Embracing the unusual: How the Oscars coped with the COVID era
Hollywood has joined every other industry over the past year or so in adapting the way they have worked and finding creative ways to produce some amazing films.
The producers of the 93rd Academy Awards had the same challenge when it came to creating the delayed ceremony in the most unusual of times. It was widely reported that director Steven Soderbergh, producer Stacey Sher and actor/director Jesse Collins were brought onboard to shake things up and give the event itself a cinematic quality. The idea was to embrace the unusual in spite of the reduced audience numbers and create a different kind of experience for the viewer and the live audience.
The ceremony was held in Union Station in downtown Los Angeles so that they could space out the audience, the order of awards was rearranged and we saw long, tracking shots of actress Regina King’s entrance into the venue (complete with opening casting credits) and actor Bryan Cranston’s walk-and-talk introduction of the Motion Picture & Television Fund Foundation, prior to a humanitarian award presentation.
They shot in 24 frames per second, which is more typical for a film, than the 30 we would normally see on TV. Filmmakers do this to slow things down a little to make it feel more cinematic. There was an ensemble of presenters and clips of the nominated films were largely replaced with biographical trivia of the filmmakers.
These changes were intended to telegraph to audiences that things were being done differently this time. The results were…well, unusual.
On one hand, there were inspiring speeches and touching moments, perhaps because of this more informal feel. Ambitious fashion was on display and historic breakthroughs were achieved. It did have that loose, unbuttoned quality that seemed to sum up the collective, unusual experience of working in the film industry during COVID-19.
But, for me, the production didn’t really differ enough from previous ceremonies and so it fell a little flat. Because there was a smaller audience, a bigger venue and a host of presenters, the content needed to be more dynamic, more cinematic and more creative. Perhaps they could have created more compelling pre-shot segments, or even used the satellite capabilities more, to create a global feel to the ceremonies, by having segments hosted remotely.
The producers should certainly be applauded for embracing these unusual times and creating a different kind of ceremony, but this serves as a reminder that audiences want to be wowed and as event organizers, we need to provide the wow factor.
