anonymous wrote:The branch also upped the trigger point for qualifying submissions in any music category to nine. If fewer than nine qualifying submissions are received in a category, the executive committee may recommend to the board that no award be given that year in that category. In previous years, that number was four.
Let me try and understand this. The following five films are submitted as the best original score of 2007
(...)
But since the new rule signifies a submission of 9 films minimum, all these films are disqualified and the Academy decides not to hand out an award for Original Score.
Is this what it means?
Not necessarily. (If I understood it correctly) Even if there is only one submission, committee may always recommend to award a "special achievement award", which the Board of Governors (or somebody) either accepts or rejects, but Academy members have no choice of voting for or against.
This occasionally happened with the sound effects category in the 1970s and 1980s.
I cannot imagine that it would ever happen that there would be fewer than nine films with eligible original scores. I think what this rule is aiming at is that always nebulous "Scoring of Music" category, which some years they include and some years they don't. That category, which had been retired some years back when musicals ceased to be made regularly, was reinstated in the early nineties when Disney song scores (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) were taking over the original score category. Then, when musicals started to dwindle to nothing again, the category went away. This is just an attempt to impose some sense over when the category will be included and when it won't.
I agree the rule is more apt to affect the song category than the score category, but it could happen in the not too distant future that the majority of films rely on pre-recorded music for their backgrounds. Another sad note in the decline of the premier art form of the 20th Century, but we're in the 21st Century now, so maybe it would be OK with the new century's audiences who don't seem to mind that most of what they see on the screen is the same old thing anyway. If they can recycle the same old story lines for film after film, why not use the already established music the audience is familiar with as well?
I know the Academy needs to have rules, but sometimes they get so technical you wonder how human beings actually sit down and decide these things.
Reza, will we get a lineup of scores that amazing any time soon? I had a hard time finding five scores for my awards this year.
Besides, I think that rule is going to affect Song a LOT more than Score. How could there NOT be at least nine score submissions in any given year? But original songs? I could see that happening, and good riddance to that category! (Which is, by the way, historically one of my all-time faves, but today, is just an embarrassment.)
anonymous wrote:The branch also upped the trigger point for qualifying submissions in any music category to nine. If fewer than nine qualifying submissions are received in a category, the executive committee may recommend to the board that no award be given that year in that category. In previous years, that number was four.
Let me try and understand this. The following five films are submitted as the best original score of 2007 (please assume that these films are all 2007 releases and are critically acclaimed for their music):
Gone With the Wind (Max Steiner)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Malcolm Arnold)
Ben-Hur (Miklos Rozsa)
Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre)
E.T. (John Williams)
But since the new rule signifies a submission of 9 films minimum, all these films are disqualified and the Academy decides not to hand out an award for Original Score.
I'm interested in corresponding with anyone with a comprehensive knowledge of the academy's voting procedures - online information is often incomplete or contradictory. Any takers? (It's for a course on voting methods.)
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78th Academy Awards® Rules Voted by AMPAS Governors
Beverly Hills, CA — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continues to clamp down on the numbers of Oscar® statuettes that can be handed out, further tightening restrictions on recipients in the Best Picture category this year and establishing a cap for the first time in the Original Song category.
The 78th Annual Academy Awards rules were approved Tuesday night (6/21) by the Academy's Board of Governors.
In the Best Picture category, the Board ruled that the Producers Branch Executive Committee will "designate the qualifying producer nominees for each of the nominated pictures." This means the committee, rather than the producers of the films themselves, will decide who goes home with a statuette.
"What we're doing," said Academy President Frank Pierson, "is further reducing the possibility of someone receiving one of our highest awards without really having done the job of a producer."
Under the prior rules, the Academy's Producers Branch only took a hard look at who had performed the producing functions when a picture had four or more credited producers, and they couldn't agree among themselves which three of them would stand as the potential Oscar nominees. Under the 2005 rules, the "producer" credits of all contending pictures with more than one producer listed will be vetted for legitimacy.
Academy executive director Bruce Davis explained that the Academy will rely on the process recently instituted by the Producers Guild of America for validating producer credits. "Just as we have long relied on the decisions of the Writers Guild of America in determining the appropriate screenwriting credits on nominated films, we'll now be relying on the PGA's decisions on producer credits," Davis said.
In the Original Song category the Academy capped the number of song writers who can receive a statuette at three. The new rule specifies that "no more than two statuettes will normally be given," but makes a provision for a third statuette "when there are three essentially equal contributors to a song."
The Music Branch also modified its procedures for selecting its Song nominees, moving to a format in which branch members will attend special theatrical screenings at which clips of all eligible songs will be screened, with the nominations balloting taking place at the theater.
The branch also upped the trigger point for qualifying submissions in any music category to nine. If fewer than nine qualifying submissions are received in a category, the executive committee may recommend to the board that no award be given that year in that category. In previous years, that number was four.
Other modifications of the rules include normal date changes and minor "housekeeping" changes.
Rules are reviewed annually by branch and category committees. The Awards Rules Committee then reviews all proposed changes before presenting its recommendations to the Academy's Board of Governors.
Academy Award® nominations will be announced in January at the Academy. The 78th Annual Academy Awards Presentation will be telecast live from the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland by the ABC Television Network at 5 p.m., Sunday, March 5, 2006, preceded by a half-hour arrivals segment.
