The Inner Sanctum

And now, an Awards Season bedtime story…

I once worked for a two-time Academy Award-winning producer, which is less about how awesome I am and more about how down and out he was at that point. When the beginning of the year came around a letter arrived from the AMPAS (the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences). In it was a badly xeroxed slip of paper that looked like it had been cut by hand with scissors. Here is what it said:

BEST PICTURE:

1st Choice ____________________________________

2nd Choice ____________________________________

3rd Choice ____________________________________

Yes, this is how the distinguished members of the Academy vote on the nominations for that most prestigious of awards for motion pictures. It is decidedly unpretentious.
The more interesting thing about the "ballot" that one might notice is the 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices they get to enter. This is meant to ensure that every vote is counted - and only once. How, you ask?

Let me tell you about the rather clever system the AMPAS uses. When they receive all of the ballots in a given category, the accountants lay them all out on a giant table, putting each one in a pile with other ballots with the same first choice. There are likely to be about 50 or so piles, some quiet large (say, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and some quite small (say, Georgia Rule).

The simple thing to do would be to take the five biggest piles and call them the nominees. But no, every vote must count - and they don't want a Best Picture nominee that only 1/20th of the voting body liked.

This is where the second step comes in. All of those ballots sitting in tiny little piles – like the Georgia Rule ballots filled out by the film's producers – are moved into their 2nd choice's pile. Once a given pile has ballots totaling 1/6th of the total ballots they are a nominee.

If there are not five piles with 1/6th of the vote yet, the smallest piles left are then moved to their 3rd choice film. At this point the idea is that there will be a general consensus as to what the top five films of the year are. They are ensuring that every nominee was worth writing down to at least 1/6th of the voting body.

I think this is rather clever. It makes sure that the art director of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer can vote for his own film and feel loyal, but then also vote for Atonement and actually have his vote counted. It plays to both the vanity and snotiness of Hollywood, its two greatest powers.

But who are these people filling out the ballots you ask? They are the most accomplished individuals in the business, in theory. But we've all seen many actors flourish for a time and then die and slow, painful straight-to-TBS death. That is why you see crazies like Gary Busey and Sally Kirkland show up at the awards every few years. The membership is too big for everyone to be invited every year, so invitations are rotated. Most actors have the class to decline the invitation unless they are nominated, presenting, or are in some way associated with a nominated film. But some people are shameless camera whores, like Miss Kirkland or Rod Steiger, back in the day.

There are currently 5830 members of the Academy, a number that will not go up much. They are only letting people in at about the rate of death of oldies. The basic break down is that each category of members nominates in their categories and everyone nominates Best Pictures. So, an actor votes in all four acting categories and Best Picture. A music member votes for Song, Score and Picture, and so on and so forth. Every member votes on the winners in every category (except a couple).
In case you wondered what the membership looks like, here's the breakdown:

Actors 1260
Producers 461
Executives 429
Sound 415
Writers 396
Art Directors 378
Directors 376
Public Relations 371
Members-at-Large 283
Animators 316
Visual Effects 249
Music 237
Editors 224
Cinematographers 186
Documentarians 134
Makeup 115 (A new category this year!)

TOTAL 5830

As interesting as it would be to the world-at-large to know who these mysterious members are, they do not publish a list. What they do give us every year is a look at the list of people who have been invited to become members. This shows how young and hip they are when they invite Jake Gyllenhaal or Dakota Fanning. Many invitees are that years' nominees who were not already members, but not always. Last year ago Heath Ledger was invited, Michelle Williams was not. About 120 people are invited each year (can you believe that many members die each year!).

Here's this year's list of actors invited:

Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Steve Carell, Daniel Craig, Aaron Eckhart, Chiwetel Ejiofor, William Fichtner, Ryan Gosling, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Hudson, Danny Huston, Eddie Murphy, Christopher Plummer (seriously!), James Rebhoun (look him up, you'll saw "oooh, that guy!" when you see his face), Michael Sheen, Maribel Verdu

All good choices. I just think it's bizarre that Christopher Plummer, the star of Best Picture winner on 1960, The Sound of Music, wasn't in there already.