News
NY Times Likes 10 Best Pix System
By Robert Marich
Feb. 5, 2010 – A New York Times news feature article gives a thumbs up to nominating 10 movies this year for Best Picture Oscar, up from five for decades previously. “The consensus seems to be (this) was a pretty good idea,” says the article by Melena Ryzik.
Getting inside baseball on the topic, the article suggests that it’s a positive because it reduces instances where Best Picture nominees are immediately long shots if their directors are not nominated. Now with 10 Best Pictures, there is more bundling of Best Picture and director—which is important based on historical voting patterns.
“Oscar rarely splits the vote between best director and best picture — it’s only happened, the Academy says, 21 times in 81 years,” notes the article. “So the five films with director nods (Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious and Up in the Air) are considered the “real” best picture candidates.”
Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition notes Oscar voters tend to like weighty fare – bordering on the dreary. “It’s a rare patch of Hollywood where moderately-budgeted independent films can stand toe-to-toe with major studio releases, because voters tend to favor serious fare that is an indie staple,” says the book.
The 6,000 voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) rank their choices for Best Picture in order, instead of picking just one. That creates a complex evaluation system because films that garner a lot of #2 and #3 slots and no #1 votes could beat a film that gets some #1 votes but otherwise is ranked low by the remaining voters.
For full text, click link below:
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/movies/awardsseason/05carpet.html
www.marketingmovies.net/chapters/chapter-6-publicity/
www.marketingmovies.net/news/drab-oscar-pix-shifts-spotlight-to-actors/