Oscar producers reveal plans for show and Covid safety procedure – deadline

Oscar show producers Jesse Collins, Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh explained this morning how Covid-19 protocols would be integrated into the April 25 airing, assuring that they are taking all possible steps to ensure that all nominees and entrants be safe during the three-hour ceremony.

Especially now that Soderbergh and Sher have also produced the forward-looking film from 2011, Contamination, they also seem to have an idea of ​​how to do it for the Academy Awards.

“We practiced a lot. This industry was at the forefront of creating a protocol to get people back to work safely. It started last June with The Safe Way Forward (which Soderbergh led the way) and was then formalized in a negotiation with the Producers in September. I’m in the middle of filming my second movie at Covid. We know how to handle these kinds of situations, ”said Soderbergh. “It’s incredibly labor-intensive, it’s logistically incredibly complex, and it’s expensive.

“This is all going to be part of the story of the evening, how we got people back to work and exactly what it takes to do that. There is that kind of part that will run through the entire program of following the science of protecting people. The whole situation has been incredibly fluid in making sure we stick to the guidelines in terms of capacity, how we’re allowed to move people, and how long we’re allowed to keep them in certain places. This is an ongoing conversation with LA County. There is no universe in which we will ever endanger anyone. We hope to combine safety with a show that feels like a glimpse of what will be possible when most people get vaccinated and quick testing is the norm. Covid will be there because it is everywhere. But we want to put it in place and then go a little bit further. “

Sher added: “We are really lucky to have made this movie together 10 years ago, Contamination, and met some of the world’s leading epidemiologists. They have been involved and advised us. It is a constant evolution. We did not expect where Europe would be when we started this process. As epidemiologists say, “We may be done with Covid, but Covid isn’t done with us yet.” But if you get more people vaccinated, and it’s amazing that LA is open from the age of 16, then we can really go here and create a space where new variants can’t develop, so it’s science to me. “

As for the content of the 93rd annual Academy Awards themselves, producers assured it would be optimistic about the love and need for the movie experience, with Sher even calling for the announced closure of Arclight Theaters and the venerable Cinerama Dome this week . “We’ve all been hit with Arclight. We are here to argue why cinema matters, ” she said.

Collins said the show is evolving into something they only thought could be, saying they have followed Soderbergh’s “manifesto”. They say it’s unlike any Oscar show ever tried (considering this year of Covid-19, that’s quite an understatement). The look will certainly be new, not at all like a TV show, says Soderbergh, noting that it will be 24 frames per second, widescreen, with shots designed like movie footage, over the shoulder too.

Since the venue takes place at Union Station for most of the ceremony, he says the room is beautifully laid out there (David Rockwell is the production designer), and he hopes this will encourage the winners to say something meaningful. “We want people to say something, and we give them space,” he says. Soderbergh was asked for his own memorable acceptance speech when he won the Best Director award Traffic in 2001, something that has been used as a good example at previous Oscar nominee lunches to show potential winners what a good speech is. “I was drunk. That’s not a lie,” laughed Soderbergh, who said it was an unreal moment for Tom Cruise to hand over that Oscar and affect his whole balance, as he had no idea he could possibly win.

A concern, especially among some publicists and actors I’ve spoken to, is whether masks will be needed at the ceremony. Soderbergh answered that “cryptically”, as he himself admitted. Masks will play a very important role in the story of the evening. That subject is very central to the evening, ”he said without elaborating. The producers also uniformly agreed that the ambitious show they are doing would not have been possible two months ago when the 93rd ceremony was originally scheduled for February 28 (the date the Golden Globes came in and took after AMPAS left it) . “That February date would have been impossible. Things have improved so much with the vaccines. It was a great decision to push the show, ”said Soderbergh.

Answer a question if there has been an outreach to invite President Biden, who has previously appeared on an Oscarcast (to introduce Lady Gaga’s song) Until it happens to you), Sher said, “I think they have bigger fish to fry.” Producers too, especially Soderbergh, were succinct in answering a question about using Zooms as other awards shows have done this year. The answer to that, as they have said repeatedly, is ‘no’.

“We will be using satellite connections,” said Soderbergh to the nominees who cannot participate in any other way. “We can control the image and sound and incorporate it into the overall show [more seamlessly]

The “red carpet” so associated with Oscars and awards will be “small,” producers say, designed for intimate conversations with nominees, another bow to security concerns to crowd many people in the same space. Yesterday, they announced plans to have the nominated songs all play during the 90-minute pre-show (all pre-recorded, usually at the new Academy Museum, as Deadline first reported in March). Producers say each song will have unique creative elements and will be performed in its entirety, something they say has thrilled all the artists involved, even though they won’t be part of the actual Oscar ceremony itself, but rather the pre- show for the first time. However, the actual winner will indeed be one of 23 categories announced on the show itself. A list of 15 presenters was revealed earlier this week, but Soderbergh promised two more presenters would be named by the end of the week. Logistics of locking them up has delayed news of their participation.

Despite the fact that many of the nominated films this year can be perceived as depressing or dark in some ways, Soderbergh wants the Oscar show itself to be uplifting and hopeful and about ‘what gets us out of this feeling of being trapped at home’, he says, hoping it doesn’t remind us of the “pain and dislocation” people have been feeling over the past year. “We want to see potential future,” he said. As Collins reiterates, they want the show to register emotional, reminds us that we are a common species and that it is important to return to theaters and experience the experience of ‘movie love’.

The unusual, and hopefully unique for this year, conditions surrounding this show have certainly opened an opportunity to try things that have not been tried before. But you have to find a balance. You can’t just blow the whole thing out, ”said Soderbergh. “There are certain pillars to a show like this that you have to respect and build on and around, so that’s what we’ve been trying to do. We want to fulfill these basic ‘desires’ of the viewer, while adding some elements that we think are more distinctive, less like a show created by an institution, and feel more personal. We want the show to have a voice. “