Ceremony Details

Big Magilla
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Post by Big Magilla »

Since they've invited Celine Dion to groan through the In Memoriam segment I guess they won't be using John Barry's music to take us through it.
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Post by OscarGuy »

Since we're doing an animated set, why don't we invite Snow White back and let her dance with Russell Brand. Then have Rob Lowe show up and shoot Brand dead. Would be more entertaining.
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Post by flipp525 »

Oh, god. Sounds worse than ever. Why not go 80's retro and just do a big black laquer set?
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Post by Big Magilla »

Reza wrote:"This is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar, so we go to an animated environment to present that Oscar -- actually two, animated feature and animated short -- but the reason we are there is to celebrate that this is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar."
Ugh!
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Post by Reza »

Details of Dramatic Changes for Oscars Telecast

3:57 PM 2/18/2011 by Gregg Kilday - Hd Reporter



Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer explain to The Hollywood
Reporter that they are taking a radical departure from past shows.

The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality.

This year's Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure
from past years. Producers of the Feb. 27 show are abandoning the
concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of
"projections" to give the show a constantly changing look.

"Our design this year is actually going to reflect more content than
you would usually expect of an awards show of this type," producer
Don Mischer tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with fellow
producer Bruce Cohen in the Kodak Theater. "We're using our
environment to take us to different places, different times, and it
will change dramatically. The look will change from act to act."

Producers plan to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history.

"We're doing six or seven scenic transitions during the show, but
they are each sort of a different concept," Cohen explains. "In other
words, one might be a scene from a film, one might be a more specific
time in history, one might be a specific event, one might be a
specific genre. The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011
-- not literally, but metaphorically -- and take the audience, both
in the room and on television, to a specific time and place."

Pressed for more detail, Cohen adds, "This is the tenth anniversary
of the best animated feature Oscar, so we go to an animated
environment to present that Oscar -- actually two, animated feature
and animated short -- but the reason we are there is to celebrate
that this is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar."

The transitions, Mischer explains, will not be long segments, but
30-45 second set-ups. "We are not going back to teach history, but to
put the awards in context."

The design scheme grew out of the theme that the two producers
devised once they began working on the show back in June. In an
extensive review of past broadcasts, they were struck by the two-fold
nature of the assignment. On the one hand, they have to come up with
something new and different. On the other, they wanted to recognize
the previous 82 years of Oscar history.

"Is there any way to approach the show where those two ideas are
working together and not fighting each other with every single
decision?" they asked themselves. The solution, they decided, was
somehow to combine the old and the new.

To that end, they cast Anne Hathaway and James Franco -- two of the
youngest hosts to ever front the Oscars -- as audience surrogates for
the journey.

"Yes, they are famous, but they are on their way up," Cohen says of
the two stars. "They are not untouchable, they are not unreachable.
We hope they will offer [the audience] a way in. So everyone come
along, and we'll see through the eyes of these two up-and-coming stars."

The hosts' job, he says, will be "to take the audience on this
journey of a show that will hopefully start in one place, and if it
all goes according to plan, it will take you back to where we started
at the end."

To realize that on stage visually, the producers have been working
with production designer Steve Bass, who's previously worked with
Mischer on such shows as the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards and We Are
One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.

While the production has moved into the Kodak to set up the show,
it's been using the daytime hours to hang the physical scenery on
which the projections will be displayed, and then during the night
another team has been programming the projections. Working throughout
this weekend, the goal is to have the whole system up-and-running by Monday.

So how did the two producers sell the concept of their novel approach
to the Academy and ABC, since it wasn't simply a matter of
constructing the sort of physical models that have been used in the past?

While the two producers walked the Academy and ABC through what they
call "the story of the show," Cohen admits, "We weren't able to show
them what the actual images would look like, but we were able to show
them what the images would be. For better or worse, I think they have
a very clear idea in their heads of what we think the show is going
to be. We're kind of as curious as they are [to see] when it's all up
this weekend, how similar what we've had in our heads for the last
month or two is to the actual experience."
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Post by ITALIANO »

Damien wrote:(certainly not on Marco's set :D )
:)

Yeah, it didn't traslate well in Italian... And by the way I think it was the writers' fault more than Condon's - the words these poor actors had to read on the Teleprompter were embarassing, really. The idea in itself wasn't even that dreadful - it's the way it was done that made me cringe. Forced, superficial lines - if I had been at the receiving end of those tributes I would have probably left the theatre.

But I repeat, the idea could have been better done. And the second year it was objectively a bit better, but this thing clearly couldn't last for long - it's the kind of device that when repeated shows all the emptiness behind it. And a really good idea can be repeated countless times.
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Post by Damien »

anonymous wrote:I also agree that the presentation of the acting awards where former acting winners give tributes to the acting nominees concocted by Bill Condon a couple of years ago was wonderful. That moment when Shirley McLaine was praising Anne Hathaway and Anne being moved to tears by her words and mouthing thank you was one of my favorite moments of that show. The phrase "it's an honor to be nominated"felt REAL at the time.
I was in the theatre, and the overall mood there of having 5 Oscar winners together on stage at the same time was electric. I can't say if it played asimpressively on TV (certainly not on Marco's set :D ) but at the Kodak people were blown away.

I love clips, too, but as Magilla noted, you see the same clips over and over again and they lose their impact (which is primarily why Bill Condon and Larry Mark wanted to do something different,) Mason and I would for years after quote the clip that showed up on all awards and awards-related shows. I can still see clearly James Garner in Murphy's Romance once again telling Sally Field, "I' not your damn Dutch uncle."

Clips have gotten much worse, even. Because now what gets shown at awards shows tends to be truncated trailers.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

Big Magilla wrote:As far as the live presenters, yes, it was a wonderful surprise two years ago. Last year's entire show was a travesty, including most of the people they got to introduce the nominees - I can't recall a single one, but I still recall most of the presenters from the year before. We knew they couldn't keep up with they level of class forever, but for it to deteriorate the way it did in just a year, was sad.

I also agree that the presentation of the acting awards where former acting winners give tributes to the acting nominees concocted by Bill Condon a couple of years ago was wonderful. That moment when Shirley McLaine was praising Anne Hathaway and Anne being moved to tears by her words and mouthing thank you was one of my favorite moments of that show. The phrase "it's an honor to be nominated"felt REAL at the time.

HOWEVER, the producers of last year's show, Adam Shankman, wrong-headedly thought that it would be more emotional to have "friends" and "colleagues" of the nominees to do the tributes. But it didn't feel that way at all, for the most part (Gabourey Sidibe's was the exception because she was a non-actress who got friggin' OPRAH). It felt even more like a circle jerk rather than a tribute. And why they placed more importance to the LEAD than to the SUPPORTING performers is also wrong-headed.




Edited By anonymous on 1298022022
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Post by Big Magilla »

Damien wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:My only fear is that they will overload the show with young, hip, albeit not so smart presenters and completely ignore the older contingent we don't get to see so much of anymore.
I understand that Luise Rainer will be entering the stage inside an egg.
That I doubt, but I wouldn't at all be surprised to see Whoopi Goldberg enter in an egg.
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Post by Damien »

Big Magilla wrote:My only fear is that they will overload the show with young, hip, albeit not so smart presenters and completely ignore the older contingent we don't get to see so much of anymore.

I understand that Luise Rainer will be entering the stage inside an egg.




Edited By Damien on 1297999908
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Post by Hustler »

Unfortunately it will be my first oscar night on air. I will be flying from Mexico to Buenos Aires by then, so, I will miss the ceremony.
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Post by ITALIANO »

flipp525 wrote:
ITALIANO wrote:I don't know... I'm sure that everyone here was so enthusiastic two years ago. But I mean, one can change his mind of course.
No, there was no changing of minds. I said right at the outset that I didn't like the fact that they subbed out clips of nominated performances for a "tribute". You have this bizarre habit of pretending not to hear what people say, like my last post, for example.
Ok, it seems that I don't have a good memory. It happens.
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Post by Big Magilla »

I vaguely remember the 1972 clips Tee referred to, but I have very fond memories of the 1967 awards in which four former winners, Katharine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Grace Kelly and Anne Bancroft, one each from the first four decades showed clips of the Oscar winning films within each decade. It was special because these four actresses, the first three anyway, were not ones who showed up at the opening of every envelope. If the clips highlighting the work of the nominated actors and actresses are introduced by actors and actresses of the caliber of those four, especially if they are performers who seldom participate in such things, it will indeed be something worth doing. If it's the same old tired presenters, then not so much.

As for the clips themselves, they had meaning when we hadn't seen the same clips played over and over again at every precursor, but now that we have, there really is nothing special they can convey.

As far as the live presenters, yes, it was a wonderful surprise two years ago. Last year's entire show was a travesty, including most of the people they got to introduce the nominees - I can't recall a single one, but I still recall most of the presenters from the year before. We knew they couldn't keep up with that level of class forever, but for it to deteriorate the way it did in just a year, was sad.

The good thing about last year is that it was so bad that this year's show can't possibly be any worse and with the hip, young, albeit very smart and very funny hosts as opposed to tired old Steve Martin an Alec Baldwin, we're off to a good start. My only fear is that they will overload the show with young, hip, albeit not so smart presenters and completely ignore the older contingent we don't get to see so much of anymore.




Edited By Big Magilla on 1298043532
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Post by flipp525 »

ITALIANO wrote:I don't know... I'm sure that everyone here was so enthusiastic two years ago. But I mean, one can change his mind of course.
No, there was no changing of minds. I said right at the outset that I didn't like the fact that they subbed out clips of nominated performances for a "tribute". You have this bizarre habit of pretending not to hear what people say, like my last post, for example.
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Post by Sabin »

Oh, hell no. My first thought was "Oh, no. They're going to do it with all of them." I don't mind the introductions but it embodies everything that is forced and weird about Awards Shows. There are moments of graciousness but it's also pageantry, forced and faux. I liked what they did with the Supporting Characters and featured less one clip but a few blended together to show a range of emotions. I hope that is brought back.
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