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HOW THE ACADEMY AWARDS WORK
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST
STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST
How do the Academy Awards work?
Every year, the stars of Hollywood and fans alike gear
up and begin creating “Oscar buzz.” The Oscar buzz generally begins in the
middle of winter, when nominations are announced. These nominations of course
help determine who will win the Academy Award for that category, whether it is
Best Actor, Dramatic Effects, and the all-revered Best Picture. Once nominations
are announced, the buzz gets even louder as people start guessing who they think
they will a certain award. Then the big night of the actual Academy Awards
Ceremony, or Oscars, is usually about a month after nominees have been
announced. The night of the ceremony is a television event as huge celebrities
have dresses and tuxedos custom-made and they begin to create fashion, beauty
and hair trends. It’s a night of gossip and it’s a night of movies but how
really do the Oscars work and who determines the winners or for that matter, the
nominees? Here’s an inside look that will answer those questions and determine
just how the Oscars work.
What is known as ‘The Academy’ is actually the
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which was formed in 1927. This
group consists of over six thousand people in the filmmaking industry and
although they may only be in the spotlight, so to speak, once a year, the
Academy is involved in many different projections involving film preservation,
and constantly striving to find new technology that will make huge advancements
in the world of filmmaking. The Academy has many different departments, all of
which focus on one particular area of filmmaking. The departments are filled
with members of the Academy and the members can decide to join the Academy only
after they have been invited to do so. The members then cast their ballots to
determine who will be the winner of a certain category.
While the Academy is the group that hands out the
awards, most people often refer to the ceremony as the Oscars. This is because
the golden statue that winners receive is referred to as Oscar and although
there are many different theories as to how that came to be, there is only one
that the Academy credits with the origin of the nickname. That was when Margaret
Herrick, a librarian at the Academy, remarked that the statue greatly resembled
her Uncle Oscar. The remark was made in passing and no one thought anything else
of it until a newspaper columnist referred to the statue by the same name in
1934. From that point on, the statue was known as Oscar and the Academy
officially recognized the nickname in 1939.
Of course the Academy gave the statue a great deal
of thought before determining what it would look like and without an
explanation, it can still be difficult to determine what the statue is doing or
what meaning there is to it. The statue is actually a knight who is holding a
sword. The knight stands atop a reel of film that has five spokes coming out of
it. These five spokes represent the five original departments of the Academy
which are: Directors, Actors, Writers, Producers, and Technicians. And anyone
who has ever heard a winner exclaim that the statue is quite heavier than they
thought and that’s because the statue is quite heavy, weighing 8.5 pounds and
standing at 13 inches tall. It’s the metal alloy, the gold plating, and the
marble stand that all contribute to the statue’s weight.
Although the members of the Academy are ultimately
responsible for choosing the winners, there are certain rules that are to be
followed. Of course, the movie has to fall within the appropriate year, which is
anytime from January to December the year before the nominations were announced.
But not all movies are considered to be eligible by the Academy. The Academy
won’t even consider a movie unless a producer or distributor of the movie sends
an Official Credits Form into the Academy. Not only does this tell the Academy
that this movie has been requested for eligibility but it also provides a
complete listing of who worked on the movie and in what capacity. This is
information the Academy needs when picking nominations for different categories.
Before entering a film for eligibility, the
producers and distributors of the film must first determine if the film is
eligible. There are four main requirements that will make a film eligible for
nomination: the film must be over forty minutes in length; the premier of the
movie must have been held in a movie theater during the appropriate year; at the
premier it must have been shown in 35mm film format, 70mm film format or
24-frame progressive scan digital format. The movie must have also played for
seven days straight in an L.A. County movie theater and have required paid
admission.
The Academy then gathers all of the forms that have been submitted and create a
list of credits based on those forms. The list the Academy creates is officially
called the Reminder List of Eligible Releases. This form is mailed to each
member of the Academy along with their nomination ballots in January. Because
the Academy is divided into different departments, generally only those
departments are eligible to vote for categories pertaining to their department.
This means that only actors will vote on categories such as Best Actress and
Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Every member of the Academy is eligible to vote
for Best Picture as this encompasses all departments and areas of the film.
Foreign films are nominated by select people from different departments after
the films have been submitted by different nations. Each foreign country is only
allowed to submit one film per year.
When a member chooses their nominations for the
different categories, they can enter up to five nominations per category and
they will list these nominations in order of preference. While most members
generally only list the nominations by film name, actors will name specific
actors that they want nominated. Whether an actor is nominated for a leading
role or a supporting role is decided by the individual member however, one actor
cannot be nominated for both categories for the same film. The Academy will
place the nominee in whichever category they qualify for first. The members of
the Academy then mail in their list of nominees and those lists are compiled and
sent to a third-party accounting company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, so that they
may tally the results. They will then mail the list of the most nominations back
to the Academy and the nominees will be announced shortly after that during a
press conference. The ballots are then mailed to the members of the Academy and
they have two weeks to complete them and return them to PricewaterhouseCoopers,
who again tally results and place all of the winners into individually sealed
envelopes.
But during all of this time, it’s not only the
members of the Academy and the general public that are interested in the
nominations and votes but also the production companies who are hoping that
their movie will win an award. They will generally mail members copies of their
film to the Academy members and they may also prepare a special screening so
that the members can see the film and then vote on it. And as the Oscars draw
even closer, thousands of workers including caterers, carpenters, artists, and
musicians are busy getting the theater where the awards are held prepared. All
of this so that on the big night, stars can waltz down the red carpet while
being interviewed about fashion, the movie they’re there for, and other tidbits
of personal information that will keep the world talking for at least a few
days!
Oscar
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