[ad_1]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has put an end to a controversial project to introduce a new category, outstanding achievement in popular cinema, after the organization was launched in the Academy and the public. But the group will pursue the idea of the category, intended to help the Academy maintain its relevance and its audience in a changing media landscape.
"The idea that we were trying to honor excellence in a wider range of films was not fully understood when we announced this," Academy C.E.O. Dawn Hudson said in an interview Thursday. "We heard our members' comments that we needed to take more time. We felt that we needed further study without abandoning the principle. "
On Tuesday and Wednesday, in closed meetings at the Wilshire Boulevard Academy Headquarters, the board decided to present the popular Oscar idea for the 2018-2019 awards season, less than a month later. the first announcement. In August, the proclamation provoked a strong reaction from members, studio consultants and experts, some of whom felt that the popular idea of the Oscars had tarnished the greatest qualities of the Academy: its association with distinction and quality. Others were wondering how their films would run and whether a film in the studio that could be considered a candidate for the best film would end up with the popular Oscar as a kind of consolation prize. "None of us knew what the word" popular "was referring to," said a consultant for a studio. "East Transformers the same thing as Titanic? Is a nomination for the best popular film eluding your chances at best? "
The Academy had not yet determined the criteria for the new award when it announced it – an idea under discussion, according to several board members, was that the award should be voted by members of the public, to encourage greater public participation in television broadcasting. . Another proposal on the table would require members of the Academy to vote, but would limit the eligibility for the award to films released in a certain number of theaters, or would earn a certain amount at the box office.
"This was not quite ready," said the former president of the Academy. Sid Ganis, who sits on the current board. "We had to understand it, be sure of what we were doing, be smart about what we were doing. Until we could do all that, we had to wait. "
Other board members said the idea of price was defensible, even though the deployment was awkward. "We did not really have a coherent plan for what it needed to be," said a board member. "We suddenly realized that the Oscars are here and we have no infrastructure."
"The intention was right," said another board member. "Maybe we should have waited to have more criteria to share."
Although it seemed sudden to some, the announcement of the Academy's famous Oscar in August followed years of discussions and research within the organization on how to broaden its audience, a conversation that has took a new emergency. TV show.
The Academy, a non-profit organization, derives most of its funding from Oscar's broadcast rights, which were sold to ABC until 2028. Hudson and four governors who spoke with Vanity Fair Because this story said that ABC had not put pressure on the board to create the new category. This notion has been the subject of some speculation, because not only ABC would benefit from higher ratings for the series, but the main competitor of Disney, Black Panther, seemed to be a lock to win the new category. A person familiar with the studio's pricing strategy for Black Panther said the gossip that Disney had pushed for the new category because it belonged to ABC was not just incorrect, the opposite was true. The studio has always planned to compete with the film in the best picture, not "a secondary type of reward".
The Academy's efforts, which lasted almost ten years to reward more popular films, began in 2009, when the group Christopher Nolan The black Knight did not manage to get a better photo nomination. This change had the unintended consequence of seeing more independent esoteric films win nominations, rather than the big studio films it was supposed to stimulate. "Over the years, we have reduced the scope of the films we honor for excellence," said Hudson. "When we announce our nominations in January, many movies are not accessible to moviegoers around the world. They are not in the cinema. We want the Oscars to evolve. We want to be relevant and interact with our audience of moviegoers. "
In March, the board's annual post-mortem meeting about broadcasting appeared to be a "red alert," said a board member, as the board of directors weighed down the audience dramatically. "It has reached a tipping point," said the board member. "This year, in the wake of #MeToo, Time's Up, the show became so political. It was too long. He just left his mission. . . . We felt we had to do something.
In addition to the popular Oscar, the board of directors voted in favor of the date of the future Oscars ceremonies, in order to combat the feeling of fatigue felt by spectators after weeks of coverage of shows like the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. And the Academy decided to shorten the broadcast to three hours, conferring certain prices during a commercial break and editing them in the series.
In the coming months, the council will continue to work on the details of the popular Oscars category, with a view to presenting it for the next season of awards, said several council members. "We are going to work right now," said Ganis. "It's not going well in the background. We will continue to understand it and get feedback. "
Source link
