Awards Season 2018

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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#651 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:03 pm

Big Ben wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:47 am
Speaking of bits and gags I'm wondering what atrocities we're going to have to sit through due to the whole "No Host" situation. Groan inducing cameos anyone?
Shrek is back, baby, and he's standing at the podium announcing the candidates for best animated short!

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movielocke
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#652 Post by movielocke » Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:51 pm

Big Ben wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 11:47 am
Speaking of bits and gags I'm wondering what atrocities we're going to have to sit through due to the whole "No Host" situation. Groan inducing cameos anyone?
I would guess we'll get a couple montages instead of a stand up bit and then celebrity presenters introduced by a voice over rather than by the host.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#653 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:33 pm

I honestly hope we get a "Fiona Apple at the 1997 VMA's" moment.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#654 Post by Persona » Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:37 pm

If they're going to start eliminating televised presentations for the major technical awards like cinematography, then, yeah, I'm outsies.

I only kind of half watch as it is and it's usually to tune in for Cinematography, Editing, Director, and Best Film.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#655 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Tue Jan 29, 2019 4:22 pm

Brian C wrote:
Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:41 pm
Referring to the Merchant Ivory films as "Oscar bait" seems like kind of a low blow, since they have a long and distinguished career that long pre-dates Oscar attention.

The Theory of Everything is a much better example, a movie made with utter indifference towards its subject material that seems to exist only as a strategy to win awards.
There's a world of difference between a Merchant Ivory film and a bloody Tom Hooper film!

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#656 Post by knives » Tue Jan 29, 2019 4:25 pm

(James Marsh)

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#657 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Jan 30, 2019 3:48 pm

Kyle Buchanan channeling my gripes in NYT: “Are the Oscars Ashamed to Be the Oscars?”
At this point, the Oscars seem almost ashamed to put on a show. There will be no host nor overarching comic sensibility, most of the musical performances have apparently been cut (including the nominated “Ballad of Buster Scruggs” song “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings.”), and plenty of worthy categories will be shunted to the margins. Given the mandate by ABC to trim the length of the telecast, we can expect acceptance speeches to be ever more quickly curtailed, and I’ll be surprised if we still see clips of the nominated performances, the sort of thing that might introduce some of these smaller movies to a wider audience.

In other words, the Oscar telecast has become an entertainment program determined to divest itself of all entertainment.

Does the academy understand why we still tune into this show? When I think back on the Oscars of yesteryear, I remember moments, not minutes: a speech that surprises, a musical performance that connects, an unplanned line that becomes a part of history. If the academy isn’t going to leave room for those moments to happen, it might as well issue a press release instead of a broadcast.

The Oscars ought to take a few cues from the Super Bowl, another mammoth entertainment event that refuses to be ashamed of its size. When the Super Bowl is broadcast this Sunday, producers won’t be forced to choose between either the national anthem or the halftime show, or eliminate overtime if the game goes long. They understand that people want the Super Bowl to be as maximal as possible, a communal watching experience that gives us plenty to talk about. Why can’t the Oscars be as unabashed?

What perplexes me is why the studios and producers aren’t more pissed about a truncated ceremony cutting out what is basically a huge chunk of free highly-targeted advertising. If the technical categories don’t get any clips shown, something like First Man loses an opportunity to entice a few percentage points of the tens of millions of viewers into buying/renting/streaming it. The nominated films and presenters getting squeezed out of the broadcast are losing out on literally millions in free publicity in front of the audience most likely to be their customers... all so ABC can avoid cutting in on the local news time slot?

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#658 Post by movielocke » Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:44 pm

Nobody likes the dead air of the walks to stage and everyone wants to do “something” to fix it, also attention spans are extinct and any industry people not at or part of the ceremony who are concerned about losing out on something something are just glued to their smartphone the entire time they are “watching” the oscars anyway.

And that distracted viewing environment from smart phones terrifying them is why there is probably such inordinate pressure to wipe out anything long.

They really just need an integration element, have Shazam on your phone? Well when a clip plays it prompts you to see a longer clip and then buy it or rent it on movies anywhere or add it to your watch queue. For example.

As appalling as that sounds to most of us, app integration and a play along at home aspect would probably allow them to “do something” but would take the pressure off to shorten tine. Work with the distraction devices, not against them sort of thing.

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HitchcockLang
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#659 Post by HitchcockLang » Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:37 am

My wife and I used to look forward to AMC's Best Picture Showcase every year and would generally wait to see movies we felt may get nominated so we could see most for the first time at the showcase. We didn't go last year because MoviePass made it easier and cheaper to see everything along the way, and we're not planning to go this year because AMC Stubs A-List, but I saw an ad for it and found this interesting:

It seems for (I believe) the first time ever, the AMC Showcase will not show all the nominees because they are not including Roma. I'm guessing there's some weird rights issue with it being a Netflix film, but the movie did have theatrical distribution right? I'm wondering why they couldn't (or didn't) secure it. Would be funny if it wins and they end up not even showing the winner during the event.

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tenia
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#660 Post by tenia » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:05 pm

Isn't the real issue with the Oscars the fact that it's tediously absurdly pointlessly overlong for no reason except to offer the possibility to cram possibly 10 or 15 commercial breaks ? If one considers an Oscar broadcast to be 3h30 long, that gives 9 minutes per award (despite speeches only being 45 sec long maximum) !
In France, we have approximately the same amount of Awards (22 vs 24), yet, Oscars speeches are limited to 45 sec while Césars ones weren't at all before 2016 and are now limited... to 2 min 30. Yet, Césars were in the past 4 hours long. They're now 3 hours long. This means that despite having speeches more than 3 times longer, Césars still manage to have the same duration than Oscars.

Oscars always seemed to me like the paroxysm of overlong ceremonies. The walks to stage etc never felt like the only dead air to me. Jokes are slow. Laughs seem forced. Nothing seem to have any timing. Everything seemed streched out. When I was younger, I thought it was on purpose, to cram more commercial breaks than if the show was 2 hours long.

Cannes Film Festival ceremony has only a third of the number of awards (8) but is only about 30 minutes long : that's 7 times shorter.


I'm also not sure it's a good comparison to compare an award show to a sports one, since people might care much more about following the game live than just reading the results the next day in the news.

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Brian C
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Awards Season 2018

#661 Post by Brian C » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:24 pm

It’s never quite been clear to me who was complaining about the ceremony length. Back in the day, media types had print deadlines, so I get why overlong shows might have been an issue for them. But that’s less of an issue now.

More broadly, though, the Oscars used to be a giant annual ratings event even though it was a running joke how long they were. No one really seemed to mind, because it was a reliable ratings smash and getting people to watch your tv channel for longer was a win for everyone.

But at some point it became a thing, and now ABC seems almost embarrassed to have to show the Oscars. It doesn’t make sense, as DarkImbecile said. Something’s weird about it.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#662 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:28 pm

movielocke wrote:
Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:44 pm
Nobody likes the dead air of the walks to stage...
Except when they generate live, meme-able moments like Benigni climbing on chairs or Jennifer Lawrence tripping on the steps.
tenia wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:05 pm
Isn't the real issue with the Oscars the fact that it's tediously absurdly pointlessly overlong for no reason except to offer the possibility to cram possibly 10 or 15 commercial breaks ? If one considers an Oscar broadcast to be 3h30 long, that gives 9 minutes per award (despite speeches only being 45 sec long maximum)!
To Brian's point, is making the show shorter and leaner by not airing technical awards and performances going to draw in a bunch of viewers who weren't otherwise going to tune in? I doubt it, but even if it does, will that be more than the people who will tune out precisely because of those cuts? Again, I doubt it.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#663 Post by tenia » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:32 pm

I strongly believe the show can be made leaner and shorter without not airing technical awards and performances. Going the other way would be, to me, the lazy way, because it means not making any structural change to how poorly paced the show can be.
I also wonder, but that's because I'm not in the US, how much of the broadcast duration comes from the commercial breaks. One change could be to regroup them in less slots but longer ones, to avoid the humpteen fades in / fades out, which might already account to 10 minutes alone over the 3h30 course of the ceremony.
Brian C wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:24 pm
It’s never quite been clear to me who was complaining about the ceremony length. Back in the day, media types had print deadlines, so I get why overlong shows might have been an issue for them. But that’s less of an issue now.
I'm certainly not the worst her when it comes to attention span, but honestly, Oscars ceremonies are testing me. I've stopped watching them a few years ago because I would roll my eyes at how overly slow it just seems to get. It just feels soooooooo sloooooooooooow. It's frustratingly slow. Tediously slow. At some point, I just get so frustrated I feel I'm wasting my time. I'll take me a tenth of the time next morning to read the winners and watch a highlight reel and not feeling like I missed anything at all.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#664 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:43 pm

Yeah, there's no question the show could be streamlined and improved in myriad ways; I just don't see the evidence for the connection between the length of the show and total viewership.

The show is still one of the top 10-12 highest rated broadcasts in any given year, and to Buchanan's point in the article linked above, acting like you're embarrassed to be broadcasting the awards rather than leaning into the reasons so many people still tune in is nonsensical. The one point about recent shows that actually makes sense to me is that more people tune in when they've seen the nominees, so leveraging how the expanded Best Picture category allows for films like Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody to be in the mix should be part of their strategy. This is by far the highest grossing set of BP nominees in many years (even with Roma not being part of that picture, though its near-universal availability balances that out), so it would have been interesting to see how that impacted ratings in a more typical year (with a host and without other major changes to the broadcast) for purposes of comparison.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#665 Post by movielocke » Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:38 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
movielocke wrote:
Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:44 pm
Nobody likes the dead air of the walks to stage...
Except when they generate live, meme-able moments like Benigni climbing on chairs or Jennifer Lawrence tripping on the steps.
tenia wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:05 pm
Isn't the real issue with the Oscars the fact that it's tediously absurdly pointlessly overlong for no reason except to offer the possibility to cram possibly 10 or 15 commercial breaks ? If one considers an Oscar broadcast to be 3h30 long, that gives 9 minutes per award (despite speeches only being 45 sec long maximum)!
To Brian's point, is making the show shorter and leaner by not airing technical awards and performances going to draw in a bunch of viewers who weren't otherwise going to tune in? I doubt it, but even if it does, will that be more than the people who will tune out precisely because of those cuts? Again, I doubt it.
We will always see the actors walk to stage because they are the only people most of the viewing audience wants to see. And besides, they’re close to stage. It’s the people further back in the auditorium that have a lot of dead air getting them to the stage.

Most of the dead air, though, is in the production value of a big stage and presenters walking out from the wings and presenters having FaceTime on camera to banter and joke before getting to the award, which is another thing most people are watching for, but also something that could be cut if the “host” were to present four awards during the commercial breaks and then do an instant replay (so to speak) when they come back from break

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#666 Post by swo17 » Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:43 pm

So you broadcast with a five minute delay, cut out all the dead air, and then catch up with real time during the commercials, problem solved

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#667 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:45 pm

Let's just announce via app and show an exclusive movie starring and made by all the nominees instead

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#668 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:59 pm

movielocke wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:38 pm
We will always see the actors walk to stage because they are the only people most of the viewing audience wants to see. And besides, they’re close to stage. It’s the people further back in the auditorium that have a lot of dead air getting them to the stage.
I never understood why they don't set aside fifteen or twenty seats off to the side and back a bit but not too far from the stage, and use them to cycle "back of the auditorium" nominees and maybe a family member or two up to the front when their categories are up (just use seat fillers when they get to the main categories).

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Brian C
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#669 Post by Brian C » Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:50 pm

I guess my feeling is that the number of people who would watch the Oscars if only it didn’t take winners so long to get to the stage is approximately zero.

At least I can see a case for more people being willing to tune in if the middle two hours weren’t dominated by awards for people no one’s ever heard of.

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Awards Season 2018

#670 Post by movielocke » Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:35 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:I never understood why they don't set aside fifteen or twenty seats off to the side and back a bit but not too far from the stage, and use them to cycle "back of the auditorium" nominees and maybe a family member or two up to the front when their categories are up (just use seat fillers when they get to the main categories).
This is my guess since I work live tv but never done an awards show:

Because the camera crew and directors and chyron people all block and pre prepare for the fixed nominee locations in rehearsal. This is doable, you just have to coordinate two people mover producers (one to kick the seat fillers out one to move the nominees in) have these people successfully move around all the cameramen, make sure each of the ten people wind up in their correct “nominee” seat and then pray that you didn’t mix anyone up resulting in the wrong people being filmed when their name is announced (and the director / TD cutting to the wrong closeup if they’re expecting one camera to be assigned a given name but the seating got mixed up and the winner is on another camera).

Then Repeat all that anxiety and people dance several times through the show.
Last edited by movielocke on Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#671 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:55 pm

Typo fixed, sorry for the confusion.
DarkImbecile wrote:
Thu Jan 31, 2019 1:59 pm
I always understood why they don't set aside fifteen or twenty seats off to the side and back a bit but not too far from the stage, and use them to cycle "back of the auditorium" nominees and maybe a family member or two up to the front when their categories are up (just use seat fillers when they get to the main categories).

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Re: Awards Season 2018

#672 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jan 31, 2019 5:02 pm


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Re: Awards Season 2018

#673 Post by dustysomers » Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:18 pm


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mfunk9786
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#674 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:21 pm

Also in that article is a standing offer to Queen to open the telecast. Man oh man what a dumpster fire this thing is becoming

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domino harvey
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Re: Awards Season 2018

#675 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jan 31, 2019 7:23 pm

Sounds like yet another "Watch on mute with the captions on" year

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