The Oscars are moving towards online voting?

Deadline says yes:

Oscar's move to online voting is off and running.

The Academy confirms that a very impressive 83% of the membership had returned cards requesting their email address by the deadline date of June 30, but an Academy spokesperson assured me "it's an ongoing process" so if you were one of the stragglers, get that email to the membership department.

This is a first step in a very methodical and careful move to online voting for the Academy just as most other guilds and voting orgs have already done. And it is also a first step toward potentially moving the Oscar telecast up earlier in the season to the end of January or beginning of February. An expedited voting process would certainly help make that difficult prospect easier to pull off.

The Acad sent out the request to members in May and considering the advanced age of some AMPAS voters the response is encouraging. Common wisdom is that older voters might be the most resistant to change but officials are happy with the way potential online voting is being embraced so far.

Another reason I'm not in favor of the new Academy rules for Best Picture voting...

...and it's similar to my previous issues, which will be documented in an article very soon (Clayton has the piece, it'll go up whenever he deems it appropriate). Here's Steve Pond at The Wrap breaking down the fact that a lot of voters won't have their ballots mean much for Best Picture:

A significant number of Best Picture ballots could end up essentially discarded as the result of the new Best Picture rules instituted by the Academy last week, TheWrap has discovered.

The Academy conceded that an increased number of ballots will no longer influence the slate of Best Picture nominees, but said its figures put the potential number of those ballots at less than 10 percent.

On the other hand, a simulation done by TheWrap (using critics' Top 10 lists rather than real Oscar ballots) shows the number of "unused" ballots topping 25 percent under the new rules.

Curious what the new way of voting for Best Picture will be like?

Of course you are, and The Hollywood Reporter explains it as best they can:

With the "new twist" it is introducing into the best picture Oscar race, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will also adopt a slightly modified nominating procedure to decide the nominees in its top category.

The Academy's board of governors voted Tuesday night to adopt a new rule: having opened the best picture race to 10 nominees two years ago, the Academy is now adopting a stricter standard that will result in anywhere from five to 10 nominees when nominations are announced on Jan. 24.

To secure a nomination, a picture will have collect at least five percent of the first-place votes cast.

That, in turn, affects the nominating process. For the past two years, each Academy member filled out a form, listing their ten best films, in order of preference from one to 10.

This time around, in the case of the best picture ballot, each member will be given a ballot with 5 open slots, which they will be asked to fill in with five movies, again ranked by preference.

As Bruce Davis, the outgoing executive director of the Academy explained: "What we're doing here is analyzing the first-place support."

The vote count, which will be conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, is actually a modified version of the preferential voting system that the Academy already employs.

Here's how it will work in the case of the best picture category.

• First, all the ballots are separated into separate stacks according to which film is listed as a first choice.
• Second, any movies that reach the five percent threshold are automatic nominees. Their stacks are then redistributed to their second or third choices according to a mathmatical formula. Their second or third choices count as partial votes when added to the remaining stacks.
• Third, at the opposite ends of the spectrum, those movies that have received less than one percent of the vote also see their stacks redistributed to their second if still available, or third choice if still available, etc.

At that point, the redistribution stops. The movies that have reached the five percent mark all become nominees.

The Academy invites 178 new members!

Behold the press release:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 178 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2011 to the Academy’s roster of members.

“These individuals are among the best filmmakers working in the industry today,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “Their talent and creativity have entertained moviegoers around the world, and I welcome each of them to our ranks.”

The Academy’s membership policies would have allowed a maximum of 211 new members in 2011, but as in other recent years, several branch committees endorsed fewer candidates than were proposed to them. Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003.

In an unprecedented gesture, the list of new members includes documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington, who was killed in action in Libya in April. Hetherington had been a 2010 nominee for his film “Restrepo,” but died prior to the Academy’s spring meetings to select new members. The Documentary Branch proposed that Hetherington’s name be included among the year’s invitees. The governors agreed.

The 2011 invitees are:

Oscar goes electronic?

Deadline has the story:

The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences just confirmed to me that it sent out a letter Thursday to all members that electronic voting for Oscars will be implemented "as early as this year, and will certainly by in effect by next year. ... At some point, once the system is up and running, mailed ballots will be eliminated." The letter from AMPAS director of membership Kimberly Roush asked members for a personal email address that goes directly to them and not to an assistant or agent or manager or other intermediary. This is the first step towards the Academy moving up the Oscars to January so it won't be the last awards show televised. Of course, other awards shows could move even earlier.

-Joey's Two Cents: It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but I could be wrong...thoughts?

Dawn Hudson named new CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!

Breaking news from Deadline:

The Board of Governors of the Motion Picture Academy voted on Thursday to establish a new executive structure for the organization, replacing retiring executive director Bruce Davis with former Film Independent head Dawn Hudson and long-time Academy executive Ric Robertson, who will become the organization’s CEO and COO respectively. Robertson will report to Hudson in the new leadership tandem.

Hudson has spent 20 years at the helm of Film Independent, which grew from a small non-profit into a nationally recognized arts institution under her leadership. Film Independent's two signature programs are the 26-year-old Independent Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, held annually in June.

“The Academy is the gold standard for the world’s most influential art form, and I am humbled by what the Board of Governors, the Academy members, and the staff have accomplished under Bruce Davis's leadership.” said Hudson. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with Ric, and to carry the Academy's mission forward into the future.”

Joey's Grandfather makes his annual Oscar picks!

As I do every year, I submit to you my grandfather's Oscar picks. He's 77 years old, retired from the film industry (a former projectionist and Union official), and sees almost as many films as I do. I've asked him to choose his personal choices, along with a runner-up (or in the case of Best Picture, to do preferential balloting), in order to see just how someone who resembles the average Academy member might cast his or her ballot. Here they are:

Best Picture

1. The Fighter
2. Black Swan
3. The Social Network
4. The King's Speech
5. True Grit
6. The Kids Are All Right
7. 127 Hours
8. Winter's Bone
9. Inception
10. Toy Story 3

The rest of his picks after the cut...

Oscar ballots are due tomorrow...

...so it's the final voting hours for the Academy, as per this in Deadline:

Get those ballots in, stragglers. Forget that many professional pundits and even casual observers of this year’s Oscar race have already called it. (...The King’s Speech wins Best Picture... Best Actor for Colin Firth... Natalie Portman gets Best Actress... The Fighter's Christian Bale and Melissa Leo win supporting... The Social Network's David Fincher picks up Director... and Aaron Sorkin snags Adapted Screenplay...) But if these are such sure shots, then why are people seemingly getting so nervous? Ballots are due Tuesday at 5 PM at the offices of PriceWaterhouseCoopers in downtown Los Angeles. With Monday a postal holiday due to President’s Day, the only way a vote will count now is if it is walked into the accountants before the deadline. Usually a few hundred are. By my informal surveys, a surprising number of voters waited until the last minute to mail in their ballots. Those who didn’t perhaps thought their vote wouldn’t matter in a race that looks like it’s going to be a King’s ransom. But consultants working with The King’s Speech say they are taking nothing for granted. Which is why director and DGA winner Tom Hooper is across town tonight at the Cinema Audio Society Awards to present a special honor to DGA president Taylor Hackford.