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AMPAS just released this news release:
Beverly Hills, CA –– The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved the rules for the 81st Academy Awards at their Tuesday evening (6/17) meeting. The only significant changes were in the Music – Original Song category. Other modifications of the rules include normal date changes and minor “housekeeping” changes.
Three items of note were altered in the Original Song rules. First, while there continues to be no limit on the number of songs from a given film that can be submitted for consideration, no more than two songs from any one film may be nominated for an Academy Award.
Also, in addition to the annual screening event at which members of the Music Branch view clips featuring the eligible songs as they appear in the films and vote, DVDs of those same clips will be made available to branch members who are unable to attend the screening; ballots will accompany the DVDs and must be returned by mail.
Music Branch members who have one or more songs in contention for nominations do not vote in that phase of the balloting. They remain eligible to vote on the final ballot to select the winner.
The only other category with a notable change is the Foreign Language Film Award and as was the case in 2006, the alteration is a procedural one rather than one in the rules per se. For the 81st Academy Awards, the two-phase process by which the nominees are selected will remain intact. However, the Phase I committee – which is open to any voting member who views a minimum number of the eligible films – will now vote to determine only six of the nine films that will ultimately go to the Phase II committee. The other three titles will be determined by those members of the 20-member Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee who have qualified to vote in the category. The executive committee’s selections will be made after the Phase I voting has been tallied.
Rules are reviewed annually by individual branch and category committees. The Awards Rules Committee then reviews all proposed changes before presenting its recommendations to the Academy’s Board of Governors for approval.
Academy Award® nominations in all categories will be announced on January 22, 2009. The 81st Academy Awards presentation will be telecast live by the ABC Television Network on Sunday, February 22, 2009.
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RE: Changes to the Music Category.
Voters…please only honor songs that are used significantly in the film itself. Please. Even a song used under opening credits is acceptible. But songs that only show up in the closing credits….? C’mon. That’s just cynical marketing.
Are they also going award Enchanted a best original song Oscar since that’s the mistake the obviously are trying to correct here?
No John, it’s obviously to prevent 3 crappy songs (and thus 3 embarassing live performances) from one film from burdening the Oscar telecast.
Enchanted’s songs were fantastic, idiot.
Yeah, when ENCHANTED gets three (!) nods and the amazing songs in WALK HARD get zippo, you know the fix is in. The win by ONCE was as much of a fluke as the fact that the film actually got a Best-Song nod.
I agree with “Dewey”. I would have loved to see John C. Reilly perform “Beautiful Ride” or even “Walk Hard” live on the broadcast.
It is good to see that the Academy notices that things are broken and need some tweaking. Will it make the show more watchable? Probably not, but it’s a start.
This is another way of punishing Alan Menken, just like the Academy did when it “adjusted” the rules for original score. Tired of watching him sweep the awards from “Little Mermaid” through “Pocahontas,” they separated out the awards into “Dramatic” and “Musical or Comedy.” Then, once he stopped winning and being nominated, it got changed back again.
Pretty petty. Guess it bothers folks in the music branch that he has more awards than most of them ever will win, or even be nominated for.
I don’t know how I feel about the song thing. If three songs from the same film are determined to be better (through unbiased voting) then why shouldn’t they be nominated?
Minor procedural changes in AMPAS aren’t going to help its tv ratings. Most of the films which AMPAS nominates don’t get viewed by the public. This applies to limited release films in New York and Los Angeles. Becouse of the limited release format the public doesn’t get see what critics consider really good films. Nor have they heard of such films.
The academy and studio executives should take a long hard look at the closing cinema house across the United States. The less cinemas there are,the less there is box office draw. And most of the audeince who would want to see a terrific film have to wait for a dvd release. And some oscar nominated films don’t make it to certain parts of the country i.e.the Southeast for example. So the Academy should take note of the changes in thier own industry and so should some Studio Execs and see how the box office draw could be approved.
I would like see for example more independent films on wider release. Along with some forign films. Last year I saw Curse of the Golden Flower and went on to receive several oscar nods. And seeing in UA 14 cinema made it worth the trip.
This has to do with the Academy – but not the Song Division. What I, and many others, are still infuriated over is that the Academy of Motion Pictures is still passing off that idiotic story that it is trying to make up for giving Oscars to the wrong people in the past. And now they are correcting those errors and handing out the Oscar to those that really deserved the credit (example, Dalton Trumbo) – if the proof exists. What complete, total BS. They’re trying to bury the past, not correct it.
Here’s where the shit hits the fan and I am sick of the damn Academy’s continuing LYING. They are doing as little as humanly possible in this area. Here’s one great example (MANY people have written to the various Presidents of the Academy on this over the years – and none of them ever responded).
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA – they gave the Oscar for color Art Direction 1954 to John Meehan. Only, Meehan was the assistant art director – the real art director on the film was Harper Goff. Disney was non-union at the time, so he had hired a union shill (John Meehan) to shut them up & let him get on with the work of making the movie. Disney even went so far as to list Meehan in the credits as art director.
But EVERYONE in Hollywood knew it was Harper Goff. His name was listed as art director on the velum drawings for ALL the blueprints on the film (and these still exist); in studio memos, etc. The director of the film, Richard Fleischer, told everybody he was the true art director on LEAGUES and wrote it in his autobiography.
But did the Academy take note? Hell no. The art director’s Union Local 800 – don’t forget that number – this is the dirty part of their history (the part they don’t want you to know about) – THEY FORCED THROUGH A RULE INTO THE ACADEMY’S VOTING PROCEDURES: ONLY **UNION** ART DIRECTORS COULD BE CALLED AN ‘ART DIRECTOR’. Yep, the little union assholes “copyrighted” the title of “art director,” SO EVEN IF YOU ART DIRECTED A FILM… IF YOU DIDN’T PAY DUES TO LOCAL 800 & CARRY THEIR CARD, YOU WEREN’T AN ART DIRECTOR AND COULDN’T PICK UP AN OSCAR – EVEN IF THE ACADEMY MEMBERSHIP VOTED YOU THE WINER.
Of all the damn bullshit a union can pull, this was among the worst – rigging the Oscars from the get-go. (and don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-union, but not with this kind of garbage).
So on the night of the Academy Awards for 1954, Harper Goff’s assistant (yes, I said assistant – that’s all he was on the shoot) – it was his name that was announced the winner of the Oscar & he went to the podium and picked it up. Now, since all the evidence currently exists to prove that Goff was the real art director on the film (still don’t believe me? Call Disney Archives & talk to Dave Smith… he even has the original 1954 Production Reports listing Goff as Art Director) — has the Academy rectified their “error” in the past 50 years? Not in your life. The Academy presidents excel at one thing especially: hiding from their organization’s own history… and portraying an ostrich with its head in the sand.
So when you mention The Academy of Motion Pictures – don’t ever use the words “honor” and “real artistic achievement” in the same sentence. They’re as rigged and false as the day is long. And as I said earlier, they’re liars and cowards to boot. The record bears this out, time and time again.
First off, “Once” was all about the music, and, in my opinion, was amazing. I was so happy that it won Best Song.
There could be a number of reasons that the Academy has made this change, but I think this will HELP films with good songs as opposed to hurt them.
“Enchanted” had three nominations and didn’t win. “Dreamgirls,” which had amazing songs, had three nominations but also lost.
If you cut it down to two, there’s less of a chance that the votes will be split enough to keep it from winning.
the fact that hairspray didn’t get any song nominations was ridiculous last year. “come so far” was a great song and would have been an awesome performance on stage. but i agree that if one movie has three amazing songs then why not… problem is enchanted had three bland songs.
Are you kidding me? Are we watching the same movies here? Enchanted’s songs may not all have been oscar worthy but to think Dreamgirls had and its overrated Hudson be nominated for three was just as terrible. I have never been happier for an oscar upset as that one.
Who cares about Best Song anyways? The Oscars need to be tamed. They should look at how the Tony’s did their ceremony this year.
Give all the technical awards earlier in the day in a ceremony streamed over the Web or on independent stations wanting to pick up the feed. The prime-time TV audience has no idea what an art director or costume director does and they don’t care about hearing them thank people they don’t know.
With less awards to present, have the evening ceremony concentrate on stars and entertainment. Get some real writers to write some good jokes and award intros. Get a real “host” to host the show, like Dave Letterman or Jay Leno. No more nasty inside jokes.
Honor all the nominees by having them stand on stage as their names are read, and have the winner simply step forward to accept the award. No more hours wasted watching the celebs walk through the auditorium to get up on stage.
And with the extra time, let people finish their acceptance speeches without the orchestra chiming in!