Every period of the semester tends to have go-to topics of small talk and discussion. A few of the evergreen ones include the unpredictable weather, the pressure of academics and, of course, social gossip. However, last month, an important subject was added to this list: the Oscar predictions. Every year, after a build-up to the Oscars—comprising of the People’s Choice Awards, The Golden Globes, Directors Guild Awards and the BAFTAs, among others—the world waits with baited breath as the cinematic community awards itself. Since so many awards have already been doled out by this time of the year, the Academy Awards rumor mill is always rife with names for every category.
As Duke students scramble to pack all the Oscar-nominated films (mainly to not feel left out of conversations) into their already tightly packed schedules, it seems appropriate to shed light on the entire gamut of Oscar madness that Hollywood goes through. When it comes to actually determining winners and bagging nominations, two really important and often overlooked factors are: the movie’s release date and the production house’s campaign to distribute the film.
To elucidate the importance of a release date, a brief explanation of the selection process is required. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is a professional organization that contains approximately six thousand voting members. These people are eminent personalities who are divided by their expertise into judges for different award categories. The largest section, approximately 20 percent of this caucus, is made up of actors. All these voters collectively determine the winners through an online voting process—one that has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the last eight decades.
The voting group should presumably be learned and rational enough to look at all the movies in an unbiased manner, disregarding when the film was actually released. The statistics, however, clearly show otherwise. Since 2000, more than 80 percent of the “Best Picture” category winners were released three months before awards season, with the winners from the last five years having been released in October or later (The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, 12 Years a Slave and Birdman). The sheer dearth of films that were released in the other nine months is peculiar. Does the cinematic community just have a ridiculously short memory? Or are all the good films only released at this time?
Unsurprisingly, releasing their film at the Oscar sweet spot (which has been calculated as approximately 200 to 250 days before the ceremony) isn’t the only thing studios do.
Another shameless factor that plays into the Oscar results is the involvement of producers and their houses in lobbying for their films. Akin to the way big corporations lobby with politicians to advocate for beneficial legislation, production houses similarly appeal to the Oscar voting community in a host of ways. Producers tend to allocate upwards of one million dollars to promoting their films to a particular audience. In fact, winning an Academy Award has become such an accreditation that some companies take up film scripts and choose actors with the Oscars firmly planted in their minds. It’s understood by most studios that some films need an Oscar push more desperately than others. For example, Transformers and the umpteen sequels Michael Bay spawned are certainly not in need of Oscar validation, simply because they are already seen by so many people. It’s actually the films that stray away from a mainstream audience that benefit the most from an Oscar gold stamp. Indie films quite often rely on an Oscar to invigorate sales and publicity.
It isn’t unusual to see producers cross the line by promoting their films directly to the voters. Nicolas Chartier, one of the main producers of the war drama The Hurt Locker, was censured by the Oscars committee and banned from the actual ceremony after he sent an email to all the Oscar voters, telling them to vote for The Hurt Locker and not some “500 million dollar film” (a clear reference to James Cameron’s Avatar). Although these tricks and hacks aren’t a guarantee, most houses would rather maximize their films' chances than release them over the summer. Since the inception of the Academy Awards, not one film released in July has won the coveted “Best Picture” award.
The date of release isn’t the only factor involved because few things beat old-fashioned publicity and distribution.
Many argue that the drama biopic Selma was a victim of poor promotion, bagging only two nominations (“Best Picture” and “Best Original Song”) and being ignored completely in directing, writing and acting. Experts and think tanks believe this occurred simply because it wasn’t viewed by enough people. It didn’t screen in many of the film festivals, was released only in New York and Los Angeles until it was too late, and didn’t rouse the spectatorship’s interest with advertisements and discussion. Many of the critics groups said they had seen most of Selma’s rival films but hadn’t had the chance to see Selma. Distribution and coverage play a major role in the Oscar game, and the creators of Selma clearly didn’t excel at it. Testament to this was the fact that the film American Sniper was nominated for six Oscars and grossed upwards of 350 million dollars while Selma, although it was released within weeks of the former, bagged only two nominations and earned a little more than 50 million dollars. Both films were patriotic and historical in nature, but American Sniper clearly sold itself better, ending up with a more generous crop of accolades and money.
All in all, the Oscar game is dependent on a host of factors. It’s the high-stakes nature of this escape from real life to reel life that we all love dearly, and that’s probably why so many absurd and almost primitive factors play a decisive role in determining the victors on this fateful night.
Edit: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that PricewaterhouseCooper has been managing the voting process for seven decades. In fact, they have been managing the process for eight decades. The Chronicle regrets the error.
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