Making the Oscars more relevant

Are the Oscars as outdated as wearing your hat to work?

Last month, AMPAS celebrated a year of achievements in film, for the 87th time. In a recent article, the Financial Times lambasted the film industry for its overwhelming focus on high-risk, high-reward blockbusters and the death of middle-budget studio films, the likes of which were often lauded by the Academy. Viewing figures for the show in 2015 were the lowest in six years (though, let’s keep things in perspective, it was never watched by a billion people). In a guest post, M.K. Leibman looks at what’s going wrong with a format that has often been criticised as outmoded, if not inappropriate. M.K. is a native New Yorker with experience in film production. She hosts a popular blog where she often critiques film industry practice.

*

It’s been a couple of weeks since The Academy Awards. Everyone’s think pieces have already been written, the internet has had its say and Hollywood has already returned to work on this years slate of new releases. It’s back to business as usual. Disappointed with the 18% decline in ratings, the industry assures us that “next year will be better”.

Others like Variety remain less convinced that will be the case.

In it’s incredibly popular piece, Variety stepped up the tone warning that things are unlikely to improve with the Oscars unless several changes are implemented. In its article, Variety noted six changes which should be implemented, notably the inclusion of more popular films as nominees, not televising technical awards, and reducing the run-time of the broadcast.

However, I argue that they don’t go far enough, or actually get to the core of what’s wrong with The Academy Awards. Looking at over 150 comments underneath the article, you could get a feel for what people actually thought was wrong with the ceremony, and it wasn’t giving stage time to the sound editor. The general consensus is: The Oscars just aren’t relevant any more to the average American.

Of course the Academy isn’t just going to throw up their hands and close up shop at this revelation. There needs to be massive changes implemented at all levels of the broadcast in order to sustain its future.

The first decision The Academy should make is to not re-hire show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Merron. They’ve had a run of three years and the show has failed to see a big boost in ratings. It’s not to say these two gentlemen aren’t very talented producers. However, to effectively implement change means to start those changes at the top in order to bring the show in a new direction.

Under the tutelage of Merron and Zadan, the Oscars have struggled to define their tone. In their first year as producers, they made a bold move and picked comedian Seth McFarlane to host the show. His performance drew ire from the older Academy voters and Hollywood for unorthodox jokes, while thoroughly pleasing the younger demographic. The next year they decided to change course drastically to compensate for offending many, hiring the lovable comic Ellen DeGeneres. After McFarlane’s raunchy style, Ellen just felt too clean and safe. While the broadcast was widely watched, the biggest moment felt like a corporate gimmick: a Samsung-sponsored selfie became the most re-tweeted image on Twitter of all time. Neil Patrick Harris was the producing duos most recent choice. He too was a very safe choice, and failed to leave his mark on the show – even feeling awkward at times with the written material he was given to present, such as the joke mocking the broadcasts lack of diversity.

The one common tone these hosts and their shows all share is that the modern Oscars also feel more like a Broadway musical than a celebration of film.

While some may like this Vaudevillian style, most people on social media and in the Variety comments section seemed tired of these long drawn out musical numbers. Several recent hosts have made the musical a centerpiece of their show, including McFarlane with the asinine “show me your boobs.” The Oscars isn’t a Broadway musical, it is a show that ought to celebrate film – not dance around to silly songs, or theme songs from movies made 50 years ago. Or worst of all, in the case of the 85th Academy Awards, to Merron’s own film Chicago in a rather transparent attempt at self promotion.

When asked about their strategy for taking over the Oscars three year ago, Neil Merron and Craig Zadan told Entertainment Weekly that they needed to both shorten the show while increasing the number of performances; an arguably impossible task. They decided to reduce the stage time for technical awards, seating them closer in order to reduce the walk-time to the stage for acceptance of awards (a total of 40 seconds). They reason this frees up more time for musicals and other in-between performances which in turn allegedly attracts more talent to want to attend the broadcast live. Unfortunately, this has failed to decrease the run time and this year’s ceremony nearly approached the four hour mark.

They need to cut out more of the musicals and, like the BAFTAs, eliminate the televised acceptance of technical awards. They need to do this no matter how loudly those technical trades collectively complain about it. By eliminating technical awards, the BAFTAs run on average an hour shorter than the Oscars. This may be a hard pill to swallow for some, but people just don’t have 3.5 hours to devote to an awards broadcast on a Sunday night.

Once we cut out all of the musical numbers and technical awards, what could they be replaced with?

For starters, hosts that can actually captivate an audience without song and dance and poorly-scripted spectacle. None of these hosts were the sort of folks that could get a family to want to sit in front to the TV together to watch. When you think of some of the more successful Oscars hosts throughout history, they were comedians who could naturally work a room, loved by many generations. The current Oscars feel victim to a teleprompter mentality, a hyper-scripted event that fails to feel authentic. In trying to achieve the right tone, the Oscars could benefit from handing the hosting job to a duo like Amy Poeler and Tina Fey, whose Golden Globes hosting gig remains one of the more talked about award shows in recent memory. Some have even suggested their former SNL co-star Jimmy Fallon, but even he feels too safe a choice and slightly over-exposed given his Tonight Show gig. The host needs to be a natural comedian or comedic duo, with more choice over the written material and someone who is not overexposed that plays well with multiple key demographics.

The other part of the tone that needs to change is its pretentiousness. There is no faster way to assure irrelevancy than if you make the Oscars into a club of pretentious film buffs. There needs to be more time devoted to financially successful films that captivated general audiences during the year, and less time making fun of them. You don’t need to give an award to the superhero films, but to mock – or worse, just ignore – their existence isn’t going to improve your ratings either. Perhaps add a segment which praises some of the more financially successful films of the year, or include a performance related to those popular films.

This years ceremony felt almost like the Independent Spirit Awards, the award show that nominates the best of independent cinema. In fact several of this years big winners were also indie films honored at the Spirit Awards. Apart from the film buff niche, the American public isn’t going to see films like Birdman or The Grand Budapest Hotel. That doesn’t mean, as Variety suggests, you need to honor tentpoles with Best Picture nominations, but it’s not like the studios didn’t put out good films people enjoyed which were also award-worthy; Gone Girl was but one notable snub in that arena. People care about the Oscars more when films they care about are nominated or win. The most successful year of all time was when megahit Titanic was nominated in 1998, that year saw 55.5 million viewers versus this years 34 million.

Did the mainstream cachet of David Fincher’s Gone Girl hinder its chances at further Academy recognition?

 

The other 800 pound gorilla in the room is diversity. While not discussed in the Variety article, a highly visible Oscars boycott took social media by storm under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite and #BoycottOscars. The tweets were in the millions, suggesting the boycott was substantial according to the number of tweets supporting it. Upset by the lack of nominations for Selma and no people of color nominated for acting awards, many decided not to watch. Even Al Sharpton called off a protest of the red carpet, hours before the show was to begin at the request of Selma director Ava DuVernay.

Before one chalks this up to being just another case of social justice sentiment on social media, there are serious long-term financial ramifications. If viewers don’t see themselves represented on screen, or at the Oscars, they’re not going to watch. As America grows more diverse, with people of color expected to become the population majority by 2050, the Oscars need to do more to include illustrate this diversity in their broadcast. Granted, a chef is only as good as his ingredients, the show’s lack of diversity isn’t helped by the product released, which this year had a paucity of strong roles for women. As Variety commented at the time,

“It’s always easier to identify a worrisome trend than to figure out its cause, much less to suggest a workable solution. We can point to the limitations of genre in the case of “American Sniper,” “The Imitation Game” and “Unbroken,” given that most biographical war movies are about the exploits, adventures and sufferings of men. Still, whatever these films’ particular shortcomings or virtues, I suspect that awards voters are too often inclined to accept them on their own grand, self-important terms, which not so subtly conflate significance with masculinity: Watch Chris Kyle and Louis Zamperini march off to war! See Alan Turing change the face of history!”

The Oscars need to find a way to appeal to young people, and people of color alike. The future of this show is not white people over 34, but the critical 18-34 demographic and minorities. This needs to be reflected not only in the broadcast’s format and demeanour, but also in the makeup of the Academy itself; 94% white, 76% men, 63 years old on average.

In order to remain relevant, the Oscars need to find a tone that can compete with people’s attention in a highly-distracting digital age. The Oscars are starting to feel too self-congratulatory, too Hollywood, despite the irony. Americans don’t feel represented by the choices the Academy makes. The musical nature of the show leaves many men out of the equation and the lack of diversity is off-putting to entire races. Yet I doubt most of these considerations will be on the table for next year’s show. I suspect another safe choice for host with a near four hour run time chock full of endless musicals, lack of diversity and self-congratulatory scripted satire which is bound to generate uncomfortable laughs – and in today’s day in age I just don’t know how much longer that format can last. When Americans don’t feel like they’re invested in the show, there are just too many other entertainment options in the present day than to have to tune in for what they know will be in the news tomorrow or on social media in seconds.

Tech’s impact on business and culture in 2014

It would be impossible to capture the disruptive influence the latest digital technologies are currently having on the world in a single blog post. But what Zeitgeist has collated here are some thoughts and happenings showing the different ways technology is changing our lives – from the way we do business to the way we interact with others.

Last night saw a highly enjoyable occurrence. No, not the Academy Awards in general, which as ever moved at a glacial pace as it ticked off a list of predicted favourites. Rather, it was a specific moment in the ceremony itself, when host Ellen DeGeneres took a (seemingly) impromptu picture of herself with a cornucopia of stars, tweeting it instantly. The host declared she wanted the picture (above) to be the most retweeted post ever. The previous holder was none other than the President of the United States, Barack Obama, whose re-election message saw over 500k retweets. It took Zeitgeist but a few minutes to realise that Ellen’s post would skyrocket past this. Right now it has been retweeted 2.7m times. Corporate tactic on the part of Samsung though it may have been, Zeitgeist felt himself feeling much closer to the action – being able to see on his phone a photo the host had taken moments ago several thousand miles away – and the incident helped inject a brief air of spontaneity into the show’s proceedings. Super fun, and easy to get definitive results in this case on how many people were really engaging with the content. But can we quantify how much Samsung and Twitter really benefited from the move, beyond fuzzy marketing metrics? Talking heads on CNBC saw room for improvement (see below).

Former WSJ.com Managing Editor Kevin Delaney leads discussions on Samsung and Twitter’s presence at the Oscars last night (click to watch)

The big news of late in tech circles of course has been Facebook’s $19bn acquisition of messaging application Whatsapp. Many, many lines of editorial have been spilled on this deal already. In the mainstream media, many commentators have found the price of the deal staggering. So it’s worth reading more considered views such as Benedict Evans’, whose post on the deal Zeitgeist highly encourages you to read. Despite the seemingly large amount of money the company has been acquired for – especially considering Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for a ‘mere’ $1bn – Evans sagely points out that per user the deal is about the same as Google made in its valuation when it purchased YouTube. So perhaps not that crazy after all. The other key point that Evans makes is on Facebook’s dedicated pursuit to be the ‘next’ Facebook, or conversely to stop anyone else from becoming the next Facebook. With a meteoric rise in members (see image below, as it outstrips growth by both Facebook and Twitter), Whatsapp was certainly looking a little threatening.

Whatsapp’s number of active users skyrocketed to 450m in no time, outpacing both Facebook and Twitter (Source: The Economist)

The worry for investors is how Facebook will monetise this platform, when the founders have professed an aversion to advertising. Is merely ensuring that Facebook is the ‘next’ Facebook a good enough reason for such acquisitions? Barriers to entry and sustainable advantages will be few and far between going down this route. The Financial Times, in its analysis of the acquisition, points out that innovation is quickly nipping at the heels of Whatsapp. CalPal, for example, is one example of a mobile application that lets users message each other from within an app. In the markets, there has been a relatively sanguine response to the purchase, but only because of broader trends. As the FT points out,

“External forces have also helped to push the headline prices of deals such as WhatsApp into the stratosphere. A global excess of cheap money, along with a scarcity of alternatives for growth-hungry investors, has boosted the stock prices of companies such as Facebook and Google.”

One of the most visibly exciting developments in technology in recent years is the explosion of the wearable tech sector. But it is Google’s flagship product, Glass, that has met with much ire and distress. An excellent piece of analysis appearing in MIT Technology Review last month hit the nail on the head when it identified why Glass was having trouble winning people over. The article rightly identifies the significant shift in external appearance inherent in making the switch from a device that needs to be taken out of a pocket as makes it clear when it is being interacted with (you need to cover half your face with the product to talk to someone, for example). The article also details the savvy approach Google have taken to the distribution of their product. It’s always sensible to try and mobilise the part of your base likely to be evangelists anyway, so as to build advance buzz before a full-blown release. But to get them to pay for the privilege, as Google are doing with their excitable fans, dubbed Explorers, is a stroke of genius for them. However, the key issue, and what the article states is an “insurmountable problem”, is that “Google’s challenge in making the device a successful consumer product will be convincing the people around you to ignore it”. It is this fundamental aspect of social interaction that is worrying many, and now Google is worried too. As detailed in the FT, the company has acknowledged that the product can look “pretty weird”. Recognising it has a “long journey” to mainstream adoption, it published a list of Dos and Don’ts. Highlights include,

“Ask for permission. Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends… If you find yourself staring off into the prism for long periods of time you’re probably looking pretty weird to the people around you.”

It indicates that Google may have a significant ‘Glasshole‘ problem it needs to attend to. The case may be overstated though. One of the problems may just be that potential customers have yet to see any practical uses for it. This is beginning to change. Last week, Virgin Atlantic announced a six-week trial of both Glass and Sony smartwatches. The idea will be for check-in attendants to use the devices to scan limousine number plates so that passengers can be greeted by name and be instantly updated on their flight status.

In the arts, digital technology has inspired much innovative work, as well as helped broaden its audience. David Hockney, one of England’s greatest living artists, recently exhibited a series of works produced entirely on his iPad at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. He is far from alone. Last week’s anniversary issue of The New Yorker featured work from Jorge Colombo on its front cover, again produced entirely on an iPad. Such digital innovation allows for increased productivity as well as new aesthetics. When done well, art can also involve the viewer, encouraging interaction. Digital technology helps with this too. Earlier in the year The New York Times covered how the New York City Ballet redesigned part of their floor in a new scheme to attract new visitors to the ballet. The result, roughly life-size pictures of dancers arranged on the floor, has seen great success, and an explosion of content on social media platforms like Instagram, where users have taken to posing on the floor as if interacting with the images (see above). It’s a simple tactic that now reaches a far greater audience thanks to new digital technologies.

A recently published book, ‘Now I know who my comrades are: Voices from the Internet Undergound’, by Emily Parker, seeks to demonstrate the ways in which digital technology has made helped to coalesce and support important activism in regions such as China and Latin America. But, as The Economist points out in its review, the disappointing situation in Egypt puts pay to some of the author’s claims; there are limits to how productive and transformative technology can be. In business, these hurdles are plain to see.  A poll taken by McKinsey published last month shows that “45% of companies admit they have limited to no understanding on how their customers interact with them digitally“. This is staggering. For all executives’ talk of the power of Big Data, such technology is useless without the proper structures in place to successfully analyse it. We also perhaps need to think more about repercussions of increased technological advances and how they influence our social interactions. In the recently opened film Her (starring Joaquin Phoenix, pictured below), set in the very near future, a new operating system is so pervasive and seamless that it leads to fraught, thought-provoking questions on the nature and productivity of relationships. When does conversation – and more – with a simulacrum detract from interactions with the physical world? These considerations may seem lofty, but as we illustrated earlier, the germination of such thoughts are being echoed in discussions over Google Glass.

So technology in 2014 heralds some promise for the future. Wearable tech as a trend is merely the initial stage of a journey where our interaction with computing systems becomes seamless. It is on this journey though that we need to make sure that businesses are making the most of every opportunity to streamline costs and enhance customer service, and that individual early adopters do not leave the rest of us behind to deal with a bewildering and alarming new way of living. One of our favourite quotations, from the author William Gibson, is apt to end on: “The future’s already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed“.