Introduction Academy Award

209 Pages·2011·3.98 MB·English

Revised Edition: 2016
ISBN 978-1-283-50491-1
© All rights reserved.
Published by:
White Word Publications
48 West 48 Street, Suite 1116,
New York, NY 10036, United States
Email: [email protected]
Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Academy Award for Best Actor

Chapter 2 - Academy Award for Best Actress

Chapter 3 - Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

Chapter 4 - Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
Chapter 5 - Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Chapter 6 - Academy Award for Best Cinematography
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Chapter 7 - Academy Award for Best Costume Design
Chapter 8 - Academy Award for Best Director
Chapter 9 - Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
Chapter 10 - Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject)
Chapter 11 - Academy Award for Best Film Editing
Chapter 12 - Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Chapter 13 - Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
Chapter 14 - Academy Award for Best Makeup

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Introduction

Academy Award
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An Academy Award statuette
Awarded for Excellence in cinematic achievements
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Presented by
Sciences
Country United States
First
May 16, 1929
awarded
The Academy Award, also known as the Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the Ame-
rican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence of
professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal
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ceremony at which the awards are presented is one of the most prominent award
ceremonies in the world, and is televised live in more than 200 countries annually. It is
also the oldest award ceremony in the media; its equivalents, the Grammy Awards (for
music), Emmy Awards (for television), and Tony Awards (for theatre) are modeled after
the Academy.
The AMPAS was originally conceived by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio boss Louis B.
Mayer as a professional honorary organization to help improve the film industry’s image
and help mediate labor disputes. The Oscar itself was later initiated by the Academy as an
award "of merit for distinctive achievement" in the industry.
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt
in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of the 1927/1928 film season. The
most recent ceremony, honoring films in 2010, was held at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre
on February 27, 2011.
History
The first awards were presented on May 16, 1929, at a private brunch at the Hollywood
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Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post Academy Awards party
was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5.
Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other personalities of the
filmmaking industry of the time for their works during the 1927–1928 period.
Winners had been announced three months earlier of their triumphs; however that was
changed in the second ceremony of the Academy Awards in 1930. Since then and during
the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11 pm on the
night of the awards. This method was used until the Los Angeles Times announced the
winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has used a sealed envelope
to reveal the name of the winners since 1941.
For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. For
example, the 2nd Academy Awards presented on April 3, 1930, recognized films that
were released between August 1, 1928 and July 31, 1929. Starting with the 7th Academy
Awards, held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year
from January 1 to December 31.
The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last
Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so
the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy
Award winner in history. The honored professionals were awarded for all the work done
in a certain category for the qualifying period; for example, Emil Jannings received the
award for two movies in which he starred during that period. Since the fourth ceremony,
the system changed, and the professionals were honored for a specific performance in a
single film. As of the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony held in 2010, a total of 2,789
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Oscars have been given for 1,825 awards. A total of 302 actors have won Oscars in
competitive acting categories or been awarded Honorary or Juvenile Awards.
The 1939 film Beau Geste is the only movie (non-documentary) that features as many as
four Academy Award winners for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Cooper, Ray
Milland, Susan Hayward, Broderick Crawford).
At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category
was introduced. Until then, foreign language films were honored with the Special
Achievement Award.
Oscar statuette
Design
Although there are seven other types of awards presented by the Academy (the Irving G.
Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Gordon E. Sa-
wyer Award, the Scientific and Engineering Award, the Technical Achievement Award,
the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, and the Student Academy Award), the best
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known one is the Academy Award of Merit more popularly known as the Oscar statuette.
Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs
8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's
sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes each represent the
original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Techni-
cians.
MGM's art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Academy members, supervised
the design of the award trophy by printing the design on a scroll. In need of a model for
his statuette Gibbons was introduced by his then wife Dolores del Río to Mexican film
director and actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Reluctant at first, Fernández was finally
convinced to pose nude to create what today is known as the "Oscar". Then, sculptor
George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted
Gibbons's design in clay and Sachin Smith cast the statuette in 92.5 percent tin and 7.5
percent copper and then gold-plated it. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created
is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W.
Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the
molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Awards statuettes. Since 1983,
approximately 50 Oscars are made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S.
Owens & Company.
In support of the American effort in World War II, the statuettes were made of plaster
and were traded in for gold ones after the war had ended.
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Naming
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Lyricist Don Black shows his Best Original Song Oscar for Born Free from the 1966 film
of the same name
The root of the name Oscar is contested. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she
named the Oscar after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson; one of the
earliest mentions in print of the term Oscar dates back to a Time magazine article about
the 1934 6th Academy Awards and to Bette Davis's receipt of the award in 1936. Walt
Disney is also quoted as thanking the Academy for his Oscar as early as 1932. Another
claimed origin is that the Academy's Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, first saw the
award in 1931 and made reference to the statuette's reminding her of her "Uncle Oscar"
(a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce). Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during
Herrick's naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately
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dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'". The trophy was officially dubbed the "Oscar" in
1939 by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Another legend reports that
the Norwegian-American Eleanor Lilleberg, executive secretary to Louis B. Mayer, saw
the first statuette and exclaimed, "It looks like King Oscar II!". At the end of the day she
asked, "What should we do with Oscar, put him in the vault?" and the name stuck.
Ownership of Oscar statuettes
Since 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither
winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to
the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy
keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in
public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums.
While the Oscar is under the ownership of the recipient, it is essentially not on the open
market. The case of Michael Todd's grandson trying to sell Todd's Oscar statuette
illustrates that there are some who do not agree with this idea. When Todd's grandson
attempted to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector, the Academy won the
legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although Oscar sales transactions have
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been successful, some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy,
which keeps them in its treasury.
Nomination
Since 2004, Academy Award nomination results have been announced to the public in
late January. Prior to 2004, nomination results were announced publicly in early
February.
Voters
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary
organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,835 as of 2007.
Academy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a
different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, num-
bering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been
certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Water-
house) for the past 73 annual awards ceremonies.
All AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of
Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a
competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant
contribution to the field of motion pictures.
New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly
disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the
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names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just
under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies
have kept its size steady since then.
Rules
Currently, according to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must
open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at
the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California, to qualify (except for the
Best Foreign Language Film). For example, the 2010 Best Picture winner, The Hurt
Locker, was actually first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2009 awards as it
did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for
the 2010 awards.
Rule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes,
except for short subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print
or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with native reso-
lution not less than 1280x720.
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Producers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case
it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy
Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories.
Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.
In late December ballots and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed
to around 6000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches
vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote
for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.); there are some exceptions though
in the case of certain categories, like Foreign Film, Documentary and Animated Feature
Film in which movies are selected by special screening committees made up of members
from all branches. In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to
select the nominees for that category. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and
each country can only submit one film per year.
The members of the various branches nominate those in their respective fields while all
members may submit nominees for Best Picture. The winners are then determined by a
second round of voting in which all members are then allowed to vote in most categories,
including Best Picture.
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Ceremony
Telecast
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31st Academy Awards Presentations, Pantages Theater, Hollywood, 1959
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