Boycott the oscars-no televised editing or cinematography-fail! ;-(

R

robfilms

Veteran
It has been recently announced that the Oscars this year WILL NOT be televising the Cinematography or Editing awards.

Such an oversight to critical craft departments suggest a true lack of appreciation of the efforts it takes to make a film.

Added to the list is Short-Live Subject will not be televised along with Make-up and Hair will also be ignored.

This is the President of the ASC response:

https://theasc.com/news/in-response-to-academy-awards-controversy

If you agree, perhaps a boycotting of the awards ceremony is in order.

In my mind, the Academy's actions were thoughtless and shameful.

Rob
Smalltalk Productions/NYC
 
robfilms said:
It has been recently announced that the Oscars this year WILL NOT be televising the Cinematography or Editing awards. ....

In my mind, the Academy's actions were thoughtless and shameful. ...
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If you're going to protest something, and ask others to participate, you should at least present the facts, not some made up nonsense in capital letters. The Cinematography and Editing awards will be shown, but tape delayed and eliminating the walk-up. The Academy's actions certainly are not thoughtless. This show is the single most important event for the Academy. It is its life blood. The Academy is struggling with keeping the show as effective as it can be. So a lot of thought went into this. Are the changes the best solution? Who knows. I don't like it. The Academy has made some seemingly dumb decisions in the past. But they are doing this first and foremost for the benefit of the Academy. Last year's show took a 20% hit in viewership. The shows ratings directly affects the vast majority of the Academy's income. So this is no joke to the Academy.

Boycotting the show is the single most harmful thing you can do to film preservation and film education. I suspect no other entity spends more on film preservation. With the awards show bringing in 83% of the revenue for the Academy, your call to boycott can directly affect revenues for the Academy's preservation and education activities. Will a boycott bring back the old format? Maybe. But what other effects will it have on film preservation and education? Consider the consequences.
 
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Ummmm... I've been living with this for a very long time... They don't even televise the engineering type awards for Oscars and Emmys. I have a few friends that have won Emmys for technical excellence and that is always a different day and (essentially) no press coverage. So this has been the norm for me... Nobody in the public cares that "somebody" made this new thing to get the shots that helped XYZ win the awards that they just won. The gaffers and grips are just as important as the directors and actors... Without a good full crew you don't get the production created! Next time I suggest thinking of all the "below the line" (a debasing title to begin with) people that make these awarded shows/people possible.

There's my awards rant.
 
As the world awakens to the Truth about Everything, significant changes will continue to occur in this industry.

This means new opportunities for doing things differently, including putting more emphasis and appreciation for the people doing the work to make things happen. Look at the popularity of cooking and how-to shows. With so many people into cameras there's surely a huge market of people to provide new content for. Even people not into cameras/production would be interested as long as it's entertaining and there's a good story!

Once one understands what's been going on in this industry, it's hard to watch anything produced by it. This is also why the awards shows have been declining in viewership. Almost all content viewed (by myself and friends) lately is on smaller productions on YouTube, typically geared towards learning, history, etc. For entertainment- tend to look for older productions e.g. classic comedies from the 80's and even older dramas.

With change doesn't mean a reason to get down- it's a reason to see a renaissance is coming, and to be part of it!
 
"Cinematography & Editing are at the very heart of our craft. They are not inherited from a theatrical or literary tradition: they are cinema itself." - Guillermo Del Toro

"In the history of CINEMA, masterpieces have existed without sound, without color, without a story, without actors and without music. No one single film has ever existed without CINEMAtography and without editing." - Alfonso Cuaron

"What better way to celebrate achievements in film than to not publicly honor the people whose job it is to literally film things." - Seth Rogen
 
jcs said:
As the world awakens to the Truth about Everything, significant changes will continue to occur in this industry.
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AKA...robots are taking over if anyone can't read between the lines.

lol, j/k.
 
P.S. Wasn't there a joke out there or a common assumption that most 'regular' people go to the bathroom during the technical portions of the acknowledgements anyway because most don't understand or don't care? (Not the people in attendance.)
 
NorBro said:
AKA...robots are taking over if anyone can't read between the lines.

lol, j/k.
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T.A.E is complicated and deep, and not suitable for discussion on this forum.

Robotics and information automation in general is certainly having, and will continue to have, an effect on the world, and will ultimately improve more lives vs. taking away jobs. This is now possible due to the awakening to T.A.E- new freedom, creative opportunities, and healthy living vs. the opposite.

Regarding 'regular' people and content viewership: remember the concept of the 'Long Tail'? Since we have basically infinite ways to access content, there's plenty of opportunity for specialized content to be matched to a smaller subset of viewers, and still provide sufficient marketing/business-opportunities. Awards shows will have to continue to evolve for the market if they are to survive.
 
As a true cinematographer I just wonder why they don't take out Sound from the live portion, basically there are four awards for sound: Sound mixing, sound design, original score and original song... and if they gonna play all or some of the songs then it will be even more sound-glorification. Then there are the more obvious short doco's that could be removed too...

I don't need to boycott as the Oscars are rarely shown in good quality here in Sweden, only crummy newspapers with clueless hosts that have the streaming rights, not national TV with less clueless hosts...

Also, I gotta say this years nominees are pretty bad, only Roma being decent at 8 out 10 for me... But last years winner was really bad, the Oscars are not having good movies nowdays...
 
Greg_E said:
Ummmm... I've been living with this for a very long time... They don't even televise the engineering type awards for Oscars and Emmys. I have a few friends that have won Emmys for technical excellence and that is always a different day and (essentially) no press coverage. So this has been the norm for me... Nobody in the public cares that "somebody" made this new thing to get the shots that helped XYZ win the awards that they just won. The gaffers and grips are just as important as the directors and actors... Without a good full crew you don't get the production created! Next time I suggest thinking of all the "below the line" (a debasing title to begin with) people that make these awarded shows/people possible.

There's my awards rant.
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As somebody who works as a member of the crew, I can understand though.

Yes, everybody is important in the production. From the PAs to the gaffer, sound , camera department etc. But I think the reason why the above the belt receives the most credit and is actually celebrated is because they are the artistic side of things. While the crew is mainly seen as craft. Craft is something one can learn. So maybe anybody or almost anybody could learn the craft and do the job. But you can go to acting school for your whole life and never be as good as Meryl Streep for example. And then there is the other side, the economic side. Nobody goes to watch a movie because such and such gaffer or camera op was in the film. Not even D.Ps who are part of the craftsman who also do art attract any public. Heck, how many directors have any draw? But in case of directors and D.P.s etc at least they are part of the creative process in some larger scale. So although unfair, it's at least possible to understand the whys.
 
Sttratos said:
As somebody who works as a member of the crew, I can understand though.

Yes, everybody is important in the production. From the PAs to the gaffer, sound , camera department etc. But I think the reason why the above the belt receives the most credit and is actually celebrated is because they are the artistic side of things. While the crew is mainly seen as craft. Craft is something one can learn. So maybe anybody or almost anybody could learn the craft and do the job. But you can go to acting school for your whole life and never be as good as Meryl Streep for example. And then there is the other side, the economic side. Nobody goes to watch a movie because such and such gaffer or camera op was in the film. Not even D.Ps who are part of the craftsman who also do art attract any public. Heck, how many directors have any draw? But in case of directors and D.P.s etc at least they are part of the creative process in some larger scale. So although unfair, it's at least possible to understand the whys.
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We could start a whole ‘nother thread on craft and art and learning the technical side and technique, but then using it artistically and creating art.
 
Paul F said:
If you're going to protest something, and ask others to participate, you should at least present the facts, not some made up nonsense in capital letters. The Cinematography and Editing awards will be shown, but tape delayed and eliminating the walk-up. The Academy's actions certainly are not thoughtless. This show is the single most important event for the Academy. It is its life blood. The Academy is struggling with keeping the show as effective as it can be. So a lot of thought went into this. Are the changes the best solution? Who knows. I don't like it. The Academy has made some seemingly dumb decisions in the past. But they are doing this first and foremost for the benefit of the Academy. Last year's show took a 20% hit in viewership. The shows ratings directly affects the vast majority of the Academy's income. So this is no joke to the Academy.

Boycotting the show is the single most harmful thing you can do to film preservation and film education. I suspect no other entity spends more on film preservation. With the awards show bringing in 83% of the revenue for the Academy, your call to boycott can directly affect revenues for the Academy's preservation and education activities. Will a boycott bring back the old format? Maybe. But what other effects will it have on film preservation and education? Consider the consequences.
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Thankyou. That was important for people to know. Heres a recent interview with Steven Soderberg about this:

Soderbergh: I had the best version of what you can have. The show itself is clunky and weird sometimes. But the work that the Academy does, in terms of archiving alone, I don’t care what kind of show they’ve gotta put on to make the money to pay for that stuff. The Academy library is one of the most amazing resources in the United States. As a filmmaker, understanding what they’re doing for cinema culture, I’m very sympathetic to their problem, and part of me doesn’t get that worked up about it because I’m like, Look, they’ve gotta put on this show. It pays for all this great stuff. All of my stuff, all the prints, negatives, it’s all there, for nothing. I used to have that **** in a climate-controlled vault in Hollywood. It wasn’t cheap.
 
I've done research in the Academy Library and it is a great resource. But that doesn't excuse the horrifically bad management of the AA broadcast, which has been a train wreck for decades now. The Academy does a lot of good for the film industry but there needs to be a bloody coup and the leadership needs to be taken over by filmmakers, people like Soderbergh, who care about the legacy of film. A colleague of mine works on the Oscars, I can't say in which capacity but he has worked it for years and has to produce a product that is integral to the telecast. He said to me yesterday on a shoot we were on, "Everyone thinks they're going to get famous from working on the Oscars. But they are the biggest PITA show to work on and nobody has ever gone on to success because they worked on the Oscars" at least in his little part of it.

In the meantime, I've been boycotting the show for more than a decade because I just don't care. To me, all awards shows are meaningless. I've won Tellys, Cindys and bunch of other "awards" that are essentially a system where people pay to win a trophy but even if those were real awards, what do they mean? They mean nothing. At the time, we had a marketing manager who wanted to have a trophy case in the lobby full of awards. So we did it. When we moved from that office and downsized, it was very easy for me to throw every single one of them into a dumspter because they meant nothing, stood for nothing. If filmmakers are making films to win awards, they should be in a different business. Hollywood's backslapping, glad-handing awards shows make me sick, they have nothing to do with Cinema and everything to do with what's wrong in the industry. The best work is rarely recognized, and so much crap is that it makes the contest meaningless.

If the Academy used their heads and weren't a high school dance committee on steroids that looks at the Plastics in Mean Girls as role models, they might be able to improve things and get the recognition and telecast part of what they do back on track so that it actually meant something. The voting has always been suspect, the Academy voting members are largely out of touch old white people who haven't worked in the industry for decades, they need MUCH more diversity and to be in touch with the best filmmakers working today and films that are more than just product. There, I vented my spleen. I'm not "in Hollywood" so it's easy for me to tell it how it is because I work in Hollywood and see behind the scenes.
 
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The purpose of the Academy Awards is to market the movie industry. The problem with the Academy Awards isn't that it isn't showing some of the award winners walking up to the podium with reaction shots from the losers, the problem is that people aren't watching the awards and they are actively losing audience members and public support. The academy seems to think that the audience wants more focus on the actors, directors, and producers while shortening the total run time. Maybe. Although all anybody in the public hears about the creative and money side of the business is the scandals anymore. Now the academy has annoyed section of their audience by seeming to tell the tech side that they don't matter. The publicity and management team at the academy is really hurting themselves.
 
Here’s the Academy’s response:

Dear Members,

As the Academy’s officers, we’d like to assure you that no award category at the 91st Oscars ceremony will be presented in a manner that depicts the achievements of its nominees and winners as less than any others. Unfortunately, as the result of inaccurate reporting and social media posts, there has been a chain of misinformation that has understandably upset many Academy members. We’d like to restate and explain the plans for presenting the awards, as endorsed by the Academy’s Board of Governors.

All 24 Award categories are presented on stage in the Dolby Theatre, and included in the broadcast.
Four categories – Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Live Action Short – were volunteered by their branches to have their nominees and winners announced by presenters, and included later in the broadcast. Time spent walking to the stage and off, will be edited out.
The four winning speeches will be included in the broadcast.
In future years, four to six different categories may be selected for rotation, in collaboration with the show producers. This year’s categories will be exempted in 2020.
This change in the show was discussed and agreed to by the Board of Governors in August, with the full support of the branch executive committees. Such decisions are fully deliberated.
Our show producers have given great consideration to both Oscar tradition and our broad global audience.

We sincerely believe you will be pleased with the show, and look forward to celebrating a great year in movies with all Academy members and with the rest of the world.

John Bailey, President

Lois Burwell, First Vice President
 
I bet there will be enough time for performing all the five songs, snippets of all the ten best picture nominees (because increasing the number of best pic nominees made sense), a president's speech, or "funny" little stunts like the tour bus.
 
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced that the Oscar presentations for cinematography, editing, live action short, and make-up and hair will not be shown live on TV during the ceremony on 24 February.

More than 40 directors and cinematographers have signed an open letter criticising the Academy's decision.

Instead, the four categories will be streamed live online before being shown later in the TV broadcast.

Here we look at the films nominated in the cinematography category.
Click to expand...
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-47239681

But they have time for this :
33221654468_7cf6eed5ef_b.jpg

 
Precisely. What any of that blather has to do with honoring cinema and filmmakers, I'm not sure. And thats the point, the Academy, in search of a ratings hit, has squeezed out most of what the AA have always supposed to have been about. That's why I, and most of my colleagues in the business, don't bother watching it.
 
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