Production team
The key creative personnel of the 'Cold Mountain' production team, assembled during June and July 2001, reunited most of Minghella's Academy Award-winning 'The English Patient' and 'The Talented Mr Ripley' core team, valued for their proven professionalism and ready familiarity with Minghella's working methods.
Editor
As Editor, three time Academy winner and eight time nominee, Walter Murch was already distinguished for mixing sound on 'American Graffiti' (1973) and 'The Godfather, Pt.2' (1974), his sound mixing and film editing work on 'The Conversation' (1974) earning a double BAFTA plus an Academy Award nomination, his first Oscar being for sound mixing on 'Apocalypse Now' (1979), and an unprecedented double Oscar glory awarded for sound mixing and film editing on 'The English Patient' (1996). Indeed, this was the first time the Academy had awarded any Oscar for digital editing. Having also edited 'The Talented Mr Ripley,' 'Cold Mountain' was to be Murch's third production for Minghella.
Director of photography
Distinguished Australian cinematographer, John Seale, was engaged as Director of Photography. Seale had collected an Oscar for Minghella's 'The English Patient', the Academy having previously nominated him for Best Cinematography Award for Peter Weir's 'Witness' (1985). Among Seale's other notable work had been 'Dead Poets Society' (1989), 'The Doctor' (1991), 'Lorenzo's Oil' (1992), 'The Firm' (1993), 'The American President' (1995), 'The Talented Mr Ripley' (1999), 'The Perfect Storm' (2000) and 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (2001).
Costume designer
Veteran costume designer Ann Roth provided Minghella with historical and social accuracy of costuming. Among many celebrated period dramas was her BAFTA award-winning work on 'The Day of the Locust' (1975), and her Oscar-nominated efforts in Robert Benton's 'Places in the Heart' (1984). Dressing Minghella's 'The English Patient' won Roth her first Oscar and for 'The Talented Mr Ripley' her 1940s wardrobe earned another nomination. Her insistence on 'Cold Mountain' actors wearing even correct period underwear would help convincingly to define character, personality, class and occupation. Wearing real corsets and traditional boots, insists Roth, prompted the actors to walk properly.
Composer
Minghella also engaged the accomplished composer Gabriel Yared, a self-taught musician, who had scored over forty movies working for such celebrated directors as Jean-Jacques Annaud, Martin Brest, Federico Fellini, Neil Jordan, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Martin Scorsese and Franco Zeffirelli. Yared already had an Oscar for his elegant score in Minghella's 'The English Patient' and had also been nominated for a BAFTA and received a Best music/Best Score Academy nomination for his work on 'The Talented Mr Ripley'.
Production designer
New to Minghella's team was the five times Academy Award nominated production designer, Dante Ferretti ('Gangs of New York' 2002), one of the world's best production designers. Minghella is quick to recount the well-known response of the director once asked to identify the most valuable resource for successful film-making. The director insisted that 50% of any movie's success depended on having a good screenplay and 50% on employing the right cast. Of course, another 50% is finding the right film locations and 50% having a good musical score. And 50% depended on using a good cinematographer, etc!
