Whiplash Screenplay Drama (Plus: My Personal Ballot)
Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at 8:50PM 
This can't be good news for Whiplash by way of splintered votes. Mark Harris, who is married to an Academy Award nominated writer remember, reported on Grantland that on the e-ballot reminder list Whiplash is officially considered an Adapted Screenplay by the Academy. The film's campaign always listed it as an Original Screenplay (see FYC ad left). The confusion, as also detailed on Deadline, stems from the Sundance winning short of the same name, also made by Damien Chazelle and starring J.K. Simmons. The short, according to the team, was made solely to get the feature funded. So if anything the short is an Adaptation of the feature which was made later if you will.
But the Academy rules on this are ever blurry. And technically they aren't "rules". You can vote for anything you'd like after all on your paper ballot (where this isn't a "pulldown menu" of course) but if half of its fans vote for it in Original and half in Adapted it's simple math (if math can ever be simple in preferential ballots) that it's probably not going to get nominated.
[Sidebar: The Writers Guild of America announces its nominees tomorrow but they have such strict rules about who is eligible that many well written films each year are disqualified so it's rarely a very correlative award in terms of the Oscar race. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Better more movies celebrated than fewer.]
This seems as good a time as any to announce my own ballot for Best Screenplay(s) which includes some surefire nominees (like Gone Girl) some absolutely deserving but sure not-to-be Oscar nominated screenplays like Pride, Force Majeure (original) and some oddities like The Babadook (which I put in Adapted even though it's considered Original by many because it is inspired by derived from (whatever) this earlier embryonic short... also by the wonderfully talented Jennifer Kent (who we recently spoke to).
Monster - Jennifer Kent from Jennifer Kent on Vimeo.
...unlike the Whiplash situation where it's just the same thing. Only the short is yanked from the future feature. Categories? What are they good for!? ;)
Nomination announcements have now been made in Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction for this site's annual celebratory jamboree, the Film Bitch Awards. Now in its (gulp) 15th year.
Reader Comments (14)
These rules I think are just absolutely fucking stupid.
That sucks for Whiplash, since I bet half of voters already placed it in the Original category and sent their ballots. Tough luck. I don't think Whiplash is that great of a movie, but I still feel bad for it if voters feel enthusiastic about its screenplay, but it won't get nominated just because the Academy not only has very blurry rules, but cannot even make these types of announcements on time.
Can I make an FYC for your awards? Please, please, please, do NOT put Agata Kulesza in supporting. She is clearly a lead, and I think the LA critics should have known better an switched her with Arquette.
I haven't had a chance to see Mr. Turner, but would love to see this list for Production Design pop up on Oscar morning. Maybe with the inclusion of Birdman. But I'm not holding out hope for anything but Grand Budapest.
Whiplash is still most likely going to be nominated. I read this news over at In Contention and there, Kris Tapley explained to us that most Academy members vote with e-ballots these days (not paper ballots, Kris says they're not as common anymore) and there you can only choose from the eligible films (no "write-in" votes allowed there), so they can only vote Whiplash into Adapted. Even if paper ballots were the norm, a last minute switch from one category to another doesn't doom a film's Screenplay chances. Remember Syriana? WGA-nominated for Adapted Screenplay, the Academy deemed it Original very close to the nomination anouncement, and it still got nominated at the Oscars. So, let's not get hasty. Whiplash is still very likely to show up (I know it's not a popular film on this site, but I see a lot of love for it)...
surprised by the lack of imitation game in your year-end posts so far... bested by theory of everything in adapted and didn't even break your top 30, despite a B+ rating
hope to still see my girl keira somewhere in the film bitch awards ;)
*whispers* Whiplash should not be nominated for either original or adapted.
Richter -- its true that every year more members use their e-ballots but it's been a painful adjustment for them (remember the chaos of that first year?) and a lot of members do still vote by paper. I'm just saying in tight races every vote counts.
but that said if it gets nominated it's a great break for Chazelle since he could actually win there unless there's more support for Gone Girl than we initially thought.
Travis -- it didn't age well for me so i'd downgrade to a "B" now. but my biggest problem with it is the screenplay so that wouldn't show up on my chart. I actually really liked the production design. just not as top five.
Just a minor nitpick, but you have The Lego Movie both as a nominee in Adapted and as a semifinalist in Original.
The rules in the writing awards category are frustrating. Particularly their considering of all sequels as adapted... but what you gonna do?!
I hope our conversation on Twitter didn't force you to change stuff around. I do, however, think adapted is the right route for THE BABADOOK since MONSTER, the short you have embedded that preceeded THE BABADOOK by nearly ten years is so similar in many ways from the gothic, German horror aesthetic, to the pointy fingers, to even actual scenes like the kitchen one and the very concept of a mother with an exacerbating son and the nighttime horrors that scare him. I was genuinely surprised people considered it original having seen that short a while back.
WHIPLASH, however... yeah, the short film was literally a scene plucked out of the feature length screenplay so the adapted citation doesn't fly. The short was NOT written independently and if the short had used Miles Teller then nobody would have known it was its own pre-made separate entity.
Glenn -- no, it was fine. I didn't have room for it in original anyway and i agree about the short.
John: That's why, personally, I have it eligible for neither divided category. Too much using characters cut from whole cloth to justifiably fit in Adapted (LEGO is a visual iconography, not a solidified storytelling engine, guys. A movie made with LEGOs that used no licensed characters or structured set concepts would be an original script in my eyes), too much riffing on licensed characters like Batman to fit in Original. It would probably be in my list of "Top 10 scripts of the year, screw category divisions", but if you HAVE to make the division, I'd suggest to just leave The LEGO Movie as an unplaceable effort and say that outright.
I might be in the minority, but was completely unimpressed by Whiplash, overall. It's a good, to great film, undoubtfully, but it's the same old song, again, now with drums.
Really predictable, most of it. Its strenght being powerful performances in candy roles by Meller and Simmons, less showy role by Paul Reiser who is a little delight as a break between the nearly over-the top performances of the starring duo.Simmons should be running as lead, but, if supporting, I wouldn't give him the Oscar ove Patrick D'Assumçao and his calm, depressive straight man at a gay cruising beach in "Stranger in the Lake", a calm performance that gets a character peels his soul on screen without ever needing to deliver an Oscar clip.