The Official 2019 Oscars Nomination Announcements Discussions & Predictions Thread (2 Viewers)

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s really not hard to do, and the Deadline editorial made it seem more complicated than necessary.

To explain my idea, which isn’t even mine - other Awards shows have tried this - During commercial breaks, nominees for the award categories that will be given out in the next segment are gathered and brought to a holding area backstage or to the side of the stage. When the winner is announced, instead of having to walk from far away, the winner is merely steps away from the podium and can immediately claim their prize and begin speaking.

To be clear, the nominees should not all be brought on stage together. They should not be collectively announced as a group rather than for their individual nominations. You shouldn’t see them walking to the stage before their category, and you shouldn’t see them walking back to their seats afterwards.

The only difference that the home viewer should notice is that there is no longer a 2-3 minute gap between the announcement of a winner, and that winner appearing onstage. I think this can be a huge momentum killer in the show, when you have all that waiting and walking. It’s not as bad when it’s for the biggest two or three awards or for when it’s a nominee that’s sitting in the front row. Most people don’t mind watching a glamous star they know walk a few feet. But it really drags when it’s a less popular category with nominees that the general audience doesn’t recognize, and where the person is seated in the back of the auditorium. You can watch Jack Nicholson walk from his front row seat to the stage to get an award and that doesn’t feel long. Watching the Best Documentary Short winner walk from Siberia to the stage is deadly for pacing.

The on-the-ground stage managing that they do for the show at the venue is terrible. There’s plenty of stupid stuff they add to the broadcast (Wrinkle in Time, etc) that you can blame solely on the network and the sponsors, but the show is also poorly stage managed to begin with and that’s on the Academy.

 

[Tino]

Remember tho the Academy said recently that they want comedy to be part of the show so I’m sure precious minutes will be eaten up by banal banter and unfunny skits.

 

[PMF]

[...]To be clear, the nominees should not all be brought on stage together. They should not be collectively announced as a group rather than for their individual nominations. You shouldn’t see them walking to the stage before their category, and you shouldn’t see them walking back to their seats afterwards.[...]

And most of all, 4 out of 5 nominees should not be seen holding a custard pie.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Remember tho the Academy said recently that they want comedy to be part of the show so I’m sure precious minutes will be eaten up by banal banter and unfunny skits.

Well, if they're keeping the comedy bits and they're keeping all of the awards, then it's going to run as long as it's going to run. Those kind of skits are what make it take more than three hours.

During commercial breaks, nominees for the award categories that will be given out in the next segment are gathered and brought to a holding area backstage or to the side of the stage. When the winner is announced, instead of having to walk from far away, the winner is merely steps away from the podium and can immediately claim their prize and begin speaking

I agree with this too and also proposed the same idea earlier (it might have been in the pre-nominations thread about the Oscars which was succeeded by this one.) If you eliminate the 2-3 minute "walking" gap, but that happens for each category, that's a lot.

24 categories x approximate hypothetical 2 minutes for walking to the stage per category = 48 minutes
or
24 categories x approximate hypothetical 3 minutes for walking = 72 minutes.

So by employing the method that Josh and I are suggesting, they would eliminate between 48-72 minutes off the total running time right there.

 

[PMF]

Remember tho the Academy said recently that they want comedy to be part of the show so I’m sure precious minutes will be eaten up by banal banter and unfunny skits.

AKA the Acomedy Awards?

 

[Jake Lipson]

At the Oscars, the part of Emily Blunt will be played by Bette Middler.

Okay, no, but Middler is the choice to perform The Place Where Lost Things Go from Mary Poppins Returns:

https://variety.com/2019/music/awar...forming-mary-poppins-returns-song-1203141855/

This is surprising because I thought they would ask someone connected to the movie, but Middler will do a great job with the song for sure.

 

[Malcolm R]

Remember tho the Academy said recently that they want comedy to be part of the show so I’m sure precious minutes will be eaten up by banal banter and unfunny skits.

Shows how out of touch they are with their audience and membership.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Midler is the choice to perform The Place Where Lost Things Go from Mary Poppins Returns

Shows how out of touch they are with their audience and membership.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My favorite local theater complex is showing the Oscars for free. I wonder how many people watch them at local theaters? Hell, I might go just to experience it as many years ago I would go to BW3 and watch them there while playing movie trivia.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Wouldn't it be nice if the aired the Oscars on the Sunday before Presidents Day, so we could all sleep in the next day?

 

[Tino]

Wouldn't it be nice if the aired the Oscars on the Sunday before Presidents Day, so we could all sleep in the next day?

I and many people I know work that day. But many are off so it would be nice.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I and many people I know work that day. But many are off so it would be nice.

How unpatriotic of your employer!

 

[Robert Crawford]

How unpatriotic of your employer!

Except for the Federal government, I don't now too many businesses that are off that day.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Except for the Federal government, I don't now too many businesses that are off that day.

The banking/financial services industry certainly is (thank goodness )

 

[Robert Crawford]

The banking/financial services industry certainly is (thank goodness )

Retailers and restaurants too as well as most manufacturing companies.

 

[PMF]

Edited by PMF

 

[MartinP.]

I am assuming that one reason the Oscar show has kept getting longer is that in the 50's and 60's when hour shows ran 51 minutes they would have 9 minutes of commercials per hour. Now an hour program runs about 44 minutes, so 16 minutes of commercials, and I'm sure that's what shows like the Oscars do now, too. So that's 9 minutes plus an extra 7 minutes of commercials per hour. Or a total of 48 minutes for three hours. ABC should cut out the commercials! Heh!

Does anyone know exactly how many minutes each hour on the show is allocated for commercials?

 

[Tino]

I think it’s up to 20 minutes per hour now.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I watched the Oscar-nominated live action shorts today at the local arthouse theater.

Holy crap, are they always this bleak and horrifying? You know it's bad when the one about the old lady dying of kidney failure is the nice, pleasant one of the bunch.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Its been a while since I’ve seen all the nominated shirts in a particular year, but my recollection of recent years is that they tend to be on the bleaker or more dour side.

I’m wondering if there’s a reason for that. When the live action short categories were created (both fiction and documentary), studios regularly produced shorts and theaters showed them as part of a standard operating procedure. But sometime between then and now, theaters stopped showing them and studios stopped making them - and it makes sense that there would be far less demand for short form content in a theatrical setting after the widespread adoption of television.

All that’s to say, the people who are making live action shorts now seem to be making them with different intentions and different resources than when the category was invented. Many are self-financed or crowdsourced, and they’re usually more the work of individuals trying to express a specific feeling rather than the works of a studio trying to entertain a captive audience. A lot of shorts are now being made as calling cards to try to attract attention and financing than can go towards a feature-length production.

Add in that the Academy, for ages, has shown a clear favoritism for dramatic work, even depressing work, over any and every other type of story and mood, and it makes sense why filmmakers hoping to make a short to get a break would lean in on downers.