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The OscarThe official name of the Oscar statuette is the Academy Award of Merit. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 inches (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight (rendered in Art Deco style) holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes, signifying the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers and Technicians.[4]MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Academy members, supervised the design of the award trophy[5]by printing the design on scroll. Then sculptor George Stanley sculpted Gibbons' design in clay, and Alex Smith cast the statue in tin and copper and then gold-plated it over a composition of 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper (Levy 2003). The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base (Levy 2003). Approximately fifty Oscars are made each year in Chicago, Illinois by the manufacturer, R.S. Owens. If they fail to meet strict quality control standards, the statuettes are cut in half and melted down.[6] The root of the name "Oscar" is contested. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson.[7] Another claimed origin is that of the Academy’s Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, who first saw the award in 1931 and made reference of the statuette reminding her of her Uncle Oscar (Levy 2003). Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick’s naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'" (Levy 2003). Both Oscar and Academy Award are registered trademarks of the Academy, fiercely protected through litigation and threats thereof. Ownership of Oscar statuettesSince 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for $1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums (Levy 2003).
Academy membershipAll members must be invited to join. Invitation comes from the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures. Though winning an Academy Award usually results in an invitation to join, membership is not automatic. New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although past press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. Academy membership is divided into 15 Branches, representing different disciplines in motion pictures. Members may not belong to more than one Branch. If a person not yet a member is nominated in more than one category in a single year resulting in invitations from more than one Branch, he/she must choose which branch when he/she accepts membership. Members whose work does not fall within one of the Branches may belong to a group known as "Members At Large." NominationsToday, according to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film has to open in the previous calendar year (from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31) in Los Angeles County, California, to qualify.[9]Rule 2 states that a film must be "feature-length" (defined as at least 40 minutes) to qualify for an award (except for Short Subject awards). It must also exist either on a 35mm or 70mm film print OR on a 24fps or 48fps progressive scan digital film print with a native resolution no lower than 1280x720. The members of the various branches nominate those in their respective fields (actors are nominated by the actors' branch, etc.) while all members may submit nominees for Best Picture. The winners are then determined by a second round of voting in which all members are then allowed to vote in most categories.[10] Awards nightThe major awards are given out at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in February or March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is normally required for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bowtie, and musical performers typically don't adhere to this (nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast). The Academy has for several years claimed that the award show has a billion viewers internationally, but this has so far not been confirmed by any independent sources. Neither has the Academy explained how it has reached this figure. The Academy Awards is the only awards ceremony televised live nationwide (the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Grammys are broadcast live in the East Coast, but they are on tape delay in the West Coast). The Awards show was first televised on NBC in 1953. NBC continued to broadcast the event until 1960 when the ABC Network took over, televising the festivities through 1970, after which NBC reassumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976; it has contracted to do so through the year 2014.[11] After more than fifty years of being held in late March or early April, the ceremonies were moved up to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. The earlier date is also to advantage of ABC, as it currently usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 38 wins and 167 nominations.[12] On March 30, 1981, the awards ceremony was postponed for one day after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C. The awards event itself is now designated a National Special Security Event by the United States Department of Homeland Security. Movie studios are strictly prohibited from advertising movies during the broadcast. Since 2002 movie stars have been seen arriving at the Academy Awards in hybrid vehicles;[13] during the telecast of the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio and former vice president Al Gore announced that ecologically intelligent practices had been integrated into the planning and execution of the Oscar presentation and several related events.[14] VenuesThe 1st Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. Subsequent banquet ceremonies in the 1930s and early 40s were held in Los Angeles at either The Ambassador Hotel or the Biltmore Hotel Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the "Academy Award Theater" at the Academy's then-headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.[15] From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. The Oscars then moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California in 1961. By 1968, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Los Angeles, this time at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Los Angeles Music Center. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion hosted 20 consecutive Oscar ceremonies until 1988, when the Academy started to alternate between the Music Center and the Shrine Auditorium. In 2002, Hollywood's Kodak Theatre became the first permanent home of the awards. It is connected to the Hollywood & Highland Center, which contains 640,000 square feet of space including retail, restaurants, nightclubs, other establishments and a six-screen cinema. CriticismThe Academy Awards have also often been criticized for being overly conservative. Critics have noted that many Best Picture Academy Award winners in the past have not stood the test of time. Several of these films, such as Around the World in 80 Days, Grand Hotel, Oliver!, Marty and Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth are often considered to have aged poorly and to have little of the impact they had on their initial release.[16][17][18] Several films that currently have wide critical approval were not named Best Picture;[19] the most obvious example is Citizen Kane (nominated for nine Oscars but winner of only one, Best Original Screenplay) which has since come to be regarded by many as one of the greatest American films of all time. Other films that achieve critical claim and cult status are not even nominated for Best Picture. It has been suggested that actors are at a disadvantage in comedic roles, as few acting awards have been given for performances in films that could be considered primarily comedic.[20][21] It has also been suggested that actors occasionally win awards that are given more in commemoration of a career or past performances than in honor of the role for which the actor is nominated. One example is Judi Dench's relatively brief appearance (about eight minutes of screen time) in Shakespeare in Love, for which she won the 1999 Best Supporting Actress award, the year after she was unsuccessful in the Best Actress category for Mrs. Brown. Studios also lobby heavily for their films to be considered, leading to the complaint that nominations and awards may be largely a result of this lobbying rather than the quality of the material.[22] Academy members are also not required to watch all films nominated in a category (with notable exception being given to Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Language Film) before being allowed to vote, leading to voting that is often politicized by campaigning or by personal connections within the Hollywood community. Since the Membership of the Academy is dominated by the Actors' Branch, actors nominated in other categories (writing, directing, etc.) could be seen to have an unfair advantage in the voting process. AwardsImage:BobHopegettingOscar.jpg Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received five honorary Oscars for contributions to cinema and humanitarian work. Academy Award of MeritCurrent AwardsSome awards are for a film as a whole, some are for an aspect of a film.
Retired Awards
In the first year of the awards, the Best Director category was split into separate Drama and Comedy categories. At times, the Best Original Score category has been split into separate Drama and Comedy/Musical categories. Today, the Best Original Score category is one category. From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design awards were split into separate categories for black and white and color films. New AwardsThe newest awards to be added to the list of available awards from the Academy are the awards for Best Animated Feature in 1999 and Best Makeup in 1981. The Board of Governors meets each year and considers other new categories. To date, the following proposed awards have not been approved.
Special AwardsThese awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. Current Awards
Retired Award
Academy Award recordsFilm records
Acting records
Miscellaneous records
See also
References
Footnotes
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