Awards Season 2017

[Big Ben]

Are there enough notable mo-cap performances each year to warrant that?

Well they saw fit to nominate what...three films for make up this year? I don't see why they couldn't do something similar there. Obviously it won't be a glamour prize they award at the end of the show. I do understand your concern here though. Might not be the most popular category.

[Ribs]

They really do not want new categories, because they think the show runs way too long already. Frankly, I'm shocked they've not put the two sound categories together at this point. I expect if they were to go and do new categories of any kind it would be for casting directors anyway.

[rawlinson]

The Academy really are set against new categories. They've rejected a proposal for a stunts category twice in recent years. They could easily merge song and score into overall music category and merge the sound category and bring in stuntwork and casting.

[Big Ben]

You don't need to Award them during the show itself. I mean they always act as if any new inclusion needed to be right there in the show. Stunts should be honored too.

[Brian C]

I actually think the VFX category is outdated and could be junked. We’re at least 15 years past the point where we take for granted that you can just CGI anything, so what’s the point?

[DarkImbecile]

Well, certainly you'd agree that it can be done to different degrees of aesthetic/artistic success, right? Still seems worth rewarding the best examples of a craft that takes such a central role in the industry. It's also a way to nominate/reward some of the big populist movies that don't often make it into the awards in the back half of the telecast.

[Ribs]

I mean, but also the films they're choosing to reward are Ex Machina and Blade Runner! If the point of the award is to just give something to Star Wars then why do they routinely seem to not be doing that?

[Brian C]

Well, certainly you'd agree that it can be done to different degrees of aesthetic/artistic success, right?

I mean, of course there’s a minimal level of competency required, but otherwise, not really.

[TMDaines]

I actually think the VFX category is outdated and could be junked. We’re at least 15 years past the point where we take for granted that you can just CGI anything, so what’s the point?

I think that’s showing a very simplistic view of special effects. One of the best ways to judge this is by watching films from 10-15 years ago when people thought similar and boy do some not stand the test of time and look ropey as anything.

[Brian C]

I think that’s showing a very simplistic view of special effects. One of the best ways to judge this is by watching films from 10-15 years ago when people thought similar and boy do some not stand the test of time and look ropey as anything.

Sure, but it seems like that’s about incremental tech evolution between then and now more than anything.

[TMDaines]

I don’t disagree with the fact that it’s easier to judge effects from a test of time standpoint, but the idea that all created within a narrow timeframe are created equal or have equal effect is simply not true. There’s still terrible graphics in computer games or terrible photoshopping. There’s massive skill in creating effects that audiences will accept as believable. Just google “bad cgi” at look at what shite has been in Hollywod movies in recent years.

[Big Ben]

As someone who suffered through Justice League I can confirm there is atrocious CGI still at work.

[knives]

If you value cgi only for realism of course it doesn't have artistry, but that is not true of all films.

[Big Ben]

If you value cgi only for realism of course it doesn't have artistry, but that is not true of all films.

I say this with conviction. There was nothing Brechtian about Justice League.

[DarkImbecile]

I mean, but also the films they're choosing to reward are Ex Machina and Blade Runner! If the point of the award is to just give something to Star Wars then why do they routinely seem to not be doing that?

Well, it's not like Blade Runner was only seen by a few thousand people in arthouses, and you pointedly left out The Jungle Book, Interstellar, and Gravity as the other winners from the last five years. Even if your point is that those other four ~$100-300M grossing films are less populist than King Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, X-Men, Iron Man, etc., all those movies were nominated - for many their sole nomination - so I think my point stands.

[Brian C]

Well, two things:

1) Of course there's shitty work still being done. That's why I gave a "minimal competency" standard above.
2) I'm not going to say that there's "no artistry" in special effects - I just think that the difference between "acceptable" and "the best" is so thin that it makes an Oscar essentially arbitrary and pointless.

[DarkImbecile]

Brian, how are you distinguishing between VFX and every other technical category? You're able to discern a much wider gradation between the acceptable and the best in the Sound, Costuming, and Production Design categories?

[BigMack3000]

Well, it's not like Blade Runner was only seen by a few thousand people in arthouses,

No, only by a few thousand people in near empty Imax theaters.

[DarkImbecile]

Well, it's not like Blade Runner was only seen by a few thousand people in arthouses,

No, only by a few thousand people in near empty Imax theaters.

It made $250 million worldwide; easily 10 million people saw it in theaters in the US alone.

[Brian C]

Brian, how are you distinguishing between VFX and every other technical category? You're able to discern a much wider gradation between the acceptable and the best in the Sound, Costuming, and Production Design categories?

Honestly, can anyone discern gradations in sound quality? Even actual Hollywood sound techs? I've often wondered this, in all seriousness (again, once a minimal level of competence is reached).

Production Design and Costumes seem like outright artistic categories (as opposed to technical) by any standard, don't they? I know that commentators lazily refer to them as "tech" categories too, but that label's always seemed misapplied to me.

[flyonthewall2983]

[Ribs]

Song from the Lonely Island that was written to be performed at this year's Oscars, but cut because it logistically would have essentially required assembling all of Hollywood

[BigMack3000]

Well, it's not like Blade Runner was only seen by a few thousand people in arthouses,

No, only by a few thousand people in near empty Imax theaters.

It made $250 million worldwide; easily 10 million people saw it in theaters in the US alone.

Sure, but that is also, by far, the lowest gross of all the nominees.

Also 10 million people? Man, I will always be envious of people that aren't paying $20+ for tickets.

[DarkImbecile]

I guess I would argue that all of these "below-the-line" categories are only worth anything insofar as they advance the artistic aims of the film, and so even if they become indistinguishable at a certain level of quality, they can be evaluated both for meeting that threshold and for the role the play in the film itself. I've written here several times about how much I loved the sound work in Dunkirk since July, for example, so I was more than happy to see it rewarded in that area last night.

[TMDaines]

Brian, how are you distinguishing between VFX and every other technical category? You're able to discern a much wider gradation between the acceptable and the best in the Sound, Costuming, and Production Design categories?

Honestly, can anyone discern gradations in sound quality? Even actual Hollywood sound techs? I've often wondered this, in all seriousness (again, once a minimal level of competence is reached)

Yeah, I can easily tell the difference between something is mixed well and that leaves a real impression, and something that is thoroughly mediocre.

I think most would agree the sound categories could be merged though, even if you have decent level of understanding of what the two awards are supposed to recognise. There’s not many instances where a film has an outstanding sound mix with dodgy foley, or great individual sound effects but poor mixing.