The Best Picture:
Well, I know there are a lot of people out there who haven’t been able to understand the way or on what basis the Academy decides the best movie of the year and I was one of those too. I also used to give them brilliant harsh words when they didn’t give the award to the movie I watched 10 times (No one has watched a movie 1000 times), but I came to know about the rules and methods and want to share with you.
The time for the Oscars to crown their Best Picture of the Year 2018 is not so far, but how do they vote for the award? Contemplated to be the highest honor of the Academy, The Best Picture has seen many changes through these years and that might have left even some die-hard cineaste to lose their minds as to how the winner is determined. For all the preciseness, certain forerunners have many times surprised people with their selections.
Providentially, the procedure is not as complicated as it seems when broken down. As moviegoers around the world start their final arrangements for the Academy Awards, we are going to take you a tour of how the members vote for the Best Picture.
How The Nominees Are Selected:
Between 1945 – 2008, the Academy choose five films for the nominations for the Best Picture, but because of the disturbance over the infamous Dark Knight Snub, the members opened up the doors for 10 nominees total (started in 2009). In the year 2011, they again mixed up the things by executing a sliding scale.
According to the present rule, anywhere between 5 to 10 movies can be chosen for the nominations for Best Picture. The academy also clarified that this action was taken to conserve the nobility of a Best Picture, and the title should only go to the one that is truly worth it. Under this method, the Academy has passed the years with 8 or 9 nominees, but never a full 10.
When the Oscar balloting begins, each member of the Academy (about 8,000 members) can vote for the Best Picture but secretly. The members are asked to chose their top five films in order of their preference, with the most favorite one going on the top. After this process ends and preceding results are calculated, a film needs to obtain at least 5 percent of first position votes in order to achieve the nomination for the Best Picture.
A single transferable system is also used during this procedure, and the films that couldn’t make it move ahead are eliminated while the films that are still in running are transferred ahead in the game. This goes on for as many rounds as much it takes to set the final field.
How The Best Picture Winner Is Selected:
Once the nominations are selected, then the movies are defined by the people at Academy into nine films which are best then the rest under the format of the sliding scale. Then comes the voting from the side of Academy Awards, who rate the movies on a scale from favorite to least favorite. After all the members of the Academy finish with their voting, it’s time to bring the name of the movies according to the votes they got.
Then the movie, which gets more than 50 percent of the votes is crowned with the Best Picture award and becomes the winner but if no movie comes with more than 50% votes then things get interesting as the movie which has finished ninth is eliminated according to the rule and then the ballots are redistributed to all the members of the Academy.
Now, the place where ballots will go is based upon their second place selection. Now, this pushes Academy members to run some horses of their mind as they have to vote for their favorite movie alongside second and possibly third movies which can influence the selection of Best Picture Award.
The preferential balloting method can favor films which are likened by most of the people and is quite polarizing but more of artistically daring. Thus, the process keeps on going on and on until a movie with more than 50% of votes comes in front.
So, are you clear with the methods of Academy Awards? Tell us in the comments section down below.
