LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Oscars awards next week will have the look and feel of a movie, giving winners more time for speeches, while coronavirus masks will play a big role, producers of the show said on Saturday.
The coronavirus pandemic and a trio of new producers have led to a reinvention of the traditional show where the world’s highest film awards are presented to a seated theater audience of more than 4,000 A-list stars and industry executives.
Much of the April 25 ceremony will instead be held at the Art Deco Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, where a stage will be built and where presenters will do more than just open an envelope with the winner’s name .
“It won’t be like anything that’s been done before,” director Steven Soderbergh, who produces the show with Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, told a press conference.
Soderbergh, who directed the 2011 film ‘Contagion’, said the pandemic had “ opened an opportunity to try something that hasn’t been tried. ”
“We want the show to have a voice,” he added.
Soderbergh said the ceremony would be shot like a movie, with presenters like Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Halle Berry “playing themselves, or at least some version of themselves.”
Speeches from Oscar winners were previously limited to approximately 45 seconds. This year, said Soderbergh, “we’re giving them space. We encouraged them to tell a story and say something personal. “
The producers said there would be strict testing and COVID protocols, much of which would follow the standards developed last year to get film and TV production back on track.
They also consulted extensively with epidemiologists who worked 10 years ago on “Contagion,” which was an eerie foreshadowing of a virus’ devastating effects on the world and saw a bump in rentals and streaming last year.
When asked about masks at the ceremony, Soderbergh provided a deliberately cryptic answer.
“Masks are going to play a very important role in the story,” he said. “That subject is very central to the story.”
Nominees who cannot travel to Los Angeles for the ceremony will be able to participate via satellite connections from locations around the world, but there will be no Zoom performances.
The ceremony will be preceded by a 90-minute pre-show featuring performances of the five original song candidates pre-recorded on the roof of the new Academy Museum in Los Angeles and Iceland.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant