award Recognitions for ‘WINTER’S BONE’

ACADEMY AWARDS

Best Picture – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

GOLDEN GLOBES

Best Actress, Drama – nominee

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

SPIRIT AWARDS

Best Feature – nominee

Best Director – nominee

Best Screenplay – nominee

Best Female Lead – nominee

Best Supporting Female – WINNER

Best Supporting Male – WINNER

Best Cinematography – nominee

GOTHAM AWARDS

Best Feature – WINNER

Best Ensemble Performance – WINNER

Breakthrough Actor – nominee

Audience Award – nominee

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

Breakthrough Performance – WINNER

BFCA CRITICS’ CHOICE MOVIE AWARDS

Best Picture – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Best Young Actor – nominee

NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

Best Picture – 2nd runner-up

HUMANITAS Prize

Sundance Feature Category

SATELLITE AWARDS

Best Motion Picture, Drama – nominee

Best Director – nominee

Best Actress, Drama – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

HOLLYWOOD FILM FESTIVAL

New Hollywood Award – Jennifer Lawrence

PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Rising Star Award – Jennifer Lawrence

LOS ANGELES FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Best Actress – runner-up

VILLAGE VOICE CRITICS POLL

Best Actress – WINNER

Best Supporting Actor – WINNER

Best Supporting Actress – runner-up

INDIEWIRE CRITICS POLL

Best Supporting Performance – WINNER

ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

Best Picture – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Best Film – nominee

Best Director – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Ensemble – nominee

Best Cinematography – nominee

Best Woman Director – nominee

Best Woman Screenwriter – nominee

Best Breakthrough Performance – nominee

Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry – nominee

Unforgettable Moment Award – nominee

THE WOMEN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

Best Movie By a Woman – WINNER

Best Young Actress – WINNER

Adrienne Shelly Award: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women – WINNER

USC LIBRARIES SCRIPTER AWARD

Best book-to-film adaptation – nominee

WASHINGTON, D.C. AREA FILM CRITICS

Best Actress – WINNER

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

TORONTO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Best Actress – WINNER

SAN FRANCISCO FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

Best Supporting Actor – WINNER

CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Most Promising Performer – WINNER

Best Picture – nominee

Best Director – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

DETROIT FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

Best Actress – WINNER

Best Ensemble – WINNER

Breakthrough Performance – WINNER

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Film – nominee

Best Director – nominee

LONDON CRITICS CIRCLE

Best Actress – nominee

HOUSTON AREA FILM CRITICS

Best Picture – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Screenplay – nominee

INDIANA FILM JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION

Best Film – nominee

Best Director – runner-up

Best Actress – runner-up

Best Supporting Actor – runner-up

ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Best Actress – runner-up

Best Adapted Screenplay – runner-up

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Arthouse Film – nominee

SOUTHEASTERN FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Gene Wyatt Award for Best Southern Film – WINNER

Best Actress – runner-up

Best Ensemble – runner-up

Best Adapted Screenplay – runner-up

PHOENIX FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

Breakthrough Behind the Camera – WINNER

Best Picture – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Breakthrough on Camera – nominee

SAN DIEGO FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

Best Film – WINNER

Best Actress – WINNER

Best Supporting Actor – WINNER

Best Supporting Actress – nominee

Best Director – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Best Ensemble Performance – nominee

DALLAS/FT. WORTH FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Best Actress – runner-up

Russell Smith Award for Best Independent Film – WINNER

LAS VEGAS FILM CRITICS SOCIETY

Best Actress – nominee

Youth In Film – nominee

UTAH FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Best Screenplay – nominee

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

Breakout Award – WINNER

DUBLIN FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

Best Actress – WINNER

Breakthrough Award – WINNER

CENTRAL OHIO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Breakthrough Film Artist (Jennifer Lawrence) – runner-up

Best Actress – runner-up

Best Film – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

Best Adapted Screenplay – nominee

Breakthrough Film Director (Debra Granik) – nominee

VANCOUVER FILM CRITICS CIRCLE

Best Actress – nominee

Best Supporting Actor – nominee

BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS

Best Foreign Film – nominee

LONDON EVENING STANDARD AWARDS

Technical Achievement Award (Dickon Hinchliffe) – nominee

A List of Top 10 Lists on which the film appears:

New York Magazine (David Edelstein) – #1

Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)

Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)

Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey)

The New York Times (Jeannette Catsoulis)

The Wall Street Journal (Joe Morgenstern)

The New Yorker (David Denby)

The New Yorker (Anthony Lane)

Entertainment Weekly (Lisa Schwarzbaum)

San Francisco Chronicle (Amy Biancolli) – #1

Associated Press (David Germain) – #1

Associated Press (Christy Lemire)

Sight & Sound

National Board of Review

AFI

Film Comment

Rolling Stone (Peter Travers)

The Village Voice (FX Feeney)

The Village Voice (Dan Kois)

Time Out New York (David Fear) – #1

Newsweek (David Ansen)

Newsweek (Seth Colter Walls)

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Stephen Rea)

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Carrie Rickey)

San Francisco Chronicle (Peter Hartlaub)

The Christian Science Monitor (Peter Rainer)

Time Out New York (Joshua Rothkopf)

Cleveland Plain Dealer (Clint O’Connor) – #1

NPR (Ella Taylor)

Variety (Boyd van Hoeij)

San Francisco Bay Guardian (Cheryl Eddy)

The Kansas City Star (Robert W. Butler) – #1

Time Out Chicago (Ben Kenigsberg)

A.V. Club – #1

Thompson on Hollywood (Anne Thompson) – #1

A.V. Club (Keith Phipps) – #1

Chicago Reader (J.R. Jones)

Movie City News (David Poland)

The Observer (Philip French)

indieWIRE (Eric Kohn)

indieWIRE Critics Poll

Village Voice Critics Poll

MSN Movies (Sean Axmaker)

MSN Movies (Jim Emerson)

MSN Movies (Richard T. Jameson)

MSN Movies (Don Kaye)

MSN Movies (Dave McCoy)

MSN Movies (Kat Murphy)

MSN Movies (James Rocchi)

MSN Movies (Glenn Whipp)

A.V. Club (Noel Murray)

A.V. Club (Tasha Robinson)

A.V. Club (Scott Tobias)

A.V. Club (Nathan Rabin)

The Arizona Republic (Bill Goodykoontz)

Slant Magazine (Ed Gonzalez)

Slant Magazine (Nick Schager)

IFC.com (Alison Willmore)

IFC.com (Matt Singer)

The Tufts Daily

Southeastern Film Critics Association

Oklahoma Film Critics Circle

Austin Film Critics Society

Light Sensitive (Patrick Z. McGavin)

GreenCine Daily (Aaron Hillis)

Fox 4 News (Shawn Edwards)

Las Vegas Film Critics Society

Dallas/Ft. Worth Film Critics Association

Movie City Indie (Ray Pride)

Tikkun (David Sterritt)

CNN.com (Tom Charity)

Creative Loafing (Matt Brunson)

eddieonfilm (Edward Copeland) – #1

Anthony Kaufman

World Socialist Web Site (David Walsh)

Mike D’Angelo

Sarasota Film Festival (Tom Hall)

The Herald (Robert Horton)

The Star-Ledger (Stephen Whitty)

Pullquote (Amy Monaghan)

Film Comment (Laura Kern)

Sydney Film Critics

Encore Magazine (Miguel Gonzalez)

Sunday Telegraph (Nick Dent)

Drum Media (Ian Barr)

Trespass Magazine (Beth Wilson) – #1

DVD Bits (Richard Gray)

Pick of the Flicks (Giles Hardie)

Drum Media (Scott Henderson)

CinemBlend (Katey Rich)

Movie City News (Kim Voynar)

Badass Digest (Devin Faraci)

Marshall Fine

Beaver County Times (Lou Gaul)

About.com (Rebecca Murray)

D Magazine (Peter Simek) – #1

BBC’s Talking Movies (Tom Brook)

Sound on Sight

Dragon Paradox (Kevin Williamson)

Dragon Paradox (Liz Braun)

Dragon Paradox (Jim Slotek) – #1

Seattle Weekly (Sheila Benson)

New York Magazine (Bilge Ebiri)

Lance Goldenberg

Larry Gross

Cinema Scope (Michael Sicinski)

Critic’s Notebook (Martin Tsai)

For Those About to Rock (Nick DeCicco)

San Antonio Current (Steven G. Kellman)

San Antonio Current (Ashley Lindstrom)

San Antonio Current (Kiko Martinez)

The Loft Cinema

St. Petersburg Times (Steve Persall)

Orlando Sentinel (Roger Moore)

The Miami Herald (Rick Bentley)

The Bowling Green Daily News (Michael Compton) – #1

The Dallas Morning News (Chris Vognar)

St. Louis Beacon (Harper Barnes) – #1

The Allentown Morning Call (Amy Longsdorf) – #1

Austin American-Statesman (Charles Ealy)

Baltimore Sun (Michael Sragow)

Chicago Reader (Andrea Grunvall)

Empire

Parallax View (David Coursen)

Parallax View (Andrew Wright)

Gli Ultracorpi (Mariella Lazzarin)

Gli Ultracorpi (Andrea Mattacheo)

Gli Ultracorpi (Chiara Pandolfo)

International Business Times

Entertainment.ie (Mike Sheridan)

Living in Cinema (Craig Kennedy)

Minneapolis Star Tribune (Colin Covert)

St. Paul Pioneer Press (Chris Hewitt)

Dublin Film Critics Circle

Surrey Now (Julie Crawford) – #1

Gapers Block (Steve Prokopy)

Tallahassee Democrat (Mark Hinson)

The Wrap (Steve Pond)

Remorse Code

Random Ramblings

City Brights (Dean Rader)

The Seattle Times (Moira Macdonald)

Denton Record-Chronicle (Todd Jorgenson) – #1

Denton Record-Chronicle (Boo Allen) – #1

River Cities’ Reader (Mike Schulz)

Box Office Magazine (Mark Keizer)

Box Office Magazine (John P. McCarthy)

Toronto Globe & Mail

New Orleans Times-Picayune (Mike Scott)

The Portland Oregonian (Stan Hall)

The Portland Oregonian (Shawn Levy)

The Portland Oregonian (Marc Mohan)

USA Today (Claudia Puig)

New Haven Advocate (Donald Brown) – #1

The Province (Glen Schaefer) – #1

Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)

Austin Chronicle (Kimberley Jones)

Austin Chronicle (Marc Savlov)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Joe Williams)