A strange award season came to a strange end. Or perhaps “unsatisfying” end would be more like it. “Green Book” winning Best Picture had many saying the Academy had taken a step back, had others screaming for the end of the preferential ballot system (um, no) and had fans of the movie wondering what all the fuss was about. No matter where you landed on Peter Farrelly‘s flick it’s hard to dispute it’s certainly the most contentious winner since “Crash.” And for anyone at Universal, which landed its first Best Picture winner since “A Beautiful Mind” won in 2002, jumping on social media since Sunday night certainly hasn’t been the most rewarding experience.
READ MORE: In the end the 2019 Oscars turned out to be an epic tease
Oh, and did we forget to mention “Bohemian Rhapsody” or Rami Malek, the Best Actor winner who cannot satisfy anyone other than his peers and fans either through his performance or acceptance speeches? At times the personal vitriol at Malek has been so intense you would think he’d been accused of a lewd act or crime (he has not). You’d almost think Malek wrote the screenplay or directed the film himself (well, word is he actually directed his fellow actors on set, but considering the circumstances…).
What this season reiterated is that no matter how the Academy membership diversifies there will always be years like this one. A year where the Academy’s picks won’t make anyone but the members who voted for them happy. Assuming they were happy with the choices in front of them, to begin with. It also reminded us that there is inevitably always going to be a controversy of some kind. This industry ecosystem is simply too big for things not to slip through the cracks. There are too many people with diverging agendas across the board. Realizing that takes some of the joy out of it. It reminds you the awards season game is just as much as a business as a way of honoring the finest artists in arguably the greatest art form known to man. But there’s always next year, right?
That also sounds like the perfect transition to tackle my annual “new rules” for the upcoming Oscar season.
Dear god stop releasing serious contenders in December
How many times must we discuss this? Annapurna and Amazon can certainly protest, but almost all their competitors believed that “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Cold War” were in limited release before Dec. 1 there would have even more success in the nomination game. Annapurna’s “Vice” is the only film that earned a Best Picture nomination with a December release this year (star power helped), but it was never a serious contender to win the top prize. In fact, the only Oscar it took home was for Makeup and Hairstyling in a not-so-competitive field. Even “Roma” pushed its limited release to November to avoid the December AMPAS malaise. Thousands of members watch their screeners, for sure, but thousands also catch as many films in theaters as possible and that doesn’t always mean early guild or AMPAS screenings either. And with the new calendar? You better have your theatrical release no later than October or November next year if you want to make an impression.
Don’t underestimate that the new calendar is going to impact everything
Speaking of that calendar, it may seem like two weeks won’t make much of a difference, but boy will it. With the Oscars moving up to Feb. 9 phase two is effectively gone. You always had to “win” in phase one to win on Oscar Sunday and now the new calendar means there is zero margin for error. The question is whether it will make November and December campaigning unbearable for members or if they’ll finally start coming to screenings in September and October to ease the pain. Perhaps the new AMPAS president can make a friendly suggestion or two about seeing films earlier rather than later.
If you can Cannes, Cannes away
With three Best Picture nominees over the past four years, excuses about the dangers of going to Cannes seem somewhat silly at this point. It goes without saying you never know how the international press will react to a film, but if you’ve got the goods and know early critical buzz might help your release go for it. And if you have any concerns at all you simply don’t go. Moreover, you can arguably Cannes delivers more press attention than getting lost in the Venice/Telluride/TIFF shuffle because, frankly, there are less English-language films to compete against. Is a slam dunk at Cannes going to get you the Best Picture win? Obviously, you have a better shot aiming for a Venice or Telluride premiere, but let’s not forget “The Artist” did take Oscar’s top prize just seven years ago.
This ain’t Oscars Best Friend Race
Consultants ripping competing films, potential nominees or each other is nothing new. Whether it happens discreetly or in the press. It’s been a few years, however, since things were this out in the open. A suspicious Los Angeles Magazine article made the rounds attempting to discredit Netflix awards head Lisa Tabak and her team but only ended up making the writer behind it look ill-informed. What was probably more disheartening was the zeal the industry had in spreading links to the story around (honestly, did anyone know this outlet still existed?). That likely had to do more with jealousy over Netflix’s resources and the bang-up campaign they were in the middle of. That being said, we also heard of publicists complaining to competing companies about their publicists or consultants saying “so and so” was discrediting their own film. That’s nothing new, but it seemed more prolific than in recent years. Let’s consider this strategy, shall we? First of all, if you’re making that phone call you probably do have some insecurities about your own clients. Second, even if it’s true it only makes you look petty because, third and most important, if you think Academy, guild members or media are paying attention to what publicists tell them they should like or not like, you shouldn’t be in this business in the first place.
Announcing the “Green Book” Rule
Here’s the thing about a controversy surrounding a nominee or potential nominee. Unless it gets discussed on CNN for more than a five-minute segment or is repeatedly thrown in the faces of members via trade outlet E-mail alerts for days on end there’s a good chance it will fall under the radar for a good chunk of voting members. The controversy over “Green Book” Nick Vallelonga‘s Sept. 11 tweet might have flared up in the last week of nomination voting but it died quite quickly, at least in the press. It also helped that Universal quickly pulled Vallelonga from all public appearances to make sure he wouldn’t remind anyone of it. By the time the nominations came out, it was an afterthought to many dealing with the backlash over the film’s “white savior” theme which had finally gotten serious traction. In any other context, at any other time, Vallelonga’s tweet would have torpedoed the film’s chances in any category. There’s also a second part of the “Green Book” rule that’s important to note: do not count on an organic media backlash occurring to take down a competitor. Many consultants and publicists I spoke to after seeing “Green Book” in Toronto assumed there would be a plethora of think pieces which would turn the melodrama into nothing more than a Best Picture nominee, at best. And yes, there were some critical pieces published around its opening, but in general social media twitter and critics were focused on multiple issues over “Bohemian Rhapsody.” And in this era of 3-hour news cycles with one drama after another coming out of Washington, AMPAS members get distracted and more focused on what’s going on in the real world these days. It simply wasn’t framed as something important enough to warrant their attention or diminish their love for the film.
Growing international membership making major marks in specific categories
If you feel the need to dispute the growing influence of the Academy’s increasingly international membership after “Roma” didn’t take Best Picture do so at your peril. Not only was the power of these members evident in “Roma’s” 10 nominations, but in nods for other films from key branches (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” also earned 10). The DGA usually misses out on two of the Directing nods, but rarely two. Not only did Yorgos Lahtnimos earn recognition for “The Favourite” but so did “Cold War’s” Paweł Pawlikowski. Moreover, thanks to “Roma” it meant there were two Foreign Language films in the Directing category (the other being “Cold War”) which has been an insanely rare occurrence. Two Foreign Language Films, “Never Look Away” and “Cold War,” also earned Cinematography nods. That hadn’t occurred since 2005. And the acting branch nominated two non-English speaking performances from “Roma.” One is a relatively common occurrence (about every other year) with the outlier taking place in 2007 when three performances were recognized from “Babel” and “Volver” respectively. The Swedish-language “Border” landed a Hair and Makeup nomination. None of these nods on their own are new, what’s noteworthy is that all these trends coincided during one specific Oscars, a season that took place after a large number of non-American and British members were invited to join AMPAS. If you’re a distributor looking at acquiring a Foreign Language Film you legitimately now have multiple awards to chase and herald in consumer marketing efforts. Outside of films like “Amelie,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” or “Amour” that’s been a rare occurrence this Century let alone this decade.
Old rule: You can’t want it too much
We’re not going to name names, but as the season progressed it became quite evident that one particular nominee wanted to win an Oscar very, very badly. In fact, they even spoke about how important it was to them in an AP interview during phase two voting (yikes). There’s a very thin line between having fun during the season (Timothee Chalamet, Brie Larson, Eddie Redmayne, Allison Janney) and coming across as though you are entitled to win (whether it’s intentional or not). Personal publicists and consultants can only do so much, but once that becomes the narrative you’re usually done and, surprise, that’s what happened.
The A24 social media model doesn’t work for every film
One particular distributor with a major Best Picture contender this past season decided to use a relatively new advertising model to reach out to voters this year. It’s a strategy that targets AMPAS and guild members through social media. A24, in particular, has had noteworthy success with this analytics approach on campaigns for “Moonlight” and “Lady Bird” (it’s also part of their release strategies). Neon also dived into this for its FYC and consumer campaign last year for “I, Tonya.” And, both Fox Searchlight and Focus Features have had success with specific FYC campaigns over the past few years. The problem, however, is when a distributor decides to jump into this model when the film they are pushing doesn’t fit the model. In this case, the unnamed distributor needed to be primarily reaching out to older members to land a number of key nominations it missed. By the time this distributor realized there contender was in trouble they tried to shift back to more traditional ways of reaching voters. It was simply too late. Granted, there were a number of other issues at play with this particular title, but trying something new that doesn’t fit your demo can absolutely hinder your chances at success. There is no magic solution for reaching voters and winning it all.
Blockbuster Film Oscar campaigns need to go all in early
One of the best things Walt Disney Studios and their consultant did for “Black Panther” was start things early (and it should be noted this is the first time they have used a particularly well-known premier awards agency). The Marvel Studios production had already been in theaters weeks before last year’s Oscar ceremony, but anecdotal evidence revealed many AMPAS members hadn’t seen it despite it’s $700+ million tally at the box office. To get members up to speed before the deluge of contenders arrived from the fall film festivals, Disney held key AMPAS and SAG Q&A’s in New York and Los Angeles beginning in August and then started up again immediately after TIFF. It was the beginning of a long reminder campaign that was as eventually in your face as much as high-profile contenders that released in October or November. On the other hand, Paramount probably didn’t realize it had a legit shot at a Best Picture nod with it’s April hit, “A Quiet Place.” The studio had an FYC publicity campaign around director and leading man John Krasinski, but it all felt a little late and the advertising even more so. By the time SAG, WGA and PGA nods arrived it felt too late to push a narrative that it legitimately deserved a Best Picture nod (or that Emily Blunt should duplicate her SAG Supporting Actress nod with Oscar). Considering the success they had with “Black Panther,” it will be interesting to see if Disney uses a similar playbook for “The Lion King” which opens in July.
Reminder: Outdoor matters
This is sort of an addendum to the rule about social media targeting. If you truly want to get voters attention in Los Angeles (where a majority of them live) outdoor is a must. Especially if you are serious about a Best Picture nomination. It doesn’t have to be billboards, but bus shelters or wild posting in key neighborhoods are often more effective than ads in the trades. It reminds voters to make it a priority to see specific contenders. And for those driving around town stuck in traffic, it’s often in eyesight longer than a flip of a print ad. It also keeps those films top of mind for an industry that gossips and obsesses over the Oscar race more than they ever want to admit.
Surprise: AMPAS members of all ages care about the Oscars
If the Academy has learned anything over the past six months is that they not only have to communicate with them more effectively but not trust that the Governors that represent each branch accurately speak for them. The controversies over a potential Popular Film category and a telecast that intended to award four categories off air created firestorms the organization’s leadership were simply equipped for. Moreover, it wasn’t just the “old guard” who were upset about the changes. Younger members voiced their displeasure in droves on social media and directly with The Academy. The good news is that current AMPAS president John Bailey is termed out. Whoever replaces him will have to find ways to move the Oscars and organization forward while keeping “fairness” in mind.