Oscars producers are hoping both viewers and the Hollywood elite will ultimately be thankful over a radical change to the telecast.
Overshadowed amid all the attention on the lack of diversity among the Academy Awards nominees — which don’t include a single actor or actress of color for a second straight year — is a new format. Winners must list the people they want to acknowledge in a scroll that appears on the bottom of the television screen.
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All nominees are expected to submit their thank you lists in advance via a “scroll card” — just in case they win.
“Words are written on the winds,” producers Reginald Hudlin and David Hill said when they unveiled the plan at the Oscars Luncheon earlier this month. “A screen grab of your scroll can be kept forever.”
The idea is to save the 45-second allotted speech time for more heartfelt subject matter.
“I value the work of sound mixers and visual effects artists,” movie historian Leonard Maltin, who saw the demonstration up close at the luncheon, told the Daily News. “But most people outside of the movie industry don’t have any keen interest to hear them thank their cohorts in the trenches.”
To make their case, Hudlin and Hill showed the luncheon crowd video of last year’s Best Short Documentary winners Dana Perry and Ellen Goosenberg Kent, according to USA Today.
Kent started off with a long list of thank yous for those who helped get the military suicide doc, “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1,” to the screen. That left Perry’s stunning declaration that her son had committed suicide to nearly get drowned out by the music playing them off the stage.
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“That started us thinking, how can we ensure that the winners have an opportunity to say what’s in their hearts and thank the most important people at the same time?” Hill said during the luncheon.
There are advantages: Hilary Swank forgot to thank her then-husband, Chad Lowe, who was sitting in the audience during her 2000 acceptance speech after winning best actress for “Boys Don’t Cry.”
But it’s really a boon for the people behind the camera — assuming the winners stick to that script. Amid annual complaints about the tepid television ratings for the biggest awards show in the film industry, one of the glaring ones is that the telecast is often way too long and boring.
The dubious record is the 2002 Academy Awards which clocked in at an epic four hours and 20 minutes.
“It’s not hard to police, it’s impossible to police,” says Maltin. “But they’re giving this a try and if even some of the winners play ball, it could strengthen, shorten and brighten the show.”
