TORONTO - Vancouver sound designer Craig Berkey is feeling no pressure ahead of Sunday's Academy Awards, where he'll be up for two trophies for his work on the Coen brothers' American Western "True Grit."

After all, he's been through this before (he was also up for an Oscar for his work on 2007's "No Country for Old Men"), and he knows that nominees in his category can let loose at the bash, unlike the big stars who are under the microscope.

"All the sound categories are seated together, just up from the people who are on camera all the time, so we have a lot of fun," Berkey, 48, said in a recent phone interview from his Vancouver home.

"We can leave any time we want and they have seat fillers there so if you want to go back and have a drink, you can do that. There's a lot less pressure on us, really. You walk down the red carpet and nobody's wanting to interview you and no one's taking your picture so you can look around, you can do whatever you want to do. It's fun. I think for some of the other people it's hard work."

Berkey, who is also a re-recording mixer, is nominated in two categories: sound editing and sound mixing on "True Grit," about a tough U.S. marshal (Jeff Bridges) who helps a headstrong young girl (Hailee Steinfeld) track down her father's killer. Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper co-star in the adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel.

Skip Lievsay is Berkey's co-nominee in the sound editing category, which also includes the films "Inception," "Toy Story 3," "Tron: Legacy" and "Unstoppable."

In the category of sound mixing, Berkey is co-nominated with Lievsay, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland. Other films up for the same award include "Inception," "The King's Speech," "Salt" and "The Social Network."

Berkey, a Burnaby, B.C. native, says he and his co-nominees in the sound mixing category have yet to decide which one of them will speak onstage should they win.

If he and Lievsay land the golden statuette for sound editing, he'll let his colleague do the talking.

"Skip has worked on every single Coen brothers movie, from their very beginnings till now, and he's the one that invited me to start working with them a few years ago," he said.

That movie was the Coens' drama "No Country for Old Men," for which Berkey, Lievsay, Orloff and Kurland were up for an Oscar for best achievement in sound (Lievsay was also nominated for best sound editing for the film that won four Academy Awards, including best picture).

Berkey has since worked with the Coens on "Burn After Reading," "A Serious Man" and, of course, "True Grit," and he plans to be a part of their next film as well.

"You kind of feel like part of a family with them," said Berkey, who has done sound for several TV series about 75 films.

"They treat everybody really fairly. At the end of our mix we have what's called the 'meet dinner' and we go to a really nice restaurant in L.A. somewhere and they say, 'Order whatever you want' and our crew has a wonderful meal that they pay for. So they're really decent people and great to work for."

Berkey, who is also a musician, does most of his sound editing and mixing from home, where he lives with his wife, Catherine Winder (president and executive producer of Vancouver animation studio Rainmaker Entertainment) and their two kids (a 12-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter).

He got into the field over 20 years ago after he quit his job as a telecommuncations programmer to go back to school and learn recording engineering.

During his first job out of school, the studio he worked for was hired to do post-production on a TV show.

"I said, 'What is that?"' Berkey recalled. "I was all about music at that time, playing and listening to music, and I didn't really focus on movies. Even growing up I really didn't see a lot of movies."

Now, of course, he's a film buff, but mostly because he's always looking for sound inspiration.

Berkey even takes an audio recorder with him when he's travelling with his family in case he hears an interesting sound he wants to add to his audio library.

"We end up banging things on whatever surfaces and my kids, we'll be walking around in some city somewhere and they'll go, 'Oh dad, listen to this sound, you've got to record this!"' he said.

"When I go places I tend to now record the sound of a place instead of taking a picture and then I can play that back. It's amazing how you can put yourself in that place by listening to the sound of it."

Berkey, who is now working on the upcoming film "X-Men: First Class," plans to fly to L.A. with Winder on Friday.

He says his red-carpet attire will be a tuxedo that he bought three years for his first Oscars bash. Winder plans to wear a new dress from Vancouver designer Catherine Regehr.

The star he's most excited to talk to at the show is Bridges, whom he's never before.

"It's funny, you work on certain movies and you're putting in sounds ... and sometimes you never meet these people. ... When you tell them these things, they have no idea, right, and they say, 'Oh my gosh, oh, that sounded fantastic. How did you do that?"'