The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has announced which Oscar presentations will not be televised live during its awards ceremony in 24 February.
In a letter to the Academy’s members, the organisation’s president, John Bailey, said that the awards for cinematography, editing, live action short, and makeup and hair will be handed out during commercial breaks in the show, and that the acceptance speeches for the awards will be aired later in the broadcast. Bailey said the presentations of the four awards will live stream on the Oscars website, and different categories would be selected for relegation in subsequent years.
When are the Oscars?
The 91st Academy awards take place on 24 February at the Dolby theatre in Los Angeles. It is broadcast live on ABC in the US, on Sky in the UK, and on Channel Nine in Australia. The red carpet portion of the show is broadcast live by the E! network.
Who decides on the Oscars?
The Oscars are voted for by members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (aka Ampas), which currently numbers just under 8,000 voting members, divided into 17 separate branches, including actors, directors, costume designers, etc. (To join, names have to be proposed and approved by individual branches.) The Academy has received considerable criticism in recent years for the perceived white/male/elderly bias of its voters – and a drive to create a more diverse membership was instituted after the #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2016.
How many Oscars are there and how does a film get nominated?
There are 24 categories – ranging from best picture to best sound mixing – presented on Oscar night. The Academy also gives out a bunch of Scientific and Technical awards: this year, for example, it will honour the people behind Adobe Photoshop and the Medusa Performance Capture System. Also there are the honorary Oscars: this year they are going to actor Cicely Tyson, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, Steven Spielberg's PR flack Marvin Levy and composer Lalo Schifrin (of Mission: Impossible renown).
Each of the main awards has its own rules and regulations for slimming down all the eligible entries – first to a longlist, then a shortlist, then the final nomination list. In most categories, to be eligible a film must have been released for seven days in Los Angeles before 31 December, and a specialist committee makes the selection for the nomination – which is then voted on by the full membership. For the best foreign language film award, each country can submit one film (89 were put forward this year), before a committee boils them down to a final five.
What do Oscar winners win?
The Oscar statuette isn't solid gold: it's gold-plated bronze on a black metal base. It is 34 cm tall and weighs 3.8 kg. While the Academy doesn't own it once it is handed over, its acceptance is conditional that recipients won't sell them unless they have offered them back to the Academy for $1.
The announcement triggered a wave of negative reaction, with New York Times critic Manohla Dargis calling it “insulting and wrong” and former Village Voice critic Bilge Ebiri writing: “I am fucking furious … what a stupid decision.” Both pointed out that Bailey made his name in the industry as a cinematographer, with credits including American Gigolo, Ordinary People and Groundhog Day.
The announcement comes as the Academy has continued to run into problems while seeking ways to stem the ratings decline for its flagship Oscar broadcast, after host network ABC demanded changes in the wake of record low figures for the 2018 edition. Original host Kevin Hart dropped out, and a proposal for a “best popular film” category was dropped after widespread ridicule. It is considered imperative to hold the running time of the notoriously sprawling show to three hours, but plans to cut some of the Oscar nominated songs and not invite former winners to present the acting awards had to be reversed.
