If the Academy send a press release in April it likely means new rules for Oscars. And today’s announcement featured a bunch that will affect not only the voting, but how studios campaign for the 91st Academy Awards. Oh, and it might conveniently increase the organization’s revenues too.
The biggest voting change is coming to the music categories. This year all members of the Music Branch will be eligible to view films vying for Original Score and film clips of eligible Original Songs in order to vote in a preliminary round. This will result in a shortlist of 15 titles in each category using the preferential voting system (which will presumably be released to the public like the short lists in other categories). The final nominees for Original Score and five nominees for Original Song will then be chosen by branch members in a second round of balloting also using preferential voting. As to the previous system, this opens the door for many more music members to participate in determining the nominees.
Documentary Feature films will no longer have to have qualifying runs if they won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival. According to the Academy a Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival List will be available later this spring. Furthermore, the critic review eligibility requirement has been expanded to include additional New York- and Los Angeles-based publications (we’ll hope The Playlist is part of this list). This is a huge win for Netflix, other streaming services and television networks who no longer have to four-wall (pay for a week’s run in a theater) to qualify.
Animated film producers will now get their due. Aligning with credit eligibility in the Best Picture category, rules in both the Animated Feature Film and Documentary Feature categories have been modified to allow for more than one producer to be designated as a nominee. As with Best Picture you should assume there is still a three producer limit, however.
In a procedural change, members of the Visual Effects Branch Nominating Committee will now be able to stream bake-off reels from the shortlisted films or attend satellite bake-off screenings and vote online. Previously, committee members were only able to vote in person at the Academy’s Visual Effects Bake-off in Los Angeles. Considering how many members of the branch work overseas (Vancouver, London, Hong Kong and Australia), this should allow for individual companies in LA and SF to have less pull in determining if their work makes the cut.
In a major marketing change, studios, distributors and filmmakers will be required to use an Academy approved mailing house to send sanctioned awards materials for eligible films to Academy members. Each approved mailing house will be provided with an official list of Academy members who have opted-in along with their contact information to facilitate both physical and digital mailings. This is a system similar to what the Television Academy does and many studios are wary of it. The goal is to stop private collectors of Academy addresses who sell them for access. What it may do is make communication more difficult. If a screening is now canceled, moved or there is a time change studios and distributors can not E-mail them directly. Sounds like that would never be problematic, right? Also, who profits from this should immediately be in question (the Academy? A mailing house with no competition?). And if you don’t think consultants around town are pissed, well…
Lastly, the number of post-nominations screenings with a filmmaker Q&A is now limited to a maximum of four regardless of category or country in which the event takes place. This rule eliminates the two additional screenings currently allowed for Documentary and Foreign Language Film nominees. To say this may force less members to see these films in a theater is an understatement and, frankly, a mistake.
The next major announcement from the Academy should be regarding the new members invited to join the organization. Traditionally, this occurs in June.
The 2018 Academy Awards will take place on Feb. 24, 2019 and air on ABC.