Documentary Insider is reporting on Tuesday night's meeting of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch. At issue - the rules for the 2008 Oscars and changes in how documentary films will qualify for eligibility:
The short of it, and these rules are not 100% set in stone, is that documentaries vying for the 80th Academy Awards will have to play in 14 cities, 3 day engagements and screen twice a day in at least 10 states. The other major change is that the 14 cities can be projected in ANY format, including DVD. But those of you heaving a sigh of relief that you won’t have to make a film print, save your breath, the Academy will still require a 7 day engagement in Los Angeles or Manhattan that screens on one of their approved formats and if the film makes the short list the Academy requires two prints.
Last year, filmmakers were flummoxed by new rules requiring films to be projected in 7 cities according to very specific technical specs, technical specs that many art house theaters around the country could not meet. Those rule changes met with considerable resistance from documentary filmmakers, yet they stood as the Academy's Documentary Branch sought new ways to assure that films that were shortlisted for the Oscar were actually intended for theatrical release.
I had previously written here about the strange case of On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Commission Report, which was shortlisted last year after a qualifying run in Los Angeles, but which seemed to never play anywhere again (neither festivals nor theatrical) before it ran on Court TV in August. While this obeyed the letter of the Academy law - it did have that qualifying Los Angeles engagement - it did not obey the spirit of the rules, which is that the initial engagement (which has to come before the deadline of August 31) must be followed by a set number of engagements in theaters around the country.
According to Documentary Insider, many, if not most, of the films that went through the eligibility process last year failed to book any other theatrical dates prior to the announcement of the shortlist:
So, 2007 Oscar hopefuls will have to complete their 14-city requirement BEFORE the shortlist is published in November.
Meanwhile over at FilmStew, Shelley Gabert muckrakingly reports on the tone of the meeting, which appears to be something of an uprising:
Even though the Documentary Branch and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are out of touch with grassroots documentary filmmaking, the Governors really don't seem to care (as (Branch President Frieda Lee) Mock put it, "This is the Academy, and we have high standards.") But that line just doesn’t fly anymore in a world of major technological changes. The Academy's strategy for this category seems to be to keep people out and put up as many hurdles as possible, when filmmakers believe it should be just the opposite.
(....)
But the Academy’s disengaged attitude prevailed at this gathering. After complaining that the only tea available at the refreshments table was Earl Grey, Apted came across initially as quite haughty, though his demeanor had softened somewhat after an hour of questions, comments and complaints. To wit, one of Apted's final remarks was, "We don’t know all the answers and if we made a mistake in the rule changes, we’ll know and we’ll change them again."
Overall, Apted appeared surprised by the filmmakers' unruly attitudes. For many, the mystery remains why the Academy changed the rules in the first place. No really sound answer to this riddle was offered. Supposedly, there was data that showed that many documentaries, perhaps up to 40 out of the 90 submitted one year, tried to either squeeze in to Academy consideration with only the seven-day exhibition, and-or only doing the multi-city rollout after being put on the shortlist.
While Gabert's article fashions this all into one storyline - the populist artists fighting against the haughty and elitist gate-keepers, there's actually numerous issues going on within the Academy's doc branch rules, and not all of them fit into that simple David v. Goliath equation.
First, there is the issue of the rules having changed in 2002 to favor theatrical documentaries. I have argued here previously and continue to believe that this was one of the impetuses of the recent wave of success documentaries have had - not just at the box office but culturally. This was a controversial move at the time and many in the documentary community who had never had to pursue theatrical engagements for their films were unhappy that they would be forced to settle for the Emmys. To suggest that this feeling has gone away would be a mistake. Gabert even takes to this cause by offering an argument that is light on facts:
When making a documentary, most filmmakers don’t think about the theatrical realm too heavily, because almost all documentaries are sold to television. Meanwhile, the Academy is caught up in worrying about an Academy Award winning documentary then playing on television too soon as some kind of embarrassment. It just doesn’t make any sense.
But is that really what the Academy is doing? Worried about looking embarassed? Or promoting documentary films as a legitimate theatrical entity, which in the end is good for all nonfiction filmmakers? Because clearly, having a category at the Oscars that is filled with the likes of Bowling for Columbine, Winged Migration, Spellbound, Super Size Me, March of the Penguins, Fog of War, Tupac: Resurrection and Capture the Friedmans has been very good for all of us. (To say nothing of the out-of-left-field notion that most nonfiction filmmakers don't think of theatrical too heavily.)
Habert actually reinforces this idea of entitlement (I make therefore I should qualify) when she quotes an anonymous producer saying, "What difference does it make if you do exhibit in 14 cities, but nobody goes to see the film?" The assumption being that you couldn't draw an audience because you aren't doing a real theatrical engagement with ads, reviews, press coverage, but the kind of matinee, one a day screenings that this qualification process has become famous for.
Also, the complaints of filmmakers that they have to make theatrical prints to be able to screen in NY and LA (which is necessary to go through the eligibility process) ring somewhat hollow when one remembers that as recently as 2001, most film festivals could not project digitally and so filmmakers would have to make prints even to play the smallest, crappiest of fests, not to mention the recognition that no one is forcing any filmmaker to try to qualify for an Oscar.
I think Habert comes closer to the truth when she suggests that "(t)he Academy's strategy for this category seems to be to keep people out and put up as many hurdles as possible, when filmmakers believe it should be just the opposite." Numerous sources familiar with the Academy's deliberation process have told me that some documentary branch members have complained of the number of films that they have to wade through each year and have suggested new ways to limit the number of films that could potentially qualify.
Whether the above is true or not, the mandate for a theatrical release is becoming clearer each year, and it begs the question, why doesn't the Academy eliminate the qualification procedure (along with the shortlists, the screenings, the committees, etc.) and just decide the documentary prize the same way that it decides every other Oscar - with expensive campaigns complete with trade ads, DVDs sent to documentary branch members, organized screenings and the like. (I'm only being half facetious here.) Would it really be that worse than what the current system produces?
And to determine eligibilty, you could either qualify by playing a specific number of theatrical dates (and I'm as happy with 14 as I am with any other number) or you qualify because you've played a specific number of approved film festivals. This way if you have a film like, say, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, which hadn't struck its deal with ThinkFilm until just after the shortlist was announced, you wouldn't be penalized. Clearly there has to be a mechanism in place for films that aspire to theatrical engagements (not everyone is aiming for TV) but, in the current market, don't make their distribution deals or their self-distribution plans right away. (Just as clearly, some distributors wait to see which films have made - or might make - the shortlist before they jump in.)
This way, documentary branch members could get their own list of 90 or 70 or 50 or 110 eligible films and it would be up to them to watch as many of them as possible. Then they could vote for their favorites. I bet you'd still get underdogs like Street Fight and you also might get Grizzly Man, but no matter what you'd get, it would be part of an open voting process, rather than a byzantine, clandestine gathering of tribes.
In the meantime, we'll likely have more evenings like Tuesday, which ends with more confusion and hurt feelings as the Documentary Branch tries to assert that it's serious about theatrical, yet still understanding about funding that comes from television sources, and as filmmakers try to make sense of how next year's rules vary from this and how it will affect them.
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Posted by: RetKeenineupt | August 23, 2007 at 08:08 PM