Oscar Predictions: Cinematography, Production Design, Editing
Monday, October 5, 2020 at 6:48PM by Nathaniel R
we're in mourning that we won't get to see DUNE this year...
You've probably heard that Dune is no longer a 2020 picture and will now arrive in the final quarter of 2021. This necessitated yet another revision just as we'd finished nearly all of the Oscar charts -- our work is never done! The biggest impact is in the visual categories. These should be interesting to follow this year in the absence of the kind of big budget spectacle films that often dominated visual categories. Does this mean voters will get more creative and search out further afield Production Design possibilities like, say, Shirley, or First Cow or I'm Thinking of Ending Things or more lax and just nominate their favourite Best Picture candidates in every visual category even if those pictures are mostly contained in one location (hi One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) or out on the open road in a beaten down van (hi Nomadland)...
Cinematography could also prove to be of particular interest during this atypical Oscar season. Most of Oscar's regulars in that category don't have films this year so the branch could get a brand new fresh blood infusion. The contenders left standing are mostly DPs who've never been nominated before (and some of them should have already like Maryse Alberti, Mandy Walker, or Darius Wolski)
The following charts are all up and updated...
Reader Comments (25)
I know this has nothing to do with the Oscars, but I’m just incredibly curious. How are you doing The Film Bitch Awards this year? Will you stick to films released in 2020 or follow the Oscars expanded season? I look forward to them almost as much as the Oscars. 😊
At this point they should just cancel the Oscars.
Wolski: Looking over his filmography, as much as I DO think he probably should have at least one nomination, I also get why he's not managed it. On merit, only The Crow is really a standout. (Nomination: 1994, The Crow, over Wyatt Earp.)
Mandy Walker: Eh. It's not hard to make the sweeping deserts of Australia look good. But that would still be a more interesting pick than the odd 2008 selections. (Nomination: 2008 over Changeling.)
Maryse Alberti: I see a couple merited, if atypical, selections. (Nominations: 2008, The Wrestler, over The Reader and 2015 over Mad Max: Fury Road, a movie, that, though great, isn't super interesting looked at from either camera positioning/movement OR lighting standpoints.)
They're going to cancel the Oscars. I just can't see how they can go on with indies and a handful of Netflix pics.
I agree Peggy Sue. The nominations would be for films about 5 people total have seen
Oh not in THIS Year, when Glenn got finally her Oscar and hopefully Fincher his first too and Kate her second.
MDA, Peggy Sue and any others: I am actually willing to take a bet that the Oscars will go ahead.(Truly, make me a wager and I will take it.) Whilst there are many instances where the Academy has shown a lack of integrity (Most Popular Film, anyone?), canceling the awards night would just be a step too far that I firmly believe they will not take.
And David, frankly that's ridiculous. Once again, someone interprets the Oscars as being about "most" rather than "best". I'd even go so far as to guess that you would be one of the people classifying films like PARASITE and MOONLIGHT as movies "about 5 people have seen". Apologies for the direct aggression, but yours is an argument that I am well sick of hearing (whilst also resigning myself to hearing again and again and again in my lifetime).
Parasite and Moonlight were both shown in theaters when there was not a nationwide pandemic and theaters were open at capacity. Redirect your anger at your mother where it belongs
PS thanks Nathaniel for these. I am having fun reading them and finalising my own predictions based on yours and other websites. I look forward to the final three categories.
(PPS SUICIDE SQUAD was not only nominated for Makeup and Hair, but actually won. A fact that I can understand may want to be buried deep on the recesses of memory ("Oscar winner SUICIDE SQUAD") but it was reasonably deserved, so credit where credit is due. (Although I would have gone with STAR TREK BEYOND myself.))
Fucking cancel it. Just make the next Oscars be for the past 2 years. This pandemic ruined everything.
I’m very excited to see Definition Please by Sujata Day!
If another Christopher Nolan film with long patches of inaudible dialogue gets nominated (and maybe wins!) in the sound categories, I'm gonna scream. As far as I'm concerned, inaudible dialogue is the aural equivalent of out-of-focus cinematography. Once in a while, there's an artistic reason for doing it, but VERY RARELY. Jesus.
Apart from that unprovoked, immature and abhorrent comment, David, might I also point out that your reply still doesn't provide any logical explanation for your original comment "The nominations would be for films about 5 people total have seen". Might you just admit you may have been exaggerating, or maybe provide the types of movies you are referring to?
Cancel the Oscars. There is nothing to choose from!
The landscape is so uncertain now,I think nearly all the nominees will come from non cinema releases as there will be so few.
I for one am very excited about this year's Oscars. As it has been for the last few years, most Academy voters probably watch the movies on screeners anyway (admittedly on big giant TVs or home theaters), so I don't think that will be too different. But I'm hopeful that people will have more time to consider indies and foreign films to go along with the usual spectacle films. It's going to be a very exciting prediction period too.
Could TFE even survive if the Oscars were cancelled? I know a lot of revenue comes from FYC ads.
Everyone I know saw DA 5 BLOODS, to offer just one example, so the idea that "only 5" people are watching the eligible films is just plain wrong. For once, we have a chance at some really interesting choices getting their names on a nomination certificate. But if people want to wait for the over hyped middlebrow KINGS SPEACHes and GREEN BOOKs to return, I guess that's their business. Just don't watch them this year. As with remakes of your favorite classics, NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO WATCH ANYTHING.
Sorry, but there is no reason to cancel the Oscars. There are already great movies eligible, who could (and will) be nominated. The biggest problems are the blockbusters, who got pushed into 2021 - but besides of Dune and maybe Spielbergs West Side Story, I doubt that any of them would have been a player in the "big" categories like Best Picture, Best Director or Best Actress/Actor.
So let it be the Indie-Oscars - why not? We had a lot of more weaker years than this one (I am looking right at you, 1963 ;).
#CANCELOSCARS
Cancel the show, it devalues the Award if the nominees are just scrounged together.
jules -- it's going to be rough yeah. I'm not sure what to do with NO revenue as opposed to the current very limited revenue.
So Nomadland is winning Best Picture
Julian -- i'm torn. I always follow Oscar eligibility even with qualifiers (which I hate) but then on the other hand, I never expected that to NOT be the calendar year.
Nat - That alone is enough reason to cut out the "cancel the Oscars" nonsense.
Also, though among your predicted top 10 I've only seen Nomadland (I really hope Da 5 Bloods makes it), I dare say I might enjoy this BP line-up more than that in 2015, 2011, 2008... probably others.