The Secrets to Predicting the Oscars
One of the fun things is predicting the Oscars. Having been an avid Oscar predictor for years, it’s time now to share the secrets to the sport Oscar prognostication. It carries many similarities to predicting the outcome of a sporting event but just a wee bit more complicated since the Oscar usually has five candidates in each category while most sports have only two teams in a game.
If you’re tired of losing the office pool or wish to be less ignorant of the comings and goings in the realm of Oscar predicting or you simply want to impress people with your “psychic” abilities, this article will blow the lid on secrets not even some of the so-called experts that appear in those entertainment programs know.
Brief Overview
As most people know, the Oscars are handed every year by the Academy of Motion Picture Artsand Sciences (AMPAS) as awards that aim to honor the best achievements in film annually. It started way back in the 1920’s and continues to this day as a mega-glamourous television extravaganza that is viewed by more than a billion people around the world. To date, the Academy has more than 5,000 members who are pretty much a who’s who of
Hollywood’s elite: actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, producers, etc. Each of them belong to a specific branch which reflect their area of expertise in the entertainment industry: the actors’ branch, the directors’ branch, the visual effects branch, etc.
There are two rounds of voting at any given Oscar year: the nominations and of course the winners. In the nomination round, ballots are sent to all eligible Academy members. Each of the members will vote for nominations in the categories that are covered by their branch like the actors only vote for noms in the acting categories, directors vote in directing, writers writing, etc. All Academy members vote for the Best Picture nominees. The top five vote-getters of each category will get the nomination.
Once the nominees have been determined, it’s time to vote for the winners. Unlike the nomination process, the winners are determined by the vote of the entire Academy. Exceptions to this rule are the Best Documentary, Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Short Film categories. Only Academy members who attend special screenings and got to see all of the nominees in these categories get to vote for them.
Before You Start Predicting
Now that you know basically how the Academy works, it’s time you do just a little homework to determine which direction the Academy is likely to go. In the age of the internet, it has become very easy for ordinary folks like yourselves to correctly predict the Oscars. All you have to do is to research on three things: Precursors. Buzz. History.
Precursors – What are precursors? A precursor are awards given BEFORE the Oscars. Yes, there are various groups and organizations that hand out awards before the Academy has their say. The most famous of which is probably the Hollywood Foreign Press Assosciation with their annual Golden Globe Awards (http://www.hfpa.org/) which has been a fairly accurate predictor of eventual nominees and winners for decades now. There are also the various critics groups. Dozens of them have cropped up throughout the years but those that emerged as the most famous and most influential are the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle (http://www.nyfcc.com/), the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (http://www.lafca.net/) and the Broadcast Film Critics Association (http://www.bfca.org/).
The final type of precursor award and quite possibly then most accurate among them are the different guild awards. These are awards handed out by the different industry guilds. They serve as probably the closest thing to an accurate prediction as to where the Academy will go because oftentimes the members of the Academy are also members of the guild (take note: not all members of this guild are Academy members). There are dozens out there: The Costume Designers Guild, Cinematographers Guild, etc. But the top four most famous ones are: The Screen Actors Guild or SAG (http://www.sagawards.com/), the Directors Guild or the DGA (http://www.dga.org), the Producer’s Guild (http://www.producersguild.org/) and the Writer’s Guild (http://www.wga.org) . Films that have consistently been honored by all of these award-giving organizations are more than likely to show up at the Oscars and possibly win awards.
Buzz – Oscar prognosticators always pay attention to buzz. What is buzz? Buzz are what the critics say and what Hollywood itself thinks are the best movies. Thanks to the internet and publications such as Variety (http://www.variety.com) and Entertainment Weekly (http://www.ew.com), it has now become very easy to check which films are being lauded and which films are being booed. Buzz starts as early as even before the first frame of that movie has even been shot. If it’s a film adaptaton of Pulitzer-Prize winning novel and starring Meryl Streep and directed by an Academy-Award nominated director, that film is likely to attract buzz. If an indie film has started to create a sensation in major film festivals such as Cannes, Venice or
Toronto, that film has buzz. Among the best ways to keep track of these are by checking out awards-related websites such as Oscar Watch (http://www.oscarwatch.com), the Backstage (http://www.thebackstage.org), the Film Experience (http://www.thefilmexperience.net), GoldDerby (http://www.goldderby.com) and Oscar Guy (http://www.oscarguy.com). Much of these sites contain special forums where other amateur and professonal Oscar prognosticators gather to share the latest buzz, hype and rumors. Lots of valuable information can be derived from these sites if you are really serous about predicting.
History – Sometimes in order to look forward, one must look back. It helps to know a little bit about the Academy’s history of winners since, even though, the Academy has been capable of pulling an uncharacteristic surprise every now and then, the 78 year old institution is basically an old fogey who will barely change or alter the way it decides it’s winners. You can find a lot of interesting tidbits of info on the websites cited above and in the official Oscar site (http://www.oscar.org)
Time to Start Predicting
Now that you have the background and the tools necessary, now it’s time to start predicting. Listed below are all the categories at the Academy Awards ceremony and what you should remember before you place your bets on the winning candidate. Remember, surprises happen all time. Try to remember all the information you have gathered and go with your gut instinct.
BEST PICTURE: Sweeping, epic dramas (think Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind) with romance elements, political elements or both usually trump dark, edgy independent films and comedies. Over 1/3 of all Best Picture winners fall under this category. Count the nominations of the Best Picture nominees. The one with the most nominations usually (but not always) win and since sweeping, epic dramas often get nods for its stand-out technical work, most nominations and epic dramas usually go hand-in-hand anyway. Films whose directors aren’t nominated for Best Director seldom win (the last time that happened was when Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture without its director, Bruce Beresford, in the Best Director nominees list).
DIRECTOR: As unusual as it may seem, Best Picture does not always match up with Best Director. It’s almost always 4 for 5 or 3 for 5. Only a few times in Oscar history did the directors of all five Best Picture nominees were all nominated for Best Director. No director has ever won the Best Director Oscar without his film nominated for Best Picture since the 1930’s so one can safely rule out the lone nominee (who are usually foreign auteurs who are given the nod as a token gesture/consolation prize). Best Director and Best Picture usually go hand in hand but they do split more often than not. Pay attention to the buzz. Another great predictor of this category is the DGA, the Director’s Guild of America award. Only a few times in the guild’s long history has the DGA Best Director not gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director. It’s best to check the results of the guild to better gauge which nominee is likely to win.
ACTING: The largest of the Academy is none other than the Actor’s Branch. One thing to remember about the Academy is that the average member is a middle-aged straight man so their choice of winners have a clear and present skewed bias towards older men (their pals) and younger women (the objects of their desire). In fact, in the last 10 years, only one woman over 50 (Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love) and only one man under 30 (Adrien Brody, The Pianist – although he was only about a couple of months away from his 30th birthday at the time of his win) won competitive acting Oscars. So watch out older male veterans and young ingenues, they have the edge over male up and comers and older females. Also remember this equation: Golden Globe win + SAG win = Oscar win. Most (not all) actors who won both eventually go on to win the Oscar. If the Globes and the SAG split, go with SAG. The Academy seem to almost always side with SAG (emphasis on almost). Be sure check the SAG nominees and the Oscar nominees. If an Oscar nominee does not have an individual SAG nomination, it’s fairly safe to rule them out because ever since the SAG awards were instituted, all the winners save for one (Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock) were at least SAG nominees.
SCREENPLAYS: This is where being a sweeping, epic, feel good drama is not necessarily an advantage. The screenplay categories are usually where the Academy bestows a consolation prize to the small, independent and edgy critically acclaimed art house flick who will likely get usurped for Oscars in the Best Picture race. Take for instance Titanic. It got 14 nominations and 11 wins but despite that it failed to even get a Screenplay nomination. Another example: Ben-Hur won 11 out of 12 nominations. The one category it failed to win was, you guessed it, Screenplay. One way to determine which film will get the screenplay awards is to determine which Best Picture nominee is the Critics’ Darling. The winner of the New York Film Critics Circle is a good indicator as well as a very well-loved indie not “big” or “important” enough to win Best Picture. (See: Buzz).
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Some critics of the Oscar race has said that the Cinematography award does not award the work of the cinematographer but rather the beautiful scenery he shoots which, by and large, is true.. This is another race where the wider the scope, the better the chances for Oscar. Unless there’s a competition too highly lauded or too flashy to ignore, place your bets on the epic drama with the most beautiful scenery (it helps if it’s also a Best Picture nominee).
ART DIRECTION and COSTUME DESIGN: These are the design awards and they usually go hand in hand. One thing to remember about these two categories is that period historical Best Picture nominated epics almost always trump contemporary, sci-fi/fantasy non-Best Picture nominated films.
ORIGINAL SCORE: Memorable (i.e. melodic) scores from historical Best Picture nominees or well-received animated features often win but they also award interesting and/or exotic sounding scores. This is also one category where veterans trump newcomers so it helps if you are familiar with the other works of the nominated composers.
ORIGINAL SONG: If it’s a Billboard Top 10 hit, it’s a front-runner. If it’s in a Best Picture nominee, it’s a front-runner. If it’s written and/or performed by a beloved music legend, it’s a front-runner. If it’s all three, it’ll win.
FILM EDITING: Best Picture is also the Best Edited picture so hedge your bets on the Best Picture front-runner that is, unless, there’s an acclaimed war film, a flashy action film or a film that uses multiple storylines and/or a non-linear narrative (i.e. multiple flashbacks). I’d be a little more careful if this was the case.
SOUND MIXING AND SOUND EDITING: One of the most common questions asked by people outside the field concerning these two categories are: What’s the difference? Well, Best Sound Mixing honors how well the entire film sounds (dialogue, music, sound effects, etc.) while Sound Editing honors how well unusual sounds like a dinosaur roar or a light saber fight are edited into the film. Which is why dramatic epics, musicals and war movies are often awarded Sound Mixing while action movies and science-fiction films rule Sound Editing.
MAKE-UP: There was a time when showy prosthetics often trump subtler work. Now, it’s no longer the case. Period work with lots of wigs and age makeup seem to be winning this award as often as monsters and goblins. When in doubt, go with a Best Picture nominee that uses a lot of wigs.
VISUAL EFFECTS: This is where the Academy usually throws a bone to a popcorn summer blockbuster. Go with the film that’s the biggest hit BUT also earned good reviews.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: This is the first of a series of special categories wherein Academy members are required to view every nominee in order to vote. Luckily, an Academy member who actually does vote in these categories has his own site in which you can read his thoughts on all the nominees: http://home.comcast.net/~kenru/. Take a peek and you can have an idea on where the Academy may go. The Academy tends to have a bias towards feel good historical epics especially ones about war, the Holocaust and ones that involve a kid in some way. Since Academy members are required to see all films, upsets happen quite often so some foreign language films with across the board appeal and winning film festival prize after another and even several other Academy Award nominations may lose to a lesser known film. One example of this is Amelie, it was one of the highest-grossing foreign films in the and garnered four other nominations in other categories. It lost to the slightly lesser known Bosnian film No Man’s Land.
DOCUMENTARY: There are two documentary categories: for feature length documentaries and for short subjects. Like Foreign Language Film, Academy members who wish to vote in these categories are also required to see all of the nominees. In recent years, the documentary has made a sort of comeback. Fahrenheit 9/11 and The March of the Penguins have been proven box-office hits so it may be easier to find the nominees in your local DVD rental place or movie theaters. For those of you who do not have time to try to check out these nominees would do best as to read the synopsis of each candidate in the official Oscar site (http://www.oscar.com) just to find out what they are all about. After doing so, just remember that documentaries that are historical and/or political in some way often (but not always) trumps nature and/or human interest documentaries. The Academy also seem to have a bias towards Holocaust and/or Jewish-themed documentaries.
SHORT FILMS: Again, there are two categories: Live-Action and Animated. These two categories are very difficult to predict because you never know where the Academy will go with it. Since nominees of these categories are seldom seen (though last year clips from the nominated Animated Short Films were posted in the internet), the best you could do is read the synopsis of each of the nominees in the aforementioned Oscar site and go with your gut. In the live-action category, they never seem to have consistency or a pattern as to what type of genre or subject matter they prefer so you can’t really tell from the synopsis. In Animated Short Film, however, the Academy seems to have a bias towards visually appealing and kid-friendly laughfests.
ANIMATED FEATURE: The youngest of all Oscar categories yet also the one that’s the easiest to predict. If the nominee has a Screenplay Oscar nomination and/or a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical/Comedy Picture, it will win. If none of the nominees fit the profile, check the Annie Awards (http://www.annieawards.org) and check which animated film got the most nominations and/or won the top award, that film will also likely win.
Now you know . . .
And now you know the secrets. Remember, these are not 100% infallible. Surprises do happen all the time so try risking it occasionally and go with your instinct. But armed with all these background knowledge, the odds of you scoring big in your office Oscar pool are better than ever before.
