Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

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OscarGuy
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by OscarGuy »

One thing I noted from the first article I read about these changes is that they weren't sure they would be able to have it implemented for this year's awards. That, to me, was code for "We aren't 100% sold on this idea, Dawn Hudson and ABC, but we'll see what people think first before doing anything."

If they added Animated Feature to bring in younger audiences and they expanded Best Picture to ten to get more popular films in, why do they think this will draw more people? Modern audiences just don't think the Academy Awards are worth watching anymore. They can get plenty of their favorite celebrities by paying attention to social media. The remaining audiences are generally devoted fans. If a hugely popular horror film like Get Out couldn't goose the Academy's ratings, nothing will.

And let's be honest, the expansion of the Best Picture slate HAS benefited popular films almost as much as it's benefited smaller films that have gotten a better shot at the Oscars because of that expansion. I just look at this list of box office hits that wouldn't have made the narrower 5 slate and consider the end result a fairly big success: Get Out, Arrival, The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, American Sniper, Captain Phillips, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Moneyball, Inception, Toy Story 3, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and Up. All are genuinely terrific films (caveat: I haven't seen Sniper, Capt. Phillips, and Moneyball so I cannot say for sure any of those are really that good) and their inclusion feels natural rather than forced. So, I think the Best Picture expansion was a success.

I also think that with the much broader approach to membership, although I disagree with the reasoning that started the diversity push and the jettisoning of longtime members rather than just admitting new ones, has had and will likely continue to have a positive impact on nominations. There is more diversity this year and with both BlacKkKlansman and Black Panther making runs for Best Picture, Separate But Equal seems like, as Sabin put it, the worst possible idea to get Black Panther jettisoned from the Best Picture race. While BlacKkKlansman will probably still figure, having only one film about the black experience in the Best Picture race against a sea of other white contenders sounds almost exactly like the kind of headline the Academy doesn't want.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Mister Tee »

I can't remember a more universally scorned roll-out since New Coke in the 80s. Look it up; it was a complete fiasco. I guess the Edsel was viewed the same (that one was before my time), since it still endures in the popular lexicon as the definition of commercial catastrophe.

I think this is seen by so many as so absurd that it might well be reversed.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by anonymous1980 »

Sabin wrote:It's pretty fucked up that Black Panther's Oscar chances have become the definition of separate but equal.
I think these changes will be applied to the 2020 Oscars.

BTW, as for the "Popular Film" category, one compromise I can see them possibly doing is an "Audience Award". The BAFTA's and some film festivals do have an award voted on by the audience so there's some precedent for this. After the nominations are announced, they could open up an online ballot for the public to vote on the Best Movie of the Year. The award will be presented in the ceremony and the prize will NOT be an Oscar statuette but either a plaque or a certificate or a novelty chocolate Oscar or something and someone from the film who will most likely already be there as a presenter can accept it. Done. Win-win.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Sabin »

It's pretty fucked up that Black Panther's Oscar chances have become the definition of separate but equal.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by The Original BJ »

A few more thoughts, after reading some takes:

The best response to this, bar none, is Rob Lowe's, who tweeted: "Seriously, this “best pop movie” category is the worst idea the Academy has had since they asked me to sing with Snow White."

But plenty of high-profile Academy members have also publicly scoffed at these changes, in a way they didn't with the expanded Best Picture field. Which makes sense -- "more nominations for us!" is quite a different scenario than "you might win the separate but equal prize!" or "your award will be presented during the commercials!"

A few stunt coordinator friends on social media pointed out that they've been trying for years to get an award category for their work, often in the kinds of films that would conceivably fill the "Best Popular Film" slot, and recognizing them could have been a more organic way to get more prizes for those kind of films in a way that actually celebrated another specific area of film craft. (Of course, with the other rule change, what would be the point of adding more below-the-line prizes, to be awarded off-screen?)

It's also clear the Academy just really didn't think through this whole idea of "Best Popular Film." I'm not suggesting I would have LIKED the Academy to become more like the Globes or the (barf) Broadcasters, but if they'd introduced, say, Best Comedy or Best Action Movie as categories, they could have gotten some more populist films in without totally abandoning the idea of the category as a measure of aesthetic value. (Which is to say, a Best Comedy category could have made major Oscar nominees of BOTH The Hangover and 500 Days of Summer.) But the Popular Film moniker suggests that an eligibility factor will be how much money the movie has earned, which seems totally crass, for starters -- haven't the biggest box-office hits received enough reward that they shouldn't need their OWN Oscar category to the exclusion of all other films?

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of the films which might contend in a category where $ (rather than, say, genre) was the qualifying factor are already "Oscar-type movies" -- Dunkirk, Get Out, La La Land, Hidden Figures, The Martian, American Sniper, Gravity, The Wolf of Wall Street, Captain Phillips, Les Misérables, etc. If your goal is to get more recognition for franchise movies -- which, let's face it, that's what this is about -- it's easy to imagine almost all the winners and a good chunk of the nominees ALWAYS being prestige pictures anyway.

And how would you even determine what counted as a "popular" film with the Academy's schedule? Hidden Figures, for instance, opened at the tail end of December -- by the time Oscar ballots were due, it wasn't really a blockbuster YET. Would that qualify? Even going a couple decades back, a huge phenomenon like Titanic -- which didn't open like a blockbuster, but which had enormous staying power -- could easily have been deemed not financially successful enough to qualify based on end of the year grosses, but how could you omit such a film from any category recognizing box-office smashes?

Anyway, Kris Tapley seems to think this all was sort of a trial balloon that's destined to be reversed, given the almost immediate uproar from folks in the industry/Academy. So we'll see if the backlash is strong enough to cause the board of governors to rethink any of this.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by anonymous1980 »

Big Magilla wrote: It was some time after that that winners started thanking everyone they ever met in their lives.
David Lean's and Rita Moreno's speeches were quite brief, for example.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Big Magilla »

Okri wrote:Are speeches actually longer now? I'd need to fact check that.
Many of them are on You Tube. With the exception of Greer Garson's legendary 5 1/2 minute radio speech in 1943 long erroneously reported as taking "over and hour" there were no long speeches in the days before and during the era from 1947-1966 when the black-and-white and color categories co-existed. It was some time after that that winners started thanking everyone they ever met in their lives.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Okri »

Popular movie: Super dumb and pandering and insulting.

Moving the show earlier: I don't dislike it, though it won't have the effect I want (release the fucking movies earlier, people. I still want to punch SPC in the head for how they handled Another Year)

Shunting awards aside: I won't watch the show. I don't need to watch the show enough to deal with that bullshit.

re: speeches

Are speeches actually longer now? I'd need to fact check that.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:By the way: the idea that the only way to cut the show to three hours is to cut out "minor" awards is bullshit. Those of us who've been around long enough -- meaning Magilla and I -- know that, back in the 60s, there were about the same number of awards (no make-up or animated feature, but black-and-white slates in costumes, art direction and cinematography), but the show was scheduled to run two hours...though it usually ran over to about a 2 1/2 hour length. What made it longer was the expansion of commercial time within each hour (from probably less than ten to almost twenty minutes) and a decision to extend the length to 3 hours to create more of that valuable/saleable time. It's greed, and the tech people are supposed to pay for it.
Yes, but the acceptance speeches were much shorter, often just a humble thank-you from the stars as well as the craft people. If only they could control the modern urge to ramble, they wouldn't have to cut anything.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Big Magilla »

Eenusch wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:I think what they want to eliminate with the below-the-line Oscars is the dead air while the winners from the back of the auditorium walk to the stage.
Didn't they attempt to fix this in the early aughts with the presenter in the audience and the winners accepting from their seats? Did it last beyond the one year?


I think it did last just the one year.
Eenusch wrote:And, why is it that Dawn Hudson seems to be behind all these bullshit revisions. Can't the Board fire her ass?
Only for cause, not disagreement, but there's no reason they have to go along with everythign she suggests.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Eenusch »

Big Magilla wrote:I think what they want to eliminate with the below-the-line Oscars is the dead air while the winners from the back of the auditorium walk to the stage.
Didn't they attempt to fix this in the early aughts with the presenter in the audience and the winners accepting from their seats? Did it last beyond the one year?

And, why is it that Dawn Hudson seems to be behind all these bullshit revisions. Can't the Board fire her ass?
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Eenusch »

Mister Tee wrote:What made it longer was the expansion of commercial time within each hour (from probably less than ten to almost twenty minutes) and a decision to extend the length to 3 hours to create more of that valuable/saleable time. It's greed, and the tech people are supposed to pay for it.
Right on! Also, much shorter acceptance speeches back in the day. Most of the craft winners didn't even say a word - just picked up the Oscar and walked off.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Mister Tee »

By the way: the idea that the only way to cut the show to three hours is to cut out "minor" awards is bullshit. Those of us who've been around long enough -- meaning Magilla and I -- know that, back in the 60s, there were about the same number of awards (no make-up or animated feature, but black-and-white slates in costumes, art direction and cinematography), but the show was scheduled to run two hours...though it usually ran over to about a 2 1/2 hour length. What made it longer was the expansion of commercial time within each hour (from probably less than ten to almost twenty minutes) and a decision to extend the length to 3 hours to create more of that valuable/saleable time. It's greed, and the tech people are supposed to pay for it.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:And moving it up to early February? Good god: there'll be no time to see the foreign/documentary nominees. And the precursor season, which already feels like fraternity rush, will be crammed into an even tighter window.
Is there time now?
Even last year, I only watched Faces Places, The Breadwinner and Strong Island in the 72 hours before the show. Never did get to Last Man in Aleppo. And I'm pretty sure I saw at least 2-3 of the foreigns in the 10 days prior.

A possibly encouraging sign: all of these changes are getting fiercely negative reaction from Oscar pundits and bloggers, including the ones who most often advocate for more populist policies (like nominating comic book movies). And the tone in many of the pieces is viciously mocking. There may be WAY more pushback on this than the Board of Governors expected. I wouldn't be surprised if, among other things, some of the tech branches threatened a boycott if they're pushed off air.
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Re: Major Changes to Oscar Telecast

Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:Ask the people whose Tonys have been shunted off-air if they think that change was for the good. I could maybe be talked into pushing the shorts into that slot -- though I have a sentimental attachment to them as traditional who-cares-but-they-might-win-the-pool intermissions. But if someone like Roger Deakins (or, in future, Thomas Newman) has a long-overdue win pushed out of the main show -- fie!

And, parenthetically, the Tonys are a terrible model. They used to do an hour on PBS that covered techs/writers/composers/directors, then two network hours that covered the rest. Once they eliminated those "lesser" categories, they took the extra hour and filled it with drivel (like touring companies of Jersey Boys years after the fact). Besides, haven't the Oscars often been slated for three hours, but then just ran over? I really think this is just an excuse for those who've always wanted to push the techs off-air to finally get their way.
I don't like the way the Tonys pick and choose - this year, if I recall properly, they had two career achievement awards, one of which was presented off-stage (Chita Rivera?) and one on (Andrew Lloyd Webber?), a horrible decision to make - either do them both or do neither, but if they do neither then why bother to have them in the first place?

I think what they want to eliminate with the below-the-line Oscars is the dead air while the winners from the back of the auditorium walk to the stage. They can easily edit that out and only present the reading of the nominees with the cameras on them and the acceptance speeches. Tacky, perhaps, but they're going to do it whether we like it or not.

I suspect they will pick and chose which categories to highlight from year to year - I think something like last year's highly anticipated win for Roger Deakins would be carried live. At least I would hope so.
Mister Tee wrote:And moving it up to early February? Good god: there'll be no time to see the foreign/documentary nominees. And the precursor season, which already feels like fraternity rush, will be crammed into an even tighter window.
Is there time now?
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