What does it really take to win an Oscar?

THINK this year’s Oscar nominees are actually this year’s best movies and actors? Think again. Here are the sneaky tricks used to get Academy Award nominations.

JUST because a movie wins (or is nominated for) an Oscar does not mean it represents the best that a given year has to offer.

An Oscar nominee doesn’t even have to be good to end up scoring a Best Picture nomination. Just take a look at The Blind Side and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, best picture nominees that only the least attentive moviegoer would rank among any given year’s finest.

While there is no accounting for taste and I don’t doubt that people vote for what they love, there are other factors that influence the 97% white, 76% male Academy members, who’s average age is 63. Oscar nominations don’t reflect what is the best in cinema. Instead, the Oscars indicate what the Academy saw, which is not exactly a vast selection.

Academy members often have day jobs, so are not any more informed than regular audiences on the options at the multiplex. Those Academy voters who can afford to be thorough are usually retired, and at that age their tastes don’t always synch with the greater public.

Neil Patrick Harris will host this year’s Oscars.

Just being seen counts when competing for the Oscars. The strength of the movie comes second. So when the Academy snubbed the stirring MLK drama Selma in most categories, it probably has less to do with the voters being racist against the mostly African American talent and more to do with voters being ignorant of its quality. The majority just chose not to squeeze the worthy film into their schedules.

So how does an Oscar candidate get noticed? Here are five factors that you probably didn’t know effect whether a movie gets seen, and in turn nominated.

Star Power:

Some audiences avoided watching Gone Girl because they just can’t stand Ben Affleck. Academy voters are not above such churlish reasoning, prioritising movies featuring their favourite stars. They will rush to see that new movie with Meryl Streep, which is how the middling Into the Woods nabbed the nomination veteran her 19th nod for a very minor performance. Being a likable and respected nominee goes a long way, to the point that voting for Meryl has become a knee-jerk reaction.

Gone Girl was snubbed this year.

Similarly, Oscar voters aren’t stampeding to check out the new Joaquin Phoenix movie. He doesn’t exactly win favour by putting everyone on blast and his brand just doesn’t scream Oscar. If you look at Selma, there isn’t a single relatively influential celebrity in the mix despite the excess talent evident.

Campaigning:

Studios spend millions to make sure their candidates are seen. That budget goes towards For Your Consideration ads that appear in Hollywood trade magazines as well as facilitating interview opportunities with talent, so that reporters could have more opportunities to repeat the phrase “Oscar contender”. Such efforts are meant to remind voters that they can’t miss this movie or that performance.

The studios also bring the talent directly to the voters, not just those of the Academy but also preliminary award voters like the press and guild members. They host screenings with live question and answer periods so the stars can engage with their audience and assert their charisma. They also host cocktail parties for the same purpose.

The Theory of Everything is nominated for an Oscar this year/

The only reason Jennifer Aniston stayed in the Oscar conversation for her performance in Cake is because her extensive campaigning (more so than the film itself) perpetuated the idea that she was a contender. Meanwhile, Eddie Redmayne is enjoying the results of his gruelling campaign work for his performance in The Theory of Everything. Redmayne has been the nicest guy to media and voters everywhere, winning people over by being everyone’s friend. He also gives a strong performance mind you, but his likability just makes him that much easier to remember.

One movie that didn’t bother with a big campaign push is Gone Girl, perhaps on director David Fincher’s insistence since he knows that his movies are too good for Oscars. Despite being Fincher’s most popular movie at the box office (and one of his best), Gone Girl scored the lowest number of nominations (one for Rosamund Pike) for any of his films since 2007’s Zodiac.

Preliminary Awards:

Oscar season begins in September, when the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festivals serve as launching pads for contenders. The very first prizes up for grabs after the festivals are from the critics groups (New York, LA, NBR and every other city). Then the Golden Globes chime in and after that the guilds (Screen Actors, Producers, Directors, etc. etc,).

Birdman is another Best Picture nominee this year.

While critics prizes are not an accurate indicator of what will win among the industry voters in the Academy, what they can do is spotlight certain movies that deserve to be seen. The Academy members would have ignored movies like The Hurt Locker, The Social Network and this year’s Boyhood if they didn’t have such major support from critics groups, who individually don’t mean much but collectively are an influential force. The preliminary prizes create contenders and the coverage of those competitions will make the most of that buzz, which is why critics are also campaigned to during the long gestating Oscar season.

The televised preliminary awards like the Critics Choice, Globes and SAG also give talent a chance to shine on red carpets and at the podium. Jennifer Lawrence’s ultimate win for Silver Linings Playbook was likely aided by the young stars ability to show off how adorable and comical she could be. Similarly, 12 Years A Slave’s Lupita N’Yongo was able to turn the tables around on Jennifer Lawrence the following year by showing off how classy she could be at the podium.

Screeners:

The easiest way to make sure a voter gets to see a contender is to host a screening in their bedroom. Screeners are a staple during awards season, especially since 2005 when Lionsgate shipped out (an unprecedented at the time) 130,000 DVDs of Crash to awards voters, who in turn made that movie the surprise winner at the Oscars.

Despite all the special screenings — many with Q & A’s — that are hosted for voters, people’s lives often just get in the way of attendance. The only way to make sure the movie is accessible during the award season glut is to have discs on hand.

Bradley Cooper appears in the Oscar nominated film, American Sniper.

Screeners don’t guarantee that the movie will be seen, since by Thanksgiving weekend (late November) voters often have more than thirty to choose from. However, if the star power, campaigning and preliminary awards have piqued their interest, a voter is likely to sift through their pile to see what all that hype is about. Since Crash, every single Best Picture Oscar winner was available in voter homes for Thanksgiving weekend, a key period where folks have time to watch a movie with their families after feasting.

While that scenario should dictate the necessity for screeners, some studios opt to delay or minimise sending discs for budgetary reasons or to keep the movies safe from online pirates. Meanwhile a movie like Selma, just couldn’t get the discs out in time. Director Ava DuVernay put the final touches on Selma in late November, after an unfinished version premiered at the AFI Fest. There just wasn’t enough time to produce and mail out screeners to preliminary award voters.

Timing:

The late completion date for Selma, in turn delaying screenings and screeners, didn’t help its Oscar chances. Without major stars to deem it an immediate must-see, time for campaigning is essential to build word of mouth.

Timing is a tricky thing with the Academy, becoming a strategic flashpoint since 1998, when Harvey Weinstein snuck Shakespeare in Love into the awards race at the end of the year, which somehow defeated presumed victor Saving Private Ryan at the Oscars. Spielberg’s superior epic opened midyear and many believe Oscar voters were numb to its merits by year-end, instead voting for the fresh, charming romance they just recently enjoyed.

The Grand Budapest Hotel has been nominated for Best Picture this year.

The tactic worked again in 2004, when Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator looked to finally get the director his first Oscar until Clint Eastwood’s syrupy Million Dollar Baby quickly slipped in at the last minute and turned the tides.

Now studios back-load their contenders to the year-end, factoring Academy amnesia and hoping their movie is the last thing everyone sees before voting. This is why we call it awards season.

However, with most films following this launch strategy, leaving the early half of the year starved for good movies, there’s just too much to catch up on at the end of the year. The time constraint is especially taxing since the Oscar ceremony has moved from late March to late February since 2004, giving voters even less time to process movies. That leaves a film like Selma in the dust.

With Oscar contenders cannibalising each other at the end of the year, now the movies that have more time to build favour and be seen are the ones taking home the big prize. Since Million Dollar Baby (the last “last-minute” victor), every best picture winner had time to build an audience. Crash and The Hurt Locker opened in the early and middle parts of their respective years, banking on word of mouth, screeners and (for the latter) critical support. The Departed opened in October. Every other best picture winner played in September at the Telluride and/or Toronto Film Festival, leaving ample room for critics and voters to see them — for whatever reason they chose to do so.

Whiplash is also nominated for Best Picture this year.

Among this year’s nomination leaders, The Grand Budapest Hotel opened early in the year while Boyhood followed midyear. Birdman, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and Whiplash began their award launch at Telluride and/or Toronto in early September. And I had my American Sniper screener before thanksgiving.

Oscar Winning Criteria — What Does It Take To Really Win An Oscar? Here Are Five Essential Things Winners Have In Common originally appeared on AskMen