John August

Awards

Redbox’s arbitrary winners

Awards, Film Industry

Redbox, the DVD rental kiosk company, sent out a [press release](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/and-the-winner-is-redbox-announces-its-top-rentals-in-2011-2011-12-29) with a list of their most-rented titles for 2011:

* Most-Rented Movie: Just Go With It
* Most-Rented Action Movie: The Green Hornet
* Most-Rented Comedy Movie: Just Go With It
* Most-Rented Drama Movie: The Tourist
* Most-Rented Family Movie: Rango
* Most-Rented Horror Movie: Insidious

Huh-wuh?

I couldn’t remember what Just Go With It even was — although I was pretty sure Katherine Heigl was in it.

But I was wrong.

Just Go With It was the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy I never saw. My first instinct was to write something snide about how Adam Sandler is a big star among Americans who get their cinema and broccoli at the same place.

However, that would be unfair. The movie was financially successful: $103 million domestic box office. But that ranks it [only #25](http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm) among the top movies of the year.

In fact, none of the films on Redbox’s most-rented list made the box office top 10 for the year — Rango made the most, landing at #19.

So why are they the winners here?

**Because they happened to come out early in 2011 (or late in 2010), and were on video longer.**

Title Theatrical Release Video Release
Just Go With It 2/11/11 6/7/2011
The Green Hornet 1/14/11 5/3/11
The Tourist 12/10/10 3/22/11
Rango 3/4/11 7/15/11
Insidious 4/1/11 7/12/11

Redbox’s list could more honestly be called, “Some movies that came out on video early in 2011.”

Missed opportunities and second chances

Awards, First Person

Melissa Rossi won a Student Academy Award for her university thesis film. That success prompted her to move to Los Angeles to begin a career as a writer/director. But she wasn’t ready.

She writes in to discuss what she wishes she had known, and what she’s doing differently to be ready the next time.

—

first personBack in 2005, I won a Student Academy Award for the thesis film I made at the Florida State University Film School. I had just moved to LA, just learned the real meaning of traffic, and had just added the word IKEA to my vocabulary. While I had the utmost confidence in actual technical filmmaking — I felt comfortable holding a boom pole, scheduling a film, and working with actors — I knew very little about the industry itself.

melissa rossi[Read more…] about Missed opportunities and second chances

It’s all a bunch of piles

Awards, Follow Up

As an add-on to my earlier post, Bart Smith points me to an article on The Wrap about [how nomination votes are tallied](http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/counting-oscar-ballots-its-complicated-12279).

I found it very straightforward until the “surplus rule”:

> In this case, “Up in the Air” and “Avatar” have significantly more votes than the 501 they need to be nominated, and more than the 601 (501 plus 20 percent) they need to trigger the surplus rule. “Up in the Air” has twice as many votes as it needs, and “Avatar” has 50 percent more.

> So those two films get their nominations, but their ballots aren’t taken off the table. Instead, they’re all redistributed into the piles of the films listed second — where they count not as a full vote, but as whatever fraction of the vote wasn’t needed. A sliding scale determines exactly what percentage is used.

> The “Up in the Air” ballots, for instance, will count as half a vote, because that film only needed half of each of its 1,002 votes to reach the magic number of 501. “Avatar” needed two-thirds of its 771 votes to reach the threshold, so its redistributed votes will count as one-third – i.e., the unneeded portion of each vote.

> Each voter will still only get a single vote – but in this case, that single vote will be split between two different films.

It ultimately makes sense, but it very much feels like a system devised by accountants.

How nominations work

Awards

This is my first year as an Academy member, and my first year voting for awards. As a member of the Writers branch, I’ll be casting ballots for Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.

Since it’s all new to me, I thought I’d walk readers through the process.

A few weeks ago, I got a printed Reminder List — a catalog listing all the films eligible for Best Picture. It’s from this list that I have to pick and rank my top ten films. I’ll hand-write the titles on a form that goes in a green envelope, which must be received by the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP by 5 p.m. January 23, 2010.

Nominating ten films for Best Picture is a change from previous years, in which there were only five nominations. ((But there’s certainly historical precedent: in 1934, there were 12 nominees. Widening the field has been controversial, but I’m inclined to wait and see how it turns out.)) But the system of ranking your choices dates back to 1936. It’s a form of [preferential voting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting) designed to more accurately reflect the will of voters.

But man, it’s complicated. It’s easier to explain what it’s not.

1. **It’s not a weighted ballot.** You might think that your top pick gets 10 points, while your second pick gets nine points, etc. It’s not that. In fact…

2. **You’re really only voting for one title.** Your ballot will only be counted towards one film. That film will be the one you ranked first, unless your number one pick has the smallest number of votes and is thus out of the running. In that case, they count your second pick. If needed, they’ll continue on to your third, fourth or later picks until your ballot is cast for exactly one picture. ((You could presumably pick ten movies that no one else does. That’s one challenge of such a wide-open field of choices.))

3. **It’s not “wasting your vote” to rank your number-one pick first.** You might think your favorite movie is a longshot for a nomination, but that film could get enough second- or third-place votes to put it in the top 10. And if it doesn’t, your vote will go to your next-highest choice. But the rules state that a picture can’t be nominated without at least one number-one vote.

4. **A full ballot doesn’t hurt your top picks.** In WGA board elections, I’m always mindful that casting a vote for a candidate I half-heartedly support might knock out the candidates I truly want. So I’ll often cast a short ballot with just my top choices. For Academy Award nominations, that’s not a factor. While it’s unlikely that my tenth-ranked choice would benefit from my vote, it doesn’t hurt to include it.

This year, in a change from previous years, the final voting for Best Picture will also use preferential voting. Instead of picking one film, voters will rank the ten nominees in order.

At the new members reception, Academy leaders stressed the importance of seeing all ten nominees. I’m mostly caught up, but I’ll be sure to watch any ones I’ve missed before final voting.

Nominations for the two writing categories work basically the same as Best Picture. We’re given a list of eligible screenplays, and a form upon which to rank our choices in each category. Only screenwriters vote for the writing awards.