The 2014 Awards Season Has Started!

[Fernando]

2014 DGA Award Nominations

ALFONSO CUARÓN - Gravity

PAUL GREENGRASS - Captain Phillips

STEVE McQUEEN - 12 Years A Slave

DAVID O. RUSSELL - American Hustle

MARTIN SCORSESE - The Wolf of Wall Street

[Sleepless]

I generally hate the Daily Mail unanimously and in every regard, but I just saw this and I thought it was interesting enough to share (although it probably doesn't tell us that much we hadn't already expected). Highlights mine.

Next month, all eyes will turn to the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden for the glittering annual Bafta film awards ceremony.

On February 16, the great and the good of the film world will walk the (usually somewhat soggy) red carpet, and prizes will be handed out for Best Actor and Actress, Best Director and, the biggie, the Best  Film of 2013.

A Bafta is one of the most prestigious prizes in the business, and winning one represents the pinnacle of most people's careers. Even being nominated can catapult you into the major league.

And so you would imagine that the 6,500-strong voting membership of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts has a thoughtful, fair and well-considered procedure for choosing the five nominees in each category (announced last Wednesday) and then for picking the ultimate winner.

You might be surprised.

As a Bafta voter for many years I can reveal that the voting process is based less on artistic merit than on a combination of coercion, trend-following and pot luck.

Here's how it works. Maybe 100 films released over the past 12 months have a realistic chance of winning a Bafta, and probably 70 to 80 of those are released in the last two months of the year.

Distributors seem to think Bafta voters have short memories and, given the average age of the Bafta voter — there are a lot of retired film people in the Academy — they might be right.

So, around November, you start getting invited to screenings and Q&A sessions with cast and crew. Gone are the days of the lavish dinners and all-expenses-paid jollies — but you are certainly looked after. A Mayfair hotel. A complimentary glass of champagne. Not an inducement, of course. But we hope you enjoyed the film.

These events are expensive to put on. So already the field of competitors is being narrowed down to the Hollywood studios with their big marketing budgets.

They will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting adverts in the trade press, targeting voters with what are known as 'For Your Consideration' ads — inviting academy members to consider voting for their films and their stars. How can a low-budget independent film compete against that?

And while everyone wants to see films on the big screen, that's not always possible. Not everyone lives in London, for one thing.

So, as the year draws to a close, you start receiving 'screeners'. These DVDs are one of the great perks of being a Bafta member, and mean you can watch the main awards contenders in the comfort of your own home.

But still, you now have 50 or 60 films to get through. In less than a month. With Christmas in the middle. And a deadline of January 3 to vote for your five nominations in each category.

It's just not possible to watch them all. So which ones rise to the top of the pile? The ones you've already heard about. And the ones that have already started winning.

From late November onwards, reviewers and film critic groups start to publish their 'Top 10' lists. The New York Film Critics Circle is an early big one at the start of December, followed by the American National Board Of Review a few days later, and the Golden Globe nominations a week after that.

(Can you see a pattern emerging? The Americans are already setting the pace.)This year, films such as 12 Years A Slave, Gravity and American Hustle got a lot of early momentum. Other much-hyped films such as The Great Gatsby or August: Osage County started to fall away.

Lupita Nyong'o from 12 Years A Slave was hailed early on as a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress, and now looks set to claim the Bafta. Old favourite Bruce Dern was hailed the comeback king for his Best Actor role in the little-seen Nebraska, and sure enough he has bagged a Bafta nomination.

So, very quickly, the front-runners are anointed. And they ride that wave all the way to the Baftas and beyond.

The point is clear. We're sheep. And we follow the sheep in front of us. And the little guys fall by the wayside.

But the days are still ticking by, and you still have all these films to watch, and you've been meaning to get to them but you can't, and there are all these obvious front-runners . . .

And so you do it. You vote for a film you haven't seen.

Let's be clear. Bafta voting guidelines state explicitly that you must only vote for films you have seen. Which makes perfect sense. But I've done it. And I bet everyone else has, too. You vote for the ones you think are going to win.

It's why the same old names appear year after year.

Judi Dench could blow her nose and she'd get nominated (she famously won a Bafta for her eight minutes of screen time as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love).

Emma Thompson, check. Tom Hanks, check. Kate Winslet, hmm, she wasn't in a movie this year, can I vote for her anyway?

Are these really the crowning performances of their careers? No, but they'll get nominated anyway.

And because we're British we'll throw a few bones to British films such as Philomena (about a woman's search for her long-lost son) or the motor-racing drama Rush — both wonderful movies, as it happens, but a little national pride goes a long way at the Baftas.

Voting is done online now, and it takes five minutes. Click, click, click. I voted for Cate Blanchett because apparently she's amazing in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.

And it'll be great if she turns up to the awards. And having Woody films on the shortlist makes Bafta look smarter.

Cate's practically British anyway. And I'm sure I'll get round to seeing it one day.

I voted for Martin Scorsese. I haven't seen The Wolf Of Wall Street but everyone knows Scorsese is a film-making genius and I have no doubt that his latest is up to his usual breathtakingly high standard.

Click, click, send. It's that easy.

You back winners, and winners are the ones with momentum, and momentum is generated by marketing muscle, pure and simple.

Hang on, you say. How does The Artist, a French black-and-white film with no dialogue, win the Bafta for Best Picture in 2012? Exactly the same way, with momentum.

The king of the 'Awards Push' is American mogul Harvey Weinstein, who, along with his brother Bob, has helped his films win 75 Oscars in the past 20 years.

He saw The Artist, bought it, and ran a textbook campaign, pitching it as 'The Little Film That Could'. Boy, could it ever.

There are two problems at play here. The first is this insistence on pushing out every quality movie in the last two months of the year. It overloads us, and leaves cinemas empty of decent material the rest of the time.

The Olivier Theatre Awards, the Costa Book Awards, the Turner Prize for art can all take a year's worth of work and examine it in a more considered fashion, and with an element of perspective. Can't the film industry do the same?

But the second is more worrying. Bafta is still happy — desperate even — to be seen as the Oscars' younger brother, the penultimate awards ceremony in a months-long bandwagon leading up to the big daddy.

So Hollywood stars turn up to a ceremony they might otherwise avoid, and TV ratings boom.

It's why we work to these crazy timelines, why we still vote for so many American movies in the British Academy Awards, and why relatively few home-grown films get recognised.

Surely we are a big enough country to define for ourselves what is worthy of praise, rather than following the lead of the Americans?

But maybe the system does work, after all. I voted for 12 Years A Slave in several categories and I confidently predict it will win big at both the Baftas and the Oscars.

As it should — considering it's the best film of the year. At least, so I'm told.

And, in order to live with myself after just copying and pasting something from the Daily Mail:

[jenkins]

tonight the academy counts the votes for nominations. the situation is what you'd expect: the people working on counting the vote can't bring in their phones, they can't leave for places like not even the nearby cvs, and they work all night and don't leave until the announcement tomorrow. i'm going to ask why the counting takes so many hours. they should go full internet. this year the academy introduced online voting, and assigned people to work a beginning help line because duh. overshare --> lunch is at 3:45 am <--overshare

(edit)
i asked why it takes so many hours. these are already counted from pwc (whatever that is). what everyone is doing tonight until the announcement seems like some mystery, probably scooby doo is the manager, i think, i think scooby doo is the recipient of at least one oscar so

[Fernando]

(edit)
i asked why it takes so many hours. these are already counted from pwc (whatever that is). what everyone is doing tonight until the announcement seems like some mystery, probably scooby doo is the manager, i think, i think scooby doo is the recipient of at least one oscar so

PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC focuses on audit and assurance, tax and consulting services.

[jenkins]

^^nice

OSCARS: How Academy's Most Obscure Nominee – Maybe EVER – Managed To Beat Out Taylor Swift, Coldplay And Celine Dion
http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/oscars-how-academys-most-obscure-nominee-maybe-ever-managed-to-beat-out-taylor-swift-coldplay-and-celine-dion/

"Alone Yet Not Alone"  from, you guessed it, Alone Yet Not Alone with music by Bruce Broughton and lyrics by Dennis Spiegel.  Has anyone actually heard of this film?  Or the song which I understand is very low key?  Probably not. Certainly not Taylor Swift or Coldplay or Celine Dion or Lana Del Rey who were among the artists in contention for a nomination this year but lost out to this. Somehow it snuck in and completed a 7-day qualifying run in September, but, according to the website for the movie, its national release won't happen until March 14th. It is a Christian film or "faith based" as they are known now. There isn't a single review of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes (a first for any Oscar-nominated movie in memory). The distributor  is listed as Enthuse Entertainment. IMDB describes it as a historical drama based on a true story recounting the "faith and courage" of a German-American immigrant family as they face hardships and loss during the French and Indian war. The music score for the film is by William Ross, who is also conductor of the Academy Awards orchestra this year (as he was last year) and Broughton is a former Governor and former head of the Academy's music branch .

So, as a former Governor and head of the music branch he is obviously well-connected and well-liked within the organization and I am told he started making phone calls to colleagues urging them to consider the song.  Call it the most grass roots of campaigns. This is sometimes how the inner workings of these groups operate. This one is one of the most exclusive clubs in the world and you can have all the consultants and publicity in the world, but what it really takes is you gotta have friends. Enough of them obviously paid attention and Broughton landed his second-ever Oscar nomination having been previously nominated just once in 1985 for his first major movie, the stirring western score for Silverado. He is also an 8-time Emmy Winner.

huh

[Sleepless]

And they totally ripped their title off of You Are Your Body / You Are Not Your Body.

[matt35mm]

THANK YOU. The way I see it, that's my Oscar nomination.

[jenkins]

what academy nomination screening schedules look like:

[polkablues]

So, as a former Governor and head of the music branch he is obviously well-connected and well-liked within the organization and I am told he started making phone calls to colleagues urging them to consider the song.  Call it the most grass roots of campaigns.

That is almost literally the exact opposite of a grassroots campaign. Like there could not be a description of a thing that would be less aptly described as "grassroots".

[Sleepless]

what academy nomination screening schedules look like:

I wonder if those films that are only ever presented in 3D are actually hurting themselves. Since the Academy has lots of older members, they might be inclined to avoid 3D movies, so could be they'll inevitably end up voting for one of the 2D-screened films that they've actually seen. Just a thought.

[jenkins]

Yuval Adler's bethlehem and Hany Abu-Assad's omar --- those are about the same place and problem? not sure. i'd have to wiki for a half hour. demonstrating there's much i don't know about the palestinian conflict. it's clear to me that political turmoil has torn people from other people, and also torn people within themselves, and the lines of separation are growing

^^that's a kinda political statement, isn't it? i said a kinda political thing because politics, and i think maybe the same politics, are the center of both movies. but wait. even without research into what is happening, omar is a glorious movie. i was surprised by how much i liked it, and i'm surprised too that i quoted it all of yesterday. memorable lines, luscious cinematography, a story comprehensible outside politics, and engaging characters. omar has the things to make it a great movie

omar made me think about palestine, and broken circle breakdown made me think about stem cell research. made me think about stem cell research, cancer, the challenges of love through hardship, bluegrass music, tattoos, verandas, and how birds can't understand glass. it surfs waves of emotions in a stormy ocean

ground floor conversation points sturdily toward the hunt winning best foreign. damnit. ahh well

i'd vote for the great beauty, and i'd be excited if omar won. were you wondering? oh, you weren't wondering. awkward