But there a number of changes coming in the next couple of years for the Academy. One of the new changes still in the works is the construction of a brand new theatre just for the Academy, where the Academy can host the Oscars themselves, instead of holding them in the Shrine Auditorium or Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. This new theatre is projected to be ready for the 2001 Oscars. So next year's 2000 Oscar ceremony will be the last one held in the Shrine Auditorium.
But beyond that change, the Academy's Board of Governors voted on a number of category proposals and changes just recently. They voted down proposals for the following new categories : Best Casting, Best Stunt Coordination, and Best Title Design. An intriguing new category to recognize feature length animation, perhaps in the form of Best Animated Film, was not rejected or approved, but tabled for further study.
The Board did decide to merge two pairs of the current Oscar categories, which will reduce the total number of Oscars awarded next year from the usual 24 down to 22. The Best Original Music Score Oscar will now become one again. That award has split up into two, and become one again several times throughout Oscar's history. It last split in 1995, after Disney films had continually won for Music Score ever since LITTLE MERMAID in 1989. So since 1995, we've had two Oscars for musical score, one for comedy and musicals and one for drama films, which I think was a good thing. But next year, the two will merge back into one and there will only be one Oscar for musical score.
Two other categories will also merge into one, and this will be a first in quite some time. The Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Film awards will merge into a single Best Documentary Oscar. One final merging of awards was not approved at this time, but is due for consideration in the April meeting of the Board of Governors. There was also a proposal to merge the Sound and Sound Effects Editing awards into a single Sound Oscar.
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