AMPAS® Invites and Issues New Rules

Foreign Language Film Entry Forms Go to 95 Countries - -

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS®) mailed Foreign Language Film (BFLF) award entry forms to 96 countries yesterday, inviting submissions in the BFLF category for the 81st Academy Awards®, 22 February 2009, rewarding the best of 2008. Last year, the Academy invited 93 countries to submit. Of those who submitted, films from 61 countries were qualified for nomination.

To qualify for the 2008 Awards, a film must be released in the submitting country between 1 October 2007, and 30 September 2008, and be publicly screened in 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying digital cinema format, for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater.

The dialogue track must be predominantly (not quantified) in a language or languages other than English. Accurate English subtitles are required. The director, producers and the production crew must be predominantly (not quantified) from the country submitting the film.

Entry forms and film prints must be received at the Academy by Wednesday, October 1, 2008. Only one picture will be accepted from each country.

Countries that have not received entry packets but are interested in submitting a film for consideration should contact Awards Coordinator Torene Svitil at (310) 247-3000, ext. 116, or via e-mail at tsvitil@oscars.org.

In 2007, the Austrian film THE COUNTERFEITERS won the Oscar® over a field of nominated films from Israel, Kazakhstan, Poland and Russia. See last year's list of qualifying films listed by country.

Minor Rule Change for BFLF Category - -

The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved the rules for the 81st Academy Awards at their 17 June meeting. Most modifications of the rules include normal date changes and minor “housekeeping” changes. The only significant changes were in the Best Foreign Language Film and the Best Original Song categories.

The change for the BFLF category is mainly procedural. The two-phase process by which the nominees are selected will remain intact. However, the Phase I committee – which is open to any voting member who views a minimum number [not quantified] of the eligible films – will now vote to determine only six of the nine films that will ultimately go to the Phase II committee.

The other three titles will be determined by those members of the 20-member Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee who have qualified to vote in the category. The executive committee’s selections will be made after the Phase I voting has been tallied. Think of the FLF Executive Committee as "super delegates."

This change was evidently made because last year's selection of the final list, from whence the actual nominees came, was a disaster. There was a huge outcry because the highly acclaimed Romanian movie, 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, AND 2 DAYS, director Cristian Mungiu, which won best film at Cannes in 2007, did not make the final nomination cut. Some felt it was a political rather than an artistic call because the subject of the movie is forced abortions. Hopefully, things will go better this year. 4 MONTHS is now available on DVD. Click NETFLIX graphic on right sidebar.

Changes in Music Award for Best Original Song - -

There are three changes in the Best Original Song category. First, while there continues to be no limit on the number of songs from a given film that can be submitted for consideration, no more than two songs from any one film may be nominated for an Academy Award. Many felt it was highly unfair that three out of the five song nominations last year went to ENCHANTED.

Second as refers to voting, in addition to the annual screening event at which members of the Music Branch view clips featuring the eligible songs as they appear in the films and vote, DVDs of those same clips will be made available to branch members who are unable to attend the screening; ballots will accompany the DVDs and must be returned by mail.

Thirdly, Music Branch members who have one or more songs in contention for nominations do not vote in the above phase for nomination. Again, to keep the playing field fair. However, they remain eligible to vote on the final ballot to select the winner. See all Academy rules for 81st Oscars.

AMPAS Invites 105 to Become New Members in 2008 - -

The membership policies that the Academy adopted in 2004 in order to slow the growth of the organization would have allowed a maximum of 137 new members in 2008, but as in the previous years, the various branch committees sometimes endorsed fewer candidates than were proposed to them. Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003.

New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception at the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills in September. See list of the 2008 invitees.

The Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, 22 February 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. Also, the Oscar presentation will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

Oscar® Show Participants Announced

The 80th Academy Awards® telecast is definitely a "go" for Sunday, 24 February, with the customary glitz and glam. Everyone at the Academy continued to prepare, knowing that everything had to be ready today, Valentine's Day, if the curtain was to go up as scheduled. Hats-off to them all, because today they were ready to officially "greenlight" the Oscar® Gala.

Producer Gil Cates and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis announced the presenters and performers who will participate in the Oscar telecast at a press conference held at the Academy’s headquarters.

Cates and Ganis announced the presenters scheduled to date, including all four of last year’s winners in the acting categories, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker, as well as: Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Josh Brolin, Steve Carell, George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Dempsey, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Garner, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, James McAvoy, Queen Latifah, Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, Hilary Swank, John Travolta, Denzel Washington and Renee Zellweger.

They also announced the performers of the nominated songs, three of them from ENCHANTED, and all of them with music by Alan Menken and lyric by Stephen Schwartz. The three songs are: "Happy Working Song," sung by Amy Adams; “That’s How You Know,” sung by Kristin Chenoweth and Marlon Saunders; and “So Close,” to be performed by Jon McLaughlin.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova will perform their nominated song, “Falling Slowly,” from the motion picture ONCE. From AUGUST RUSH, Jamia Simone Nash will sing "Raise it Up" with the IMPACT Repertory Theatre of Harlem, headed by Jamal Joseph, who shares the song’s music and lyric credit with Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas.

Second-time Oscar show host Jon Stewart is bringing several writers to work on the telecast. Also, scheduled to return to the Oscar telecast team will be writers Hal Kanter, Buz Kohan, Jon Macks and Bruce Vilanch.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

80th Oscar® Nominations Announced

The President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®, Sid Ganis, assisted by the Oscar-winning actress Kathy Bates (MISERY, 1990), announced the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards® early this morning, 22 January. They made the announcement at a press conference in the auditorium of the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre at the Academy's headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, at 5:30 a.m., PT, broadcast live on ABC-TV (list below).

There are, essentially, no surprises to those of us who have watched the 2007 film festivals and the 2008 awards season unfold. There are, however, disappointments, but more about that in future posts.

Academy members selected the nominees in their respective branches, with the exception of the Animated Feature Film and Foreign Language Film categories, in which nominations were selected by vote of multi-branch screening committees. All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees. Ballots were mailed to the 5,829 voting members in late December and were returned directly to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international accounting firm, for tabulation.

Official screenings of all pictures with one or more nominations will begin this weekend for members at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Screenings also will be held at the Academy's Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood and in London, New York and the Bay Area.

The Academy's entire active membership is now eligible to select the winners in all categories, although in five of them — Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, and Foreign Language Film — members can vote only after attesting they have seen all of the nominated films in those categories.

. . . . AND THE NOMINEES ARE:

Best motion picture of 2007, feature:
ATONEMENT (Focus Features)
JUNO (Fox Searchlight)
MICHAEL CLAYTON (Warner Bros.)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)

Best live action film of 2007, short:
AT NIGHT (Om natten, Denmark, 37 min) Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth
THE SUBSTITUTE (Il Supplente, Italy), Andrea Jublin
THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS (Le Mozart des Pickpockets, France 31 min), Philippe Pollet - Villard
TANGOS ARGENTINIAN (Tanghi argentini, Belgium, 14 min),Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans
THE TONTO WOMAN (USA, based on the short story by Elmore Leonard), Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown

Achievement in directing in 2007:
Julian Schnabel, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Jason Reitman, JUNO
Tony Gilroy, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Joel and Ethan Coen, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Paul Thomas Anderson,THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Adapted screenplay 2007, based on material previously produced or published:
Christopher Hampton, ATONEMENT
Sarah Polley, AWAY FROM HER (Lionsgate)
Ronald Harwood, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Joel and Ethan Coen, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Paul Thomas Anderson, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Original screenplay 2007:
Diablo Cody, JUNO
Nancy Oliver, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (MGM)
Tony Gilroy, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Brad Bird, RATAOUILLE (Walt Disney)
Tamara Jenkins, THE SAVAGES (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a leading role in 2007:
George Clooney, MICHAEL CLAYTON
Daniel Day-Lewis,THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Johnny Depp, SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (DreamWorks and Warner Bros. Distributed by DreamWorks / Paramount))
Tommy Lee Jones, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (Warner Independent)
Viggo Mortensen, EASTERN PROMISES (Focus Features)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role in 2007:
Casey Affleck, THE ASSASSINAION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORT (Warner Bros.)
Javier Bardem, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Philip Seymour Hoffman, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (Universal)
Hal Holbrook INTO THE WILD (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)
Tom Wilkinson, MICHAEL CLAYTON

Performance by an actress in a leading role in 2007:
Cate Blanchett, ELIZABETH: The Golden Age (Universal)
Julie Christie, AWAY FROM HER
Marion Cotillard, LA VIE EN ROSE (Picturehouse)
Laura Linney, THE SAVAGES
Ellen Page, JUNO

Performance by an actress in a supporting role in 2007:
Cate Blanchett, I'M NOT THERE (The Weinstein Company)
Ruby Dee, AMERICAN GANGSTER (Universal)
Saoirse Ronan, ATONEMENT
Amy Ryan, GONE BABY GONE (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton, MICHAEL CLAYTON

Best animated film of 2007, feature:
PERSEPOLIS (France, USA), directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (Sony Pictures Classics)
RATATOUILLE, directed by Brad Bird(Walt Disney)
SURF'S UP, directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Best animated film of 2007, short:
I MET THE WALRUS, Josh Raskin
MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
EVEN PIGEONS GO TO HEAVEN, (Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis), Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse
MY LOVE (Moya Lyubov, Russia), Alexander Petrov
PETER & THE WOLFE, Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

Best foreign language film of 2007, feature:
BEAUFORT, Israel, directed by Joseph Cedar
THE COUNTERFEITERS (Die Fälscher), Austria, directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky
KATYN, Poland, directed by Andrzej Wajda
MONGOL, Kazakhstan, directed by Sergei Bodrov
12, Russia, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

Best documentary film of 2007, feature:
NO END IN SIGHT, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs (Magnolia Pictures) (Magnolia Pictures)
OPERATION HOMECOMING: Writing the Wartime Experience, Richard E. Robbins (The Documentary Group)
SICKO, Michael Moore and Meghan O’Hara (Lionsgate / The Weinstein Company)
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, Alex Gibney and Eva Orner (THINKFilm)
WAR / DANCE, Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine (THINKFilm)

Best documentary short subject of 2007:
FREEHELD, Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth
LA CORONA (The Crown), Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega
SALIM BABA, Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello
SARI'S MOTHER, James Longley

Achievement in film editing 2007:
Christopher Rouse, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Juliette Welfling, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Jay Cassidy, INTO THE WILD
Roderick Jaynes, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Dylan Tichenor, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Achievement in cinematography 2007:
Roger Deakins, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
Seamus McGarvey, ATONEMENT
Janusz Kaminski, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Roger Deakins, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Robert Elswit, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Achievement in costume design, 2007:
Albert Wolsky, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
Jacqueline Durran, ATONEMENTA
Alexandra Byrne, ELIZABETH: The Golden Age
Marit Allen, LA VIE EN ROSE
Colleen Atwood, SWEENEY TODD

Achievement in makeup, 2007:
Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald, LA VIE EN ROSE
Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji, NORBIT
Ve Neill and Martin Samuel, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: At World’s End

Achievement in art direction, 2007:
AMRICAN GANGSTER, Art Direction: Arthur Max, Set Decoration: Beth A. Rubino;
ATONEMENT, Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood, Set Decoration: Katie Spencer;
THE GOLDEN COMPASS, Art Direction: Dennis Gassner, Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock;
SWEENEY TODD, Art Direction: Dante Ferretti, Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo;
THERE WILL BE BLOOD, Art Direction: Jack Fisk, Set Decoration: Jim Erickson.

Achievement in sound editing, 2007:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Skip Lievsay
RATATOUILLE, Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
THERE WILL BE BLOOD, Matthew Wood
TRANSFORMERS, Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins

Achievement in sound mixing, 2007:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
RATATOUILLE, Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
3:10 TO YUMA, Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
TRANSFORMERS, Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin

Achievement in visual effects, 2007:
THE GOLDEN COMPAS, Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: At World’s End, John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
TRANSFORMERS, Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score) 2007:
ATONEMENT, Dario Marianelli
THE KITE RUNNER, Alberto Iglesias
MICHAEL CLAYTON, James Newton Howard
RATATOUILLE, Michael Giacchino
3:10 TO YUMA, Marco Beltrami

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) 2007:
ONCE, "Falling Slowly,” Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
ENCHANTED, “Happy Working Song,” Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
AUGUST RUSH, “Raise It Up,” Nominees to be determined
ENCHANTED, “So Close,” Music by Alan Menken and Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
ENCHANTED, “That’s How You Know,” Music by Alan Menken and Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
_______

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented on Sunday, 24 February 2008, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

That's the hope at this point, but all eyes are on the possible settlement of the writer's strike!

LINKS RELEVANT:

There is a permanent link to this list on right sidebar of this blog. Links and other information will be added as made available, or find it here. There is a permanent link to AMPAS on right sidebar, or click title of this post.
Companion site for Oscars 2008
IMDb's ROAD TO THE OSCARS

Animators Decry Academy Rules

It seems as though there is more unrest about the rules concerning the Academy Awards® than I thought. I mentioned some issues, and suggested some possible considerations for changes regarding the Best Foreign Language Film (BFLF) category in my post on this blog, "Proposed Rule Change for Foreign Movies," Friday, 12 October 2007.

This month, some animators complained that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences'® lack of a clear definition for animated movies, and not keeping pace with changing technology, causes problems. Some have asserted that lack of clarification in the rules muddle the Best Animated Feature category.

Over the years the Academy has tried to address the question, "What is animation?" The most recent revision to the rules pertaining to the Best Animated Feature (Rule Seven) states, "An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture of at least 70 minutes in running time, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time."

Techniques used to blend real actors on the screen with animated characters in Robert Zemeckis' 1988 pioneering WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? have improved immensely as witnessed in this year's ENCHANTED. However that brings us to a statement in Rule Seven, ". . . animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time."

Now, that is really splitting hairs. I'm with those who maintain that an animated feature should either be 100% animation, or it should not be considered an animated feature. There is a new category for hybrid automobiles. Perhaps, there should be a new category for mixed-media motion pictures. Just a thought as technology continues to expand in this century.

Most of the questions being raised involve the statement from the rule, ". . . in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique." Years ago, stop-action claymation was included along with the stipulation of "drawn" frames. Then, animators were allowed to use computers to draw the blue prints for those drawings.

These changes lead to what is known today as a motion-capture process. Simplistically, actors act before a green screen and computers generate computer characters that can be further altered by computers to resemble anything the filmmaker wants. How much more vague can the Academy get than ". . . using a frame-by-frame technique?" All motion pictures use a frame-by-frame technique, but only animated pictures have previously produced each fame individually. No more.

This year, Robert Zemeckis' BEOWULF uses the motion-capture technique as did last year's nominees MONSTER HOUSE and HAPPY FEET, the category winner. Child actors supplied the action for the first, and Savion Glover supplied the penguin's smooth moves from which the computers generated the penguins. The filmmakers use special cameras and computers to capture, alter, edit and transfer the action into frames.

Some animators complain that animated movies now look and move more like video games than movies, while others have openly stated that motion-capture is NOT animation. There is a jab at motion capture at the end of director Brad Bird's RATATOUILLE, just released on DVD. At the end of the film credits on the DVD, a cartoon businessman is pictured smiling proudly as text proclaims the movie was made with "100 percent genuine animation" and "no motion capture or any other performance shortcuts."

Actually, the producers of BEOWULF do not call it an animated motion picture. Actor Ray Winstone (Beowulf) maintains he was definitely acting and has the bruises to prove it.

No animated feature has ever won overall Best Picture. In 1938, the Academy created a special Academy Award for Walt Disney to acknowledge his SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS. The separate Oscar® animation category was created in 2001, supposedly to give animated features more of a fighting chance for recognition in the competition. Unfortunately, what it has done is segregate them even more. Thus, animators still feel as though they are second-class citizens in the movie community when it comes to recognition for their work.

Ultimately it will be up to audiences to decide whether BEOWULF and ENCHANTED are animated features. Even the members of the Academy will nominate according to what their eyes perceive. Neither may not receive a nomination in the animation category. Then, all this will have been a tempest in a teapot. For now.

In case you are interested, the standard FPS for movies is 24, for television 30, and for video games 75. Over 75 FPS, the eye cannot see the frames and perceives the screen as blank.