The Show - What can we expect

[Franz Ferdinand]

It was a brave but terrible attempt to freshen up the Oscars, I did not enjoy the aisle-acceptance at all.

[paperboy]

AP: How much room is there to revamp a show that requires 24 awards be presented on camera?

Condon: That is a given and it's a big chunk of the show: we're going to give out awards. The thing is maybe give them out in a different way, find a different way to present them. That's what we're hoping to do across the board, just freshen them up and surprise people again with the way these awards are given.

The giving out of awards should be the whole show, not just "a big chunk". First sign of anyone having to accept in the aisle again I'm turning off.

[OscarGuy]

Here's another article. Similar vein, but some interesting new tidbits.


Oscar producers promise a new take on the big show

By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen, Ap Entertainment Writer – Fri Feb 6, 5:00 pm ET

CULVER CITY, Calif. – Bill Condon and Laurence Mark breeze into their offices at Sony Studios for a quick break during another marathon workday. The writer-director and producer, who worked together on 2006's "Dreamgirls," are joining forces again — this time to put on the 81st annual Academy Awards.

It's the first time Condon, 53, and Mark, 59, have produced an Oscar telecast, and throughout the process, they've been making their own rules. They chose entertainer Hugh Jackman to host, rather than the usual standup comedian, and have kept nearly every element of the production — including presenters and performers — secret.

Not even members of the academy staff know who'll take the stage on the night of Feb. 22.

The maverick producers took a few minutes to share their thoughts with The Associated Press about how they're preparing for Hollywood's biggest night.

___

AP: What have your lives been like since you've taken on this Oscar job?

Condon: We've both made a lot of movies, but it's never been as intense as this is. It really is. We're stumbling home at midnight every night and working on the weekends. It's a full-time thing.

Mark: Well because you have this deadline that is, well, finite. You can't fuss around ... You have a little leeway in movies, but you don't have any leeway here.

AP: How do you prepare for a job like this?

Condon: We watched a lot of old shows. We each had our favorites we went back to look at. Some of them held up, some of them didn't. We're both huge theater fans, so all of that stuff, and we both work in some way in live entertainment, so all of that comes in.

Mark: In a way, we do stand on the shoulders of all the Oscar producers before.

Condon: It's vaudeville. It really is putting on a vaudeville act and you've got 30 acts you're putting on basically and you hope that most of them are going to work.

AP: Why all the secrecy?

Condon: We wanted to restore a certain kind of mystery to it. When I look at the old shows, one of the great things is they're all giving this party and we're lucky to be invited to it. Recently it's become more just like a TV show where they promote everything, you know exactly who you're going to see. So I think you have to watch the show in order to find out what's going to happen, in order to see some of the dresses, in order to see some of the stars, and I think that just makes it more interesting as the thing goes on ... It just adds some interest.

Mark: We could just never figure out why you would say everything you were going to do before you did it. Why not just kind of do it and hope people tune in to see what you're doing.

AP: Could it backfire?

Mark: I think people tune in to see the Oscars. I don't think they tune in to see any one person, or any one person perform or present. I think they tune in to see the Oscars and what we're all up to this year with them, so that is our theory.

AP: Did you get any resistance from the academy or the network with that approach?

Mark: It took the academy a moment or two but I think they actually got on board very quickly with it. The academy has been around for a chunk of time and they do have traditions, and we're honoring as many of them as we can possibly manage to honor. But one or two (we're) breaking and they seem to enjoy the fact that things like this are going on, because by the way, you're talking about it, aren't you?

AP: How much room is there to revamp a show that requires 24 awards be presented on camera?

Condon: That is a given and it's a big chunk of the show: we're going to give out awards. The thing is maybe give them out in a different way, find a different way to present them. That's what we're hoping to do across the board, just freshen them up and surprise people again with the way these awards are given.

AP: Let's go through some of the rumors. True that you're taking some things out of the Kodak Theater?

Mark: There may be a bit of that.

AP: Is it true presenters won't walk the red carpet?

Mark: Of course there will be some presenters on the red carpet for heaven's sake. But there will be some surprises, some presenters who won't be on the red carpet. But it's not like there's some edict going on here.

AP: Are you really planning to close the show with clips from forthcoming films?

Mark: We're collecting them. The theory being this was 2008, and look at all the things you may have to look forward to in 2009 so that the show doesn't just end with "Good night."

Condon: It keeps you watching right through. The one rule we have is it's nothing that's appeared on trailers so it will be — if it works — a glimpse of stuff you've never seen before of the movies coming up.

AP: How will you measure success?

Condon: We're very excited by all the things we're doing and if we get close to executing them the way that we're planning, I think we'll feel very good about it. (Veteran Oscar producer) Gil Cates gave us that advice which was you have to please yourself and you're never going to please everybody. That's part of the show too. There's always going to be people who pick at it. We're ready for that.

Mark: One of the things we'll be happy about is if we come in close to three hours, to be very honest and not to be too artistic about it, but we are trying very hard to make that happen. The closer we get, the happier we'll be. It hasn't been three hours in decades.

AP: So you're really keeping all the presenters secret until the big night — except for the ones who out themselves?

Mark: The ones that out themselves will have their all-access passes denied.

[Big Magilla]

One switch: Instead of lining up last year's winners and stars with upcoming movies to tout, Condon and Mark are reaching out to those names associated with a 2008 movie. And there will be a few blasts from Hollywood's past, too.

•Applause-free "In Memoriam" tribute. Regular Oscar watchers often cringe when homage is paid to those in the movie business who died in the past year. That is because the audience can't help but clap harder for better-known names, essentially turning the solemn segment into a popularity contest.

Not this year. "We can't control the applause," Condon says, "but we can control what you hear on TV."

Two very welcome improvements.

[Sonic Youth]

More details of the show revealed.


Oscar show promises fun with new producers at the helm
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY

Expect these no-shows at the Oscars this year.

Batman for best picture.

Clint Eastwood going after his first acting win as a crusty coot in Gran Torino, probably his last on-screen role.

Heath Ledger, the late Aussie actor who gave the year's most raved-about performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, accepting a supporting trophy for what is the safest bet of the night.

On a more positive note, however, there also won't be the same old opening monologue, endless movie clips, an abundance of canned segments, silly prefab presenter banter and embarrassing interruptions of impassioned speeches.

At least that's the plan, say filmmakers Bill Condon, 53, and Laurence Mark, 59, the unflappably enthusiastic first-time producers of the 81st edition of the annual test of viewer endurance known as the Academy Awards. The show airs Feb. 22 on ABC.

When it comes to entertaining the masses, it doesn't really matter what is on the ballot, Mark insists. His and Condon's primary objective is "to celebrate all the movies of 2008." Blockbusters, sleepers, art-house fare, you name it. Attention will be paid to movie history, too, "but no clips of Gone With the Wind."

In other words, these fellows aren't losing sleep over how the voters went for the low-profile Holocaust-themed drama The Reader over superhero sensation The Dark Knight in the top contest.

"We have enough great material to attract a crowd," Condon says. "It's the academy's job to honor the best movies, not what will provide the highest ratings. We both feel they show great integrity in what they do."

"They did provide us with lots of movie stars," Mark quickly adds. That would include Brad Pitt of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Angelina Jolie of Changeling, Hollywood's very own prom king and queen, who each are competing for acting honors.

Nearly impossible task

Condon also suggests there are plenty of horse races among the 24 categories, especially the best-actor and supporting-actress contests, even if the crowd-pleasing Slumdog Millionaire has been best-picture top dog at nearly every other awards show. "And The Dark Knight is still up for eight awards," he says.

Even better: The best-song category, a prime time for bathroom breaks thanks to often ill-conceived staging, has only three nominees: Peter Gabriel's WALL·E ditty and two Bollywood-infused numbers from Slumdog Millionaire.

Not that they expect it all to be a breeze. Says Condon, who wrote and directed 2006's Dreamgirls with Mark as producer: "This makes doing a movie musical look easy. It is very intense."

Barack Obama might have them beat when it comes to tough new jobs. But the daunting chore faced by these Hollywood vets may run a close second as they attempt to re-establish the Academy Awards as an event that's worth watching. To do so, they must convince an increasingly awards-show-adverse public (the Golden Globes just suffered its second-lowest ratings since 1995) that a bloated and often clumsy pageant of self-promotion can be must-see, instead of must-flee, TV.

Academy president Sid Ganis has his reasons why he recruited Condon and Mark to tackle an assignment that often is a logistical nightmare for even the most stalwart showmen. As he told Variety: "Both of them are busy, working filmmakers, both are smart, tasteful, elegant — and they're fun."

But why did this savvy duo decide to take on what seems an impossible challenge? "Sid said he was open to new ideas," Mark says, "and I thought, 'Wow, we could shake things up and be free to do so.' Even if we can't guarantee everything will work."

Besides, these longtime Oscar buffs just couldn't say no. "I get a big budget to do a show for one night," Condon says, "It's a lot of fun."

Says Marks: "We are flying by the seat of our pants. I get a kick out of that. There is no possible way we can plan for everything that happens."

Besides, the pair can't do much worse than last year's effort put on by predecessor Gil Cates, when the dark crime yarn No Country for Old Men took best picture amid a slew of low-grossing, downbeat titles. The ratings plunged to 32 million viewers, a loss of nearly 8 million from the year before and the least-watched ceremony ever.

The gold standard for Condon was 1968, when the musical Oliver! won best picture and Broadway's Gower Champion produced and directed.

"It was the year of 'Hello, gorgeous,' " Mark says, referring to how Barbra Streisand memorably greeted her statuette when the Funny Girl star tied with Katharine Hepburn for best actress.

"It was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion," Condon recalls. "It was very sleek and midcentury modern. There was a real theatrical imagination behind the show. Elegant, not all glitzed up."

Picking up on that theme, the producers hope their version is "appropriate and elegant," especially at a time of economic hardships and a foggy future. "It is time to tap your troubles away, and we hope this will do that," Mark says.

'Mistakes are our friends'

With slightly less than a month to go, there is a lot of planning and preparation ahead. But Condon and Mark already have a blueprint, one that involves tossing aside tradition in favor of surprise.

"The only thing you must do is give all the awards out live onstage," Mark says. "You have to respect that. But there are many ways to do that, mind you." What is in the works:

•The host from Oz. The producers were out to make a statement when they selected X-Men star Hugh Jackman after a string of comedians such as Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres.

Yes, Wolverine has animal magnetism galore. But the Australian actor, who previously handled the Tony Awards with aplomb, also has some considerable musical chops after starring in The Boy From Oz and Oklahoma! on stage.

"He can sing, dance and looks great in a tuxedo," Condon says. At some point in the evening, Jackman will perform in a production number that was conceived by his Australia director, Baz Luhrmann.

•A cozier atmosphere. Condon doesn't just want a ceremony. He wants to throw a party.

If that means dismantling the Kodak Theatre to better encourage a sense of community among the attendees, so be it. "You don't have to have large columns or a big staircase or 20-foot-tall Oscars on stage," he says. "That's not in the bylaws."

They have hired David Rockwell, who designed the theater, to make adjustments and create sets.

•Room for spontaneity. Both producers believe the show has relied on too much pre-recorded material.

"That tradition started a few years ago, when they tried to avoid mistakes," Condon says. "But we have decided that mistakes are our friends. Out of more live segments will hopefully spring more spontaneity."

•Mystery presenters. When it was announced that the identity of the awards presenters would be kept secret, more than a few Oscar watchers questioned the move. Why not publicize who will appear?

"Do you actually think anyone tunes in to see someone present an award?" Mark says. "They suddenly hear so-and-so is presenting, and young males will watch? Well, no."

One switch: Instead of lining up last year's winners and stars with upcoming movies to tout, Condon and Mark are reaching out to those names associated with a 2008 movie. And there will be a few blasts from Hollywood's past, too.

•Three-hour show, not three-hour speeches. Both vow to adhere to the three-hour mark. "We have done exercises to see what we can better speed along and streamline," Condon says.

As for having the orchestra play off long-winded speechmakers, it's a situation they would rather avoid.

"It's so ungracious," Condon says. "We will do everything we can not to have to do it. We will still put a little fear into the winners not to go on." However, the 45-second rule still stands. Mark's suggestion: "Don't thank your laundress."

•Jack Nicholson — probably. One connection Mark will try to capitalize on is his long association with the epitome of Oscar cool, whose mischievous leer is always welcome, even if he didn't appear in a movie this year.

"He does embody Oscar," says Mark, who was involved with Terms of Endearment and As Good as It Gets, for which Nicholson won two of his three Academy Awards.

"The show went way out of fashion in the '60s and '70s," Condon says of the man behind the shades. "He singlehandedly brought it back when he was nominated for Easy Rider."

•Applause-free "In Memoriam" tribute. Regular Oscar watchers often cringe when homage is paid to those in the movie business who died in the past year. That is because the audience can't help but clap harder for better-known names, essentially turning the solemn segment into a popularity contest.

Not this year. "We can't control the applause," Condon says, "but we can control what you hear on TV."

If Condon and Mark can manage to channel the spirit and drive they usually invest into what they do and put it into the Oscar show, it probably can't help but make some sort of difference.

"It is fun putting on a show," Condon says.

"Yeah," Mark says. "He's Judy Garland. I'm Mickey Rooney."

Intermission is over. Back to work. "We have to dash and beg someone to present foreign film," Mark says. "We are hoping for Hillary Clinton."

[Penelope]

From the NY Times:

A Hollywood Party, and You’re Invited
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
CULVER CITY, Calif.

BILL CONDON’S father was a New York City police detective, the scrupulous kind who mostly kept an eye on other cops. His mother, meanwhile, was a Queens housewife who loved movies and took her son, then 11, to see “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” because her husband wouldn’t go.

Laurence Mark is the son of a New York talent agent who helped inspire those street-smart, deli-eating show business types in Woody Allen’s “Broadway Danny Rose.” As for his mother, the club singer Marion Carter — she was hauling Mr. Mark off to see “Mame,” the stage musical, in 1966, even as Mr. Condon was coping with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Somewhere in all that history lie the roots of next month’s Oscar telecast.

Mr. Mark, 59, is the producer, and Mr. Condon, 53, the executive producer, of the 81st Academy Awards ceremony, set for Feb. 22 on ABC.

They are New York-raised Hollywood transplants, each bitten long ago by the movie bug. And to talk with them now, weeks before Oscar night, is to come away with the sense that Mr. Mark and Mr. Condon are out not so much to produce the event as to find it again — for the sake of both the viewers and those who have made an industry of the show.

Nostalgia for entertainment’s livelier times also has a little bit to do with it.

Mr. Mark is fairly certain he was conceived during a romantic interlude in an Atlantic City dressing room. “I was born in a trunk,” he said recently over a joint lunch with Mr. Condon in the commissary of the Sony Pictures lot here, where his film production company is based.

Mr. Condon, starting from the outside, more or less scratched his way into a movie career. He worked briefly as a film journalist, was a writer for a science-fiction thriller called “Strange Invaders” and then made his mark in New York cinema circles, at the age of 26, as winner of “the world’s most difficult film trivia quiz” in The Village Voice. He made it to the Oscar stage in 1999, when he won for the best adapted screenplay, for “Gods and Monsters.”

That year Mr. Condon was hustled out of the bathroom by a publicist just as the award was being announced. The presenter, Steve Martin, then addled him slightly by backing into the big moment. “And the loser isn’t ,” Mr. Martin said as he opened the envelope.

Working through a platter of sashimi and such at Sony — they were prepping for a first meeting that afternoon with Hugh Jackman, just named the Oscar host — the two agreed that they found a lesson in that unanticipated sort of thing.

“Mistakes are our friends,” said Mr. Mark, who would not be sorry to see his show deliver a few shocks and shivers, intended or otherwise.

He has been watching a tape from 1977, when the screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote “Network,” was supposed to accept a posthumous Oscar for the star of that film, Peter Finch. Mr. Chayefsky, who had wrangled with Mr. Finch, insisted onstage that Mr. Finch’s wife, Eletha, in the audience, had more right to receive the award. (She ended up accepting it for her husband.)

Their impromptu threw the production off track. But emotionally it worked.

“It’s in the nature of television to restrain the spontaneity of a live event,” Mr. Condon said. “Things become more and more prepackaged.”

An unabashed fan of the stage and movie musical — he was the writer and director of “Dreamgirls,” which was produced by Mr. Mark, and received eight Oscar nominations in 2007 — Mr. Condon found his own favorite flub in 1986.

Stanley Donen produced the show that year. He brought Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds onstage in a homage to their film of 34 years earlier, “Singin’ in the Rain.” But Mr. O’Connor suddenly bolted to retrieve a pair of forgotten reading glasses, while everybody else had fun at his expense.

“Once upon a time, if I’m not mistaken, it was a party,” Mr. Mark said of the Oscar ceremony. “We’d like to bring back a little bit of party flavor.” Typically Mr. Condon and Mr. Mark have experienced the Oscars as just that — at home, in front of a television, with friends.

Mr. Mark usually watches from his house along the hilltop highway Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Mr. Condon lives in Hollywood, just behind the Kodak Theater, where the Academy Awards are handed out. (Yes, he can walk to the show.)

As of late December the two had yet to settle on the details of a telecast that typically becomes a full-time job for its producers in the final six or eight weeks preceding its airdate.

Professionally Mr. Mark still needed to prepare for the release later this year of “Julie & Julia,” which is written and directed by Nora Ephron, and pairs Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in a story about a young woman’s culinary obsession with Julia Child.

Mr. Condon, for his part, has been writing a film about the comedian Richard Pryor. Like “Dreamgirls,” “Gods and Monsters” and the Academy Awards, it is a project that lets show business look in on itself.

Both have said publicly they expect to popularize this year’s Oscar ceremony by making room for films that moved the audience, whether or not they receive nominations. That could help boost ratings for the telecast, which dipped to an all-time low of about 32 million domestic viewers last year.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences depends on the Oscar show for almost all of its revenue of more than $70 million a year. If ratings keep slipping, big fees from ABC and the Walt Disney Company’s international television distribution unit could be harder to justify when long-term contracts come up for renewal in future years.

Mr. Mark and Mr. Condon are also talking about a communal approach that might expose the rest of us to at least some of the real feelings movie people share among themselves.

They hint at an element of surprise. Star presenters and viewers alike could find themselves ever so slightly off balance, if that’s what it takes to jar things loose.

Look, too, amid the grandeur, for intimate touches. Not incidentally, Mr. Mark for the last four years has been a producer (with Dan Jinks, whose credits include “Milk”) of what may be Hollywood’s favorite night out, an annual benefit for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, a show business charity.

Mr. Jackman has been a co-host of those proceedings. Mr. Condon has done a stint as its director. In a ritual far less chilly than Oscar night, stage and screen stars like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Audra McDonald, Jennifer Hudson and Shirley MacLaine typically sing and dance for one another in a soundstage — and actually seem to love it.

“The best time is in the green room, when they’re watching one another go on,” Mr. Mark said.

In choosing Mr. Jackman as host Mr. Mark and Mr. Condon broke with the recent tradition of relying on comedians like Jon Stewart, Chris Rock and Ellen DeGeneres, all of whom delivered joke-filled monologues and worked in a contemporary mold that was set by Billy Crystal during his turns as master of ceremonies. Though a screen veteran, Mr. Jackman has considerable charisma onstage — something he has demonstrated in “The Boy From Oz” and then by hosting the Tony Awards.

In practical terms much about the Oscars will remain the same of course. With two dozen awards to present in a few hours, no producer can wish away a certain amount of ceremonial drudgery.

Gil Cates, who produced last year’s show and 13 before it, said he had passed along to Mr. Condon and Mr. Mark some wisdom that Samuel Goldwyn Jr., an earlier Oscar producer, had handed down to him.

“Whatever you do, you can be certain that half the people who comment on the show are not going to like it,” Mr. Cates recalled.

He then added some final advice that appears to have stuck:

“Do what you like, and make yourselves happy.”

[Hustler]

I have no interest in seeing any of these people presenting.

Me neither. I´m looking forward to seeing the old glories to present: Leachman, Burstyn, Hackman, Taylor, De Havilland, Fontaine, Margret, Novak, Redgrave.
C´mon Bill!

Can we write him? or sent a public recomendation?

We can ask Damien for help.

[HarryGoldfarb]

Shia Lebouf, Zach Efron, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper to name a few...

I have no interest in seeing any of these people presenting.

Me neither. I´m looking forward to seeing the old glories to present: Leachman, Burstyn, Hackman, Taylor, De Havilland, Fontaine, Margret, Novak, Redgrave.
C´mon Bill!

Can we write him? or sent a public recomendation?

[Hustler]

Shia Lebouf, Zach Efron, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper to name a few...

I have no interest in seeing any of these people presenting.

Me neither. I´m looking forward to seeing the old glories to present: Leachman, Burstyn, Hackman, Taylor, De Havilland, Fontaine, Margret, Novak, Redgrave.
C´mon Bill!

[Big Magilla]

Olivia is frequently in the L.A. area visiting her daughter and would probably go if asked. Joan lives in Carmel and has no interest in going to L.A. or the Oscars again.

[OscarGuy]

An Oscar night reconciliation? It would be the talk of Hollywood! Unfortunately, neither has seemed very willing to travel.

[anonymous1980]

Olivia de Havilland presenting Best Picture this year would be absolutely magical.

Even more magical would be having her co-present it with her 91-year-old kid sister, Joan Fontaine. In fact that would be miraculous.

They still have this grudge going on, right?

You should seriously bring this up to Bill Condon. He should try to make it happen.

[Damien]

Olivia de Havilland presenting Best Picture this year would be absolutely magical.

Even more magical would be having her co-present it with her 91-year-old kid sister, Joan Fontaine. In fact that would be miraculous.

[anonymous1980]

Olivia de Havilland presenting Best Picture this year would be absolutely magical.

[HarryGoldfarb]

Shia Lebouf, Zach Efron, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper to name a few...

I have no interest in seeing any of these people presenting. I don't know who half of them are.