Iwao Ōtani

{{Short description|Japanese recording engineer}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Iwao Ōtani

|birth_date = 1919

|death_date = {{Death date and age|2017|08|03|1919|mf=yes}}

|occupation = Recording engineer

|alma mater =

|awards = Mainichi Film Award for Best Sound Recording

}}

{{Nihongo|Iwao Ōtani|大谷 巌|Ōtani Iwao|1919 – August 3, 2017|lead=yes}} was a Japanese recording engineer who worked with influential film directors Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Ōtani worked on Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon in Kyoto. Due to setbacks and some lost audio, the crew took the urgent step of bringing actor Toshiro Mifune back to the studio after filming to record another line, which Ōtani added to the film along with the music, using a different microphone.Teruyo Nogami, Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa, Stone Bridge Press, Inc., 1 September 2006, p. 90, {{ISBN|1933330090}}.

He won the Mainichi Film Award for Best Sound Recording for the 1953 film Ugetsu.{{Cite web|url=http://mainichi.jp/enta/cinema/mfa/etc/history/8.html |title=8th (1953) |last= |first= |date= |accessdate=13 December 2016 |publisher=Mainichi Film Awards}} In 2000, he worked on the sound for Kon Ichikawa's film Dora-heita.Stuart Galbraith IV, The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography, Scarecrow Press, 16 May 2008, p. 415, {{ISBN|1461673747}}

Ōtani died of cerebral infarction on August 3, 2017.{{cite web|url=http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASK9Y2TVXK9YUCLV006.html|script-title=ja:黒澤明監督の「羅生門」で録音担当、大谷巌さん死去|date=2017-09-27|accessdate=2017-10-16|publisher=Asahi Shimbun|language=Japanese|archive-date=2017-10-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019142246/http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASK9Y2TVXK9YUCLV006.html|url-status=dead}}