ABC freshman series American Crime picked up an impressive 10 Emmy nominations in its first year. The series is a racially charged drama, set in Modesto, Calif. that explores a brutal small-town murder from the point of view of the victims, the accused and their families, and how their lives are forever changed by the legal process.
Led by showrunner John Ridley, who won an Oscar last year for best adapted screenplay for his work on 12 Years a Slave and is nominated for the Emmy for outstanding writing for a limited series, movie or a dramatic special, American Crime has picked up above-the-line Emmy nominations for outstanding limited series – where it is in competition with FX Network’s American Horror Story: Freak Show, SundanceTV’s The Honorable Woman, HBO’s Olive Kitteridge and PBS’s Wolf Hall – as well as nominations in all four key acting categories for limited series or movies – outstanding lead actor (Timothy Hutton), lead actress (Felicity Huffman), supporting actor (Richard Cabral) and supporting actress (Regina King).
The “Limited Series” category is new this year, replacing the old “Mini-Series” category with strict new rules about being a self-contained story with characters that do not return for another cycle. This basically eliminates the incumbent advantage of series that tend to scoop up awards year after year.
In the below-the-line, or “Creative Arts” categories, American Crime’s casting director Kim Coleman, who has served as casting director for most of Spike Lee‘s films since 2004 and won an Artios award from The Casting Society of American in 2015 for Dear White People, shares the nomination with Beth Sepko Lindsay, CSA, who has previously been nominated for four casting Emmys and won one in 2007 for her work on Friday Night Lights. Their competition is Robert J. Ulrich, Eric Dawson and Meagan Lewis for American Horror Story: Freak Show; Billy Hopkins and Jackie Burch for HBO’s Bessie; Laura Rosenthal and Carolyn Pickman for Olive Kitteridge, and Nina Gold and Robert Sterne for Wolf Hall.
American Crime editor Luyen Vu, picked up a nomination for outstanding single-camera picture editing for a limited series or a movie, where he is up against editors Sabrina Plisco and David Beatty for HISTORY’s Houdini; Jeffrey Werner for Olive Kitteridge; Scott Powell for FOX’s 24: Live Another Day, and David Blackmore for Wolf Hall.
In addition, the series picked up nominations for both sound categories – outstanding sound editing and sound mixing for a limited series, movie or a special.
In the sound editing category, supervising sound editor Walter Newman, a five-time Emmy award winner and 18-time nominee, led a team that included sound editors Kenneth Young, Darleen Stoker and Pete Reynolds; music editor Louie Schultz, and Foley artists Catherine Harper and Gregg Barbanell.
They are up against sound editing teams from American Horror Story: Freak Show, Houdini, Texas Rising, and 24: Live Another Day.
Production mixer Ben Lowry and re-recording mixers Rick Norman and Ryan Davis were nominated for the Emmy for outstanding sound mixing for a limited series or a movie for American Crime. They are competing against mixing teams from American Horror Story: Freak Show, Bessie, Houdini and Texas Rising.
