Dates Announced and Rule Changes for the Next Academy Awards

Author: Nicholas Moreau
Published on: Jun 23, 2000

News from the Academy to discuss this week ... first off, for those of you who love to plan ahead early, here are the official dates for the next Academy Awards. Academy Award nominations for the year 2000 will be announced at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 13, 2001, at the Academy. The 73rd Annual Academy Awards Presentation will be broadcast live from the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium by the ABC Television Network at 5:30 p.m., PST, on Sunday, March 25, 2001. It will be the tenth, and possibly the last, time the Oscar telecast will originate from the Shrine. Expectations are that the 74th Oscar Presentations will be held in the new theater at Hollywood & Highland(R), now under construction in Hollywood.

So pretty close to the schedule we had for the most recent Oscars. But in other news by the Academy, as usual this time of year, the Academy's Board of Governors votes on any changes to make to the Awards before they release the official rules for the next Academy Awards. This year, they are making a new stipulation to cover the emergence of films being presented on the internet and how they cannot be considered for an Oscar unless they are shown theatrically first. Also, the Academy voted on some name changes to a couple of categories, but other than that, not much real new has been voted for the next Oscars. Here's what they have voted on this year.

A film cannot appear on the internet before its theatrical release and be eligible for an Oscar, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided this week.

The Academy board decided that, like a television broadcast, an internet transmission disqualifies a film if the transmission occurs before the film's Los Angeles County qualifying run, and so specified in the general rule for eligibility for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards, as well as in the special rules for the documentary awards.

The rulings emphasized the Academy's longstanding principle that its province is theatrical motion pictures as distinct from pictures experienced as lone viewing.

Rule Two, the eligibility rule, states that "films which receive their first public exhibition or distribution in any manner other than as a theatrical motion picture release will not be eligible for Academy Awards in any category." The rule then contains a parenthetical sentence that will now read: "(This includes broadcast and cable television, as well as home video marketing and internet transmission.)"

"The Board just wants to make it crystal clear," said Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis, "so that in the rush to embrace new technologies, a legitimate theatrical motion picture doesn't inadvertently jeopardize its eligibility."

Other significant changes in the rules for this year's achievements include new names for two existing awards, new advertising restrictions in the documentary categories and a less restrictive rule on subsequent-year eligibility for films submitted in the Foreign Language Film category.

The name changes were approved in the music and sound categories.

* The Music Branch recommended changing the title of its third category from "Original Song Score" to "Original Musical," and it clarified the definition of the category.

An Original Musical consists of not fewer than five original songs by the same writer or team of writers, either used as voice-overs or visually performed. Each of the songs must be "substantively rendered, clearly audible, intelligible and must further the storyline." An arbitrary group of songs unessential to the storyline of the film is not eligible.

* The Sound Branch recommended deleting the word "effects" from the Sound Effects Editing Award, which will now be the Sound Editing Award.

The person eligible for the Sound Editing Award will remain the principal Supervising Sound Editor. The branch, however, tightened up the definition of the amount of involvement in and responsibility for the sound design of a film that will be needed to qualify a supervising sound editor for eligibility.

* In the Documentary categories a new rule prohibits a film which is included in the second-round competition from advertising or publicizing itself as an "Academy Award(R) finalist," an "Academy Award(R) Short-list Film," or anything similar.

* New wording in the Foreign Language Film category will allow a foreign language film which is submitted, but is not nominated, to be eligible the following year in other categories if it opens in Los Angeles County that year and qualifies for those other categories. In the past, such films had not been eligible.

* In the Short Films categories, formats requiring special technical presentation, such as IMAX, Iwerks, Showscan, etc., will be considered in their original formats if made available for Academy voting screenings in Los Angeles County. Previously, reduction prints that could be shown in the Academy's theater had to be submitted.

* Other modifications of the rules include normal date changes and some further reordering and renumbering of existing rules, Davis said.

The official 73rd Annual Academy Award Rules booklet will be ready for distribution to Academy members during the first week of August, he added.

Academy Award Rules are reviewed annually by branch and category committees, and submitted to the Awards Rules Committee, which then reviews all proposed changes and presents its recommendations to the Board of Governors.

So this year it doesn't look like there were any proposals for new categories, as happened last year.

The new clarification barring internet run films from Oscar consideration raised the ire of some filmmakers and critics, but I think it was a good decision, and I'll explain why in a future article.

So that's it for this week ... two big summer films with the potential for big boxoffice and possible Oscar nominations will be released in theatres nationwide next week ... THE PATRIOT with Mel Gibson and the one I've been waiting for for a while, THE PERFECT STORM. We'll see if they turn out to be as good as the advance hype and discussion.