Filmmaking / Directing : Oscars new rules by Elmare Hendricks

I also saw that they're going to require members to watch every film before voting! Feels like a great rule to try and implement. You can tell some years which films in the smaller categories like Docs, Doc Shorts, Shorts, Animation Shorts were clearly not watched by many and like many have criticized "got votes based on vibes." Like this past year, the Doc Short "Incident" had a totally original and unique cinematography style with important subject matter and a crazy story. Clearly no one watched it, otherwise it should've been a no brainer front runner. The doc short winner, on the other hand, got a Netflix release in December with their little thumbnail tagged "Oscar nominee" and got way more eyes on it ahead of the voting. Instances like that where you can kind of see in the smaller categories how the most widely available film the earliest gets a leg up. Anyways, I'll end my rant, but think it's a good thing and the Oscars Death Race is a fun thing to do!

(https://apnews.com/article/oscars-rule-changes-academy-awards-477d12f8be...)

Pat Alexander Well, that's ostensibly always been the case, and it's by definition unenforceable. The academy also ruled that the use of generative artificial intelligence tools will “neither help nor harm the chances of a nomination.” Which IMO is in line with their membership's (studio-oriented) viewpoint, being that AI should be used to eventually rid the studios of pesky actors and crew.

WHAT? I gotta watch it - all of it - before I vote! What's the world coming to?

Shadow Dragu-Mihai, Esq., Ipg To have Academy members watch every film in a category would be easily enforceable given the digital portals that are now used for Awards screenings. In the past with DVDs, you couldn't really track it and there was an honor system, but with a digital portal, you could require however many minutes watched of a film on every film in a category, within the portal, before allowing a vote to be cast by a member. The tech to do this seamlessly is already out there.

Pat Alexander If anyone feels that what I say in this reply is cynical, it's possibly because they don't understand the purpose and function of a professional industry association (which is what the Academy is). It's ALWAYS been physically possible to enforce people to watch before voting; streaming does nothing to strengthen that. But it's not now and never has been politically viable within the Academy to do that. Voting rules will only serve the majority of Academy and their studio handlers think it's in their best interests - and should. People forget though that this has never been a people's choice awards. Those of us in legitimate industry who lose sight of that whine and cry about fairness and art. This is an award, which is promoted by inside industry for the open purposes of telling everyone that Hollywood studio industry film (and those outside Hollywood who are owned or controlled by same) is superior in every way, as well as reward the studio industry projects which have excelled commercially, and to express sometimes coded sometimes not so coded messages. Changes in the voting of the Academy will only ever be at the convenience and in the interests of Academy members - major studio associates all.