Oscar Talk

Are the Oscars A) about the television presentation of the ceremony or B) about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences view of the event, or C) neither?
Everybody has an angle when they prognosticate about the awards ceremony, which is voted on by 5810 voting members of the Academy. Aren’t we just donut dunkers in the coffee of another organization’s ideals?
I want to answer many questions you may have about the Oscars. Why are there only three songs nommed? Why wasn’t Sally Hawkins nominated? Why was Brad Pitt nominated? Why aren’t the Oscars the people choice awards? Why does the televised version have to be so long?
Have you ever heard anybody complain when a concert goes on, encore after encore for four hours? Have you ever seen people feel gypped when a sports event goes into extra innings or sudden death?
Yet the general consensus is that the Oscars should be some kind of short, sweet show that is over before it begins. Personally I like the down moments, the boring parts that allow the viewer time to consume massive amounts of libations, as well as the before and after coverage that adds two to three hours to the spectacle. Do you realize that a single stylist employed by the studios to assist a nominee makes as much as 10K a day?
Part of the allure of watching the show is for it to be fresh but for the last few years in particular and over the last generation in general so much emphasis has been placed on second guessing the winners or revealing aspects of the ceremony. Only last week Peter Gabriel sent a letter to the Academy stating he was withdrawing as a performer because his song “Down to Earth” from WALL-E (co-written by Gabriel with Thomas Newman) was to be part of a three-minute medley with the other two songs nominated for Best Song. That’s certainly more than I needed to know but it doesn’t really affect my desire to watch.
It’s an indication that the producers of this year’s show (producer Laurence Mark and executive producer Bill Condon, the pair previously worked on Dreamgirls, and Condon helmed Kinsey and Gods and Monsters) want to make changes to show how hip the program is, but were the Academy Awards ever hip? Certainly as a cultural barometer the AA charts the mindset of any given year, yet each and every year contains films that are bona fide classics that are overlooked by Oscar. By the way if you win an Oscar you sign a release that states that you won’t resell said award without first offering the statue back to the Academy for $1.
Most categories are filled with nominees chosen by the various members from those specific branches (for instance the art directors branch chooses the nominees for Best Art Direction). Of specific interest are the awards for Animation, Documentary, Foreign film and Short films because these categories have rules that differ from the other categories. Committees are formed for each of those categories and the members who join the committees have to watch the choices theatrically. In the case of Animated Film if there are 16 or more animated films to choose from there will be five nominees otherwise there are three. Even though all nominees are chosen by committee or by members of the various branches the final voting, with the exception of the previously mentioned categories, is open to all active and life Academy members.
For Best Song the Academy music branch members will screen clips of the songs in contention and vote on a scale of 6 to 10 with half-steps (like 8.5). Only songs that score 8.5 or higher will continue to the nomination level and no more than five or less than three are then chosen.
Best short subject live action or short subject animated films can qualify by playing for three days in a theater in L.A. or win a best-of category at a film festival specified by the Academy. There are literally hundreds of film festivals in the world yet the Academy has a list of less than 60 that will qualify a short film for this category. Interestingly the Austin Film Festival has been on that list for a while and this year the SXSW Film Festival also joins that list.




For a look at each Oscar category use this link:
http://www.oscar.com/nominees/?pn=nominees