I propose more awareness specifically in relation to awards recognition and more aggressive awards campaigns. Hell, Serkis was an outside contender this year and even received a BFCA nomination. It’s not impossible, and with his roster of brilliant mo-cap performances already under his belt, I imagine it’ll become increasingly likely with each performance that he (or someone else) will finally be Oscar-nominated.
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Deena Jones' wig / February 21, 2012
Exactly! They might as well call it the Andy Sekis appreciation award because he’ll win every damn year due to lack of competition.
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Aaron B / February 21, 2012
It would be a cool category for sure. My 2011 nominees:
Captain Haddock – The Adventures of Tintin
Rackham – The Adventures of Tintin
Voldemort – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (would this count?)
Rattlesnake Jake – Rango
Caesar – Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The problem is obviously some years it would be hard to have 5 nominees.
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daveinprogress / February 21, 2012
I think it’s a great idea, plus it harks back to AMPAS of the early years, when special Oscars were handed out for juveniles or for actors who had made humanitarian contributions.
The Australian Film Institute (now the Australian Academy) has had a category for some years, although it changes the wording – for innovation in the craft – and so an Oscar for collaboration, need not only be for an actor and CGI – but could be a composer, a designer, a writer – any of the film practitioners who go outside the convention of narrative film making, and break new ground. I think it would help keep them relevant (i know, most people think they aren’t anyway).
The argument as it stands is for ‘performance’ but they could open it up – for other collaborations. The AFI here has nominated young actors,(a category that Oscar overlooks every year), writers, set designers, special effects. If it is an innovative collaboration – experimenting with the form – it would give visibility to some of the maverick films and subjects of the year, while making AMPAS feel as if they are advancing the culture. Go for it!
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Steve / February 21, 2012
Why don’t they just add virtual performers to visual effects nominations?
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The Jack / February 21, 2012
“Best Collaborative Performance” is a terrible idea. And presumably it wouldn’t *just* be Andy Serkis who got this award if/when he wins because it’s for collaboration. So then it would just be the visual effects people who come up as well.
Why doesn’t Andy Serkis just give an award-worthy performance without a motion capture suit on?
They could just give him a special recognition award like they did to John Lassetter in 1995 for “Toy Story”.
Although if they haven’t done it this year it’s almost pointless doing it at all.
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Gregoire / February 21, 2012
But in the hands of the Academy, Sirkis would somehow manage to still get snubbed.
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Kevin Patterson / February 21, 2012
My only question is besides the mo cap actor, who else in that collaboration would earn the award? Would it just go to the VFX supervisors? It can get tricky if in a case like with Darth Vader, you’re giving awards to James Earl Jones, Ben Burt, and David Prowse. Seems hardly fair to give Prowse an Oscar for simply walking and gesturing in a suit. to be honest the suit and mask to me leave the greatest impression so I would argue the costume designer earns credit as well!!! It gets tricky
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steve50 / February 21, 2012
I agree with daveinprogress – add a category, but keep it open-ended. At the rate technology is evolving, there would be no difficulty coming up with 5 nominees. It could become one of the most popular categories.
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Aaron B / February 21, 2012
The Jack, it’s silly to criticize Serkis for not doing more work without a motion capture suit on. Why would it matter that it would also go to the visual effects people as well? I think it should.
I’ve always felt Peter O’Toole deserved some sort of recognition for his work in “Ratatouille,” so I even retract my statement about it being hard to find 5 nominees in a year. It’d actually probably be pretty easy if it also includes traditionally animated films (which it should).
Aaron B, I don’t think Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort would count – I think that was all make-up?
But I agree with you re: Peter O’Toole in Ratatouille. He was fabulous in that role. I remember the Annies didn’t even nominate him in their voice performance category – they nominated Ian Holm for the same film, oddly…Annie voters are a bunch of stupid twats though.
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Aaron B / February 21, 2012
I was sort of thinking it was all makeup as well, but wasn’t positive. Plus it would throw a bone to all those HP fans (though I think he was much more menacing in “The Goblet of Fire”.) In anu case I’d replace him with Shen from “Kung Fu Panda 2.”
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steve50 / February 21, 2012
The thing is, AMPAS has almost always given a “special” Oscar to someone who has advanced the industry. This started in 1927/28 with The Jazz Singer. Sometimes it was an individual (Gene Kelly, Chaplin, Disney) and sometimes a group (Nat’l Film Board of Canada, MoMA Dept of Film, or technology teams).
Make it a 5 nominee event, qualifying criteria would be a collaborative effort either within a branch or between branches that advances the industry in a genuine way (no smell-o-vision or sensurround eathquake stuff).
Motion capture and animation performances would make very popular candidates,
@Paddy M: “Not enough performances would be eligible.” @Deena Jones’ wig: “Exactly! They might as well call it the Andy Sekis appreciation award because he’ll win every damn year due to lack of competition.
Folks, click through the link that Sasha was kind enough to give us, and actually read the piece or watch the video!
We make a case not just for motion capture, but for performances that combine traditional performance with puppetry (the original Yoda) and makeup so immersive that you can’t see the actor (The Elephant Man, the 1986 The Fly).
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scott ferguson / February 21, 2012
There are already four categories for acting (including arbitrary and unnecessary gender divided ones – there is no acting school that teaches male and female acting as separate things).
There is one for directing.
Directing is about 10 times important for a film than acting (which is in any event in part the director’s creation).
If someone is exceptional, create a special award for one year, or an honorary one for the body of the work (which Serkis might deserve at some point).
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daveinprogress / February 21, 2012
Appropos Andy Serkis – check out “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll” – a tour de force from him playing Ian Dury – no tricks, no sfx – he scored a BAFTA nod for it, but he lost to Colin Firth. He doesn’t just need suits and whizzbangery to show his range. Also “Brighton Rock” his cameo performance is one of the best things in that pic – which says a lot as it features Helen Mirren and John Hurt, as well as Andrea Riseborough and Sam Riley
I think there ought to be greater integration into existing categories, and I lament the lack of awards appreciation for such performances. But there wouldn’t be enough performances of substantial merit to warrant the creation of such a category. For example, there must be a minimum of 16 animated films meeting Academy eligibility requirements in order for there to be three nominations in the Animated Feature category. There’ll surely be more than 16 ‘collaborative performances’ in a given year, but I doubt that, either in the Academy’s opinion or in mine, there’ll be so many which have earned an accolade on the level of an Academy Award. It’d be as redundant a category as Original Song.
@scottferguson: The proposed category is not just about Andy Serkis, or any particular actor. It’s about several people or groups of people collaborating to bring a particular character to life. It would not be restricted to motion capture. If this category had existed in the past, the team that visualized Jeff Goldblum’s disintegration in THE FLY to life would have definitely qualified.
There was talk in 1981 of giving Frank Oz a special Oscar for performing Yoda, but it never went anywhere. This performance, definitely a collaborative one between Oz, the Henson creature shop, and ILM, would have qualified as well. We’re going to publish a piece about that one later in the week.
“There are already awards for acting…” Yes, exactly! But these nominations automatically seem to exclude acting that is dependent to some degree on other skill sets — puppetry, heavy makeup, motion capture and so forth. Why is that? Do you think it’s fair?
The larger point here is, there is more to performance than wearing certain clothes and reciting lines from a script. Entire categories of performance are NEVER considered for awards. That seems to me an extraordinarily narrow, conservative way of thinking about acting. If there are going to be awards for performance — and that word “performance” is in the category names, after all — then why not expand it? And why should, say, Serkis, or Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY, be effectively penalized because their acting was the anchor for a team effort, when what makes such work special is precisely the fact that it IS a collaboration?
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steve50 / February 21, 2012
“It’d be as redundant a category as Original Song.”
Absolutely impossible. That sucker should have been gone long, long ago like 1959, when the Grammys weere introduced.
Is there a special recognition type of award that already goes to people who don’t fit in a specific category. If not they should make one of those. So that it could go to random people every year. One year for a mo-cap performance, the next to an animal performance, or maybe best use of pre-existing music. Just something every year that really stands out but doesn’t fit anywhere.
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Dane M / February 21, 2012
Maybe he’ll get a long overdue acting nod for reprising Gollum? I haven’t seen Rise of the POTA yet but I’m guessing Cesar lives to see another movie? Serkis isn’t going anywhere, folks, and the Academy will eventually have to acknowledge him. No need to create a yearly award on his account. I’m in the camp who says give him a special Oscar or give him an acting one in an existing category. That proposed category is a bad idea because there’s going to be a runaway favorite every year. Think about how predictable the Best Animated Feature category is and least double that ad that’s what you’d have.
@paddym: The academy seems to have no trouble coming up with three qualifying titles in the makeup and visual effects categories every year. Films nominated for those sorts of awards invariably contain collaborative performances, usually more than one per movie. On the contrary, I don’t think they’d have any problem filling out three slots to start with. Back in 1986, they would have had no trouble filling three collaborative performance slots: Brundlefly in THE FLY, the Lord of Darkness in LEGEND, the queen mother in ALIENS, and a whole slew of creatures in LABYRINTH could conceivably have qualified, and those were still the analog years.
There’d also be complications regarding what these individual ‘collaborations’ are comprised of. It’d be comparing visual effects techniques with make-up techniques and puppetry techniques and animation techniques etc. I wouldn’t find fault with that, but I imagine many would.
But there’s nothing specific excluding potential nominees like Andy Serkis from being rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Prejudices against these types of performances do exist, but I think they’re not as prevalent as one might expect. I think it’s more the confusion regarding how to compare them with non-collaborative performances that prevents them from being recognised on a larger scale. But I wish they were. It just seems unnecessary to siphon them off from the main categories. It’d probably be considered a secondary award to the four main acting awards too.
Anyway, John Hurt was Oscar-nominated for The Elephant Man. Eddie Murphy was BAFTA-nominated for Shrek. Andy Serkis was BFCA-nominated for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
P.S. The BFCA did introduce a Digital Performance award back in 2003. They scrapped it they year after.
Had there been a more aggressive Oscar campaign for Andy Serkis this year, he might have stood a chance. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility of it even on Oscar nomination morning, not until the nominations were announced. I think awareness about such technology is increasing, and that with this awareness, a greater understanding of all types of collaborative performance will also materialise. It’ll take time, but I’m confident that, with the advances in technology which have recently made performances like those in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Avatar possible, there’ll be an Oscar nomination for a collaborative performance without the need for a separate category before long.
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Cin / February 21, 2012
Give Andy Serkis an Honorary Oscar somewhere down the road. Problem solved.
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The Jack / February 21, 2012
Now that Dane M has mentioned it, I think it’s probably very likely that – should it be well received – Serkis will get a nomination for one of “The Hobbit” movies.
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drake / February 21, 2012
yeah i agree with most comments… andy serkis gets plenty of praise already- there is no need for this. I enjoy his work but i think the amount of buzz he gets now might be at the point of being overblown or exaggerated.
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Jesus Alonso / February 21, 2012
Come on, this is ridiculous. How come nobody is asking for an Ensemble Oscar or a Stunt Oscar and we’re hearing this stupid lobbying for motion capture performance? It’s simple, it’s already done… when they name the cathegory “Best Male Performance in a Leading Role” it doesn’t mean in any point that only 1 man would have had to do it.
Remember the masterful puppetry of Frank Oz in Empire Strikes Back playing Yoda? That’s a hint of what could be done, when people should have started vindicating anything like this.
First Stunt, then ensemble and move Serkis and the technicians alltogether in the FYC for the performance.
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Jesus Alonso / February 21, 2012
’cause it says Performance, not performer
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Holden / February 21, 2012
If this could include mo cap as well as animated film performances, this could be a very neat category.
Ensemble and stunt would also be really fantastic additions. Ensemble might have a hard time making it in, but it’s somewhat surprising that there’s no stunt award. I guess, who would you award? The stunt actors? The coordinators?
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Marc Venis / February 21, 2012
The Academy, for the moment, clearly still have issues with mo-cap, the lack of a nomination for The Adventures of Tintin in the Best Animated Feature category being a blatant example. And adding such a category would just be confusing; on top of that, imho, there are other categories that might be added before that specific one, namely Best Stunt Work and Best First Work (not to mention the fact that year after year, I keep thinking that reactivating the Best Adapted Score award would just be great.)
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Benjamin Forestieri / February 21, 2012
Hey!
@Deena Jones’ wig wipe that stuff off your mouth you nasty bitch!
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John Oliver / February 21, 2012
Adding categories like stunt and ensemble cheapens the Awards, you’d be making them like the MTV AWARDS. My vote-NO!
@John Oliver and to think Lord of the Rings won 3 times for best movie at that awards show. And that the Black Swan, Blind Side, Slumdog Millionaire, Little Miss Sunshine, Avatar, Inception, and THe Social Network was nominated for Best Film on the MTV Movie Awards.
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Cin / February 21, 2012
Stuntmen and women risk their lives for our entertainment. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be honored by the Academy.
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steve50 / February 21, 2012
I’m just reading over some of these comments that don’t want any changes and, geez, guys, is this the same site that was accusing the Academy of being closed-minded and stodgy for the past few days?
An award for stuntmen and women – long overdue; collaborative/creative award – would be a a game changer for the awards; replace “song” with a “use of music” or “adapted score” – definite yes, soon, please.
These are all factors of filmmaking clearly visible to the most uneducated filmgoer and vital to the success of the films in which they occur. Achievements in those specialties should not be ignored.
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MJS / February 21, 2012
They already have a category for the people who collaborated to create the Caesar character: it’s called Best Visaul Effects.
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Jake G.! / February 21, 2012
New category: Best Film of Any year other than that year! They rank their favorite films that have never got a best picture nomination! And the ones with the most votes get in like the new best picture system! It would bring redemption for snubbed films!
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Jake G.! / February 21, 2012
Ensemble would be a great category!
And what about best weinstein movie of the year? That sounds about right!
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Jake G.! / February 21, 2012
Oh and Best Moment or Scene in a Feature Film and or Animated Film!
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Cin / February 21, 2012
Maybe they should take a page out of the BAFTA’s book and have a Best American Film category.
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Mattoc / February 21, 2012
I think there is merit in introducing a special achievement of the year award as Daveinprogress mentioned and others have agreed. It’s a deathtrap to limit it to best mocap as next year people will be crying about something else. Just put an extra category on the ballots ( nom ballots) – Name & Special Achievement. If after a number of years the same special achievement comes up, then maybe add a new specific category.
Off the top of my head, there is Serkis obviously, HP and the Deathly Occo’s part Scott, part Sclub3000 and the series, a few scores that I have loved to death but have been disqualified for being repetitious, Foreign Language Films that have not been selected by their countries to compete, films not eligible for whatever reason…etc
What else?
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Mik / February 22, 2012
Best digital/animated performance would seem to do the job would it not? Doesnt need to be five nominees every year either.
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steve50 / February 22, 2012
“Maybe they should take a page out of the BAFTA’s book and have a Best American Film category.”
I like this – most countries do it, in one form or another. It would certainly shine a light on the fact that everything wonderful is not necessarily homegrown and could benefit serious American filmmaking efforts (outside of the fun factory industry movies that already do well).
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REICHDOME returns! / February 22, 2012
The fact we are having this debate highlights alarmingly how arcane and out of touch hollywood is indeed oscar- well before lord of the rings and ‘gollum’ has it been proven, for good and bad performances that cg works of course there should be a category but first we need hollywood esp oscar to wake up to themselves
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VVS / February 22, 2012
It’s a good Idea to have a new category to award people like Serkis, who is obviously an amazing physical actor, and gives one of the best performances as an Ape….his work here is parallel to actors like Daniel Day Lewis and Heath Ledger who physically shape their characters. Only difference is he is playing an animal
Calling it a collaborative performance is simply unfair and disrespectful. Does the guy who made that video not realize that EVERY performance is as collaborative as Andy Serkis’ CGI work? Does not realize that often it’s the direction from the director or clever framing of the shot, or editing (George Clooney anybody?), or music (Brad Pitt anybody?), or unique wardrobe (Rooney Mara anybody?) that makes a strong performance in a film where there was a weak one (thanks to the actors lack of ability)?
if we’re gonna call Andy Serkis’ performance a collaborative one, let’s be fair and call everybody’s performance a collaborative one.
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Aaron B / February 22, 2012
@VVS,
The difference is obvious – you never SEE Andy Serkis in his performance. He’s not covered in makeup; he’s not part CGI to look younger; he’s not there.
I’m not trying to sell the man short. I realize that his physical performance serves as a reference point for the artists who animate and his performance is still a large part of the final product, but surely you see the difference between this and how music enhances an actors performance.
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VVS / February 22, 2012
Aaron B. You’re being silly. He is covered in make up. Digital make up. The ape he plays moves exactly as he does and makes the facial expressions that he does….The ape never does anything that Serkis didnt do. Whether it is tiny nuanced facial expression or an arm gesture or movement of the body. It’s all Serkis. Serkis is not the reference point, he is the whole performance. It’s not different than putting a costume on an actor. If the actor moves, obviously the costume is going to move in sync with the actor.
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TOM / February 22, 2012
Honorary Oscar to Jar Jar Binks.
I always wanted a category for ‘Best Crowd Extra.’ Sometimes people desperately want to get their face shown, other times…somebody looks so distinctive (or are at the right place at the right time) that they make a movie scene better!
No! Technology should stay in its lane.
Best,
Deena’s crusty wig
Not enough performances would be eligible.
I propose more awareness specifically in relation to awards recognition and more aggressive awards campaigns. Hell, Serkis was an outside contender this year and even received a BFCA nomination. It’s not impossible, and with his roster of brilliant mo-cap performances already under his belt, I imagine it’ll become increasingly likely with each performance that he (or someone else) will finally be Oscar-nominated.
Exactly! They might as well call it the Andy Sekis appreciation award because he’ll win every damn year due to lack of competition.
It would be a cool category for sure. My 2011 nominees:
Captain Haddock – The Adventures of Tintin
Rackham – The Adventures of Tintin
Voldemort – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (would this count?)
Rattlesnake Jake – Rango
Caesar – Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The problem is obviously some years it would be hard to have 5 nominees.
I think it’s a great idea, plus it harks back to AMPAS of the early years, when special Oscars were handed out for juveniles or for actors who had made humanitarian contributions.
The Australian Film Institute (now the Australian Academy) has had a category for some years, although it changes the wording – for innovation in the craft – and so an Oscar for collaboration, need not only be for an actor and CGI – but could be a composer, a designer, a writer – any of the film practitioners who go outside the convention of narrative film making, and break new ground. I think it would help keep them relevant (i know, most people think they aren’t anyway).
The argument as it stands is for ‘performance’ but they could open it up – for other collaborations. The AFI here has nominated young actors,(a category that Oscar overlooks every year), writers, set designers, special effects. If it is an innovative collaboration – experimenting with the form – it would give visibility to some of the maverick films and subjects of the year, while making AMPAS feel as if they are advancing the culture. Go for it!
Why don’t they just add virtual performers to visual effects nominations?
“Best Collaborative Performance” is a terrible idea. And presumably it wouldn’t *just* be Andy Serkis who got this award if/when he wins because it’s for collaboration. So then it would just be the visual effects people who come up as well.
Why doesn’t Andy Serkis just give an award-worthy performance without a motion capture suit on?
They could just give him a special recognition award like they did to John Lassetter in 1995 for “Toy Story”.
Although if they haven’t done it this year it’s almost pointless doing it at all.
But in the hands of the Academy, Sirkis would somehow manage to still get snubbed.
My only question is besides the mo cap actor, who else in that collaboration would earn the award? Would it just go to the VFX supervisors? It can get tricky if in a case like with Darth Vader, you’re giving awards to James Earl Jones, Ben Burt, and David Prowse. Seems hardly fair to give Prowse an Oscar for simply walking and gesturing in a suit. to be honest the suit and mask to me leave the greatest impression so I would argue the costume designer earns credit as well!!! It gets tricky
I agree with daveinprogress – add a category, but keep it open-ended. At the rate technology is evolving, there would be no difficulty coming up with 5 nominees. It could become one of the most popular categories.
The Jack, it’s silly to criticize Serkis for not doing more work without a motion capture suit on. Why would it matter that it would also go to the visual effects people as well? I think it should.
I’ve always felt Peter O’Toole deserved some sort of recognition for his work in “Ratatouille,” so I even retract my statement about it being hard to find 5 nominees in a year. It’d actually probably be pretty easy if it also includes traditionally animated films (which it should).
Aaron B, I don’t think Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort would count – I think that was all make-up?
But I agree with you re: Peter O’Toole in Ratatouille. He was fabulous in that role. I remember the Annies didn’t even nominate him in their voice performance category – they nominated Ian Holm for the same film, oddly…Annie voters are a bunch of stupid twats though.
I was sort of thinking it was all makeup as well, but wasn’t positive. Plus it would throw a bone to all those HP fans (though I think he was much more menacing in “The Goblet of Fire”.) In anu case I’d replace him with Shen from “Kung Fu Panda 2.”
The thing is, AMPAS has almost always given a “special” Oscar to someone who has advanced the industry. This started in 1927/28 with The Jazz Singer. Sometimes it was an individual (Gene Kelly, Chaplin, Disney) and sometimes a group (Nat’l Film Board of Canada, MoMA Dept of Film, or technology teams).
Make it a 5 nominee event, qualifying criteria would be a collaborative effort either within a branch or between branches that advances the industry in a genuine way (no smell-o-vision or sensurround eathquake stuff).
Motion capture and animation performances would make very popular candidates,
@Paddy M: “Not enough performances would be eligible.” @Deena Jones’ wig: “Exactly! They might as well call it the Andy Sekis appreciation award because he’ll win every damn year due to lack of competition.
Folks, click through the link that Sasha was kind enough to give us, and actually read the piece or watch the video!
We make a case not just for motion capture, but for performances that combine traditional performance with puppetry (the original Yoda) and makeup so immersive that you can’t see the actor (The Elephant Man, the 1986 The Fly).
There are already four categories for acting (including arbitrary and unnecessary gender divided ones – there is no acting school that teaches male and female acting as separate things).
There is one for directing.
Directing is about 10 times important for a film than acting (which is in any event in part the director’s creation).
If someone is exceptional, create a special award for one year, or an honorary one for the body of the work (which Serkis might deserve at some point).
Appropos Andy Serkis – check out “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll” – a tour de force from him playing Ian Dury – no tricks, no sfx – he scored a BAFTA nod for it, but he lost to Colin Firth. He doesn’t just need suits and whizzbangery to show his range. Also “Brighton Rock” his cameo performance is one of the best things in that pic – which says a lot as it features Helen Mirren and John Hurt, as well as Andrea Riseborough and Sam Riley
Matt, I did watch the video before I commented.
I think there ought to be greater integration into existing categories, and I lament the lack of awards appreciation for such performances. But there wouldn’t be enough performances of substantial merit to warrant the creation of such a category. For example, there must be a minimum of 16 animated films meeting Academy eligibility requirements in order for there to be three nominations in the Animated Feature category. There’ll surely be more than 16 ‘collaborative performances’ in a given year, but I doubt that, either in the Academy’s opinion or in mine, there’ll be so many which have earned an accolade on the level of an Academy Award. It’d be as redundant a category as Original Song.
@scottferguson: The proposed category is not just about Andy Serkis, or any particular actor. It’s about several people or groups of people collaborating to bring a particular character to life. It would not be restricted to motion capture. If this category had existed in the past, the team that visualized Jeff Goldblum’s disintegration in THE FLY to life would have definitely qualified.
See video essay here. http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/collaborative-essay-the-fly
There was talk in 1981 of giving Frank Oz a special Oscar for performing Yoda, but it never went anywhere. This performance, definitely a collaborative one between Oz, the Henson creature shop, and ILM, would have qualified as well. We’re going to publish a piece about that one later in the week.
“There are already awards for acting…” Yes, exactly! But these nominations automatically seem to exclude acting that is dependent to some degree on other skill sets — puppetry, heavy makeup, motion capture and so forth. Why is that? Do you think it’s fair?
The larger point here is, there is more to performance than wearing certain clothes and reciting lines from a script. Entire categories of performance are NEVER considered for awards. That seems to me an extraordinarily narrow, conservative way of thinking about acting. If there are going to be awards for performance — and that word “performance” is in the category names, after all — then why not expand it? And why should, say, Serkis, or Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY, be effectively penalized because their acting was the anchor for a team effort, when what makes such work special is precisely the fact that it IS a collaboration?
“It’d be as redundant a category as Original Song.”
Absolutely impossible. That sucker should have been gone long, long ago like 1959, when the Grammys weere introduced.
Is there a special recognition type of award that already goes to people who don’t fit in a specific category. If not they should make one of those. So that it could go to random people every year. One year for a mo-cap performance, the next to an animal performance, or maybe best use of pre-existing music. Just something every year that really stands out but doesn’t fit anywhere.
Maybe he’ll get a long overdue acting nod for reprising Gollum? I haven’t seen Rise of the POTA yet but I’m guessing Cesar lives to see another movie? Serkis isn’t going anywhere, folks, and the Academy will eventually have to acknowledge him. No need to create a yearly award on his account. I’m in the camp who says give him a special Oscar or give him an acting one in an existing category. That proposed category is a bad idea because there’s going to be a runaway favorite every year. Think about how predictable the Best Animated Feature category is and least double that ad that’s what you’d have.
@paddym: The academy seems to have no trouble coming up with three qualifying titles in the makeup and visual effects categories every year. Films nominated for those sorts of awards invariably contain collaborative performances, usually more than one per movie. On the contrary, I don’t think they’d have any problem filling out three slots to start with. Back in 1986, they would have had no trouble filling three collaborative performance slots: Brundlefly in THE FLY, the Lord of Darkness in LEGEND, the queen mother in ALIENS, and a whole slew of creatures in LABYRINTH could conceivably have qualified, and those were still the analog years.
There’d also be complications regarding what these individual ‘collaborations’ are comprised of. It’d be comparing visual effects techniques with make-up techniques and puppetry techniques and animation techniques etc. I wouldn’t find fault with that, but I imagine many would.
But there’s nothing specific excluding potential nominees like Andy Serkis from being rewarded with an Oscar nomination. Prejudices against these types of performances do exist, but I think they’re not as prevalent as one might expect. I think it’s more the confusion regarding how to compare them with non-collaborative performances that prevents them from being recognised on a larger scale. But I wish they were. It just seems unnecessary to siphon them off from the main categories. It’d probably be considered a secondary award to the four main acting awards too.
Anyway, John Hurt was Oscar-nominated for The Elephant Man. Eddie Murphy was BAFTA-nominated for Shrek. Andy Serkis was BFCA-nominated for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
P.S. The BFCA did introduce a Digital Performance award back in 2003. They scrapped it they year after.
Had there been a more aggressive Oscar campaign for Andy Serkis this year, he might have stood a chance. I hadn’t ruled out the possibility of it even on Oscar nomination morning, not until the nominations were announced. I think awareness about such technology is increasing, and that with this awareness, a greater understanding of all types of collaborative performance will also materialise. It’ll take time, but I’m confident that, with the advances in technology which have recently made performances like those in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Avatar possible, there’ll be an Oscar nomination for a collaborative performance without the need for a separate category before long.
Give Andy Serkis an Honorary Oscar somewhere down the road. Problem solved.
Now that Dane M has mentioned it, I think it’s probably very likely that – should it be well received – Serkis will get a nomination for one of “The Hobbit” movies.
yeah i agree with most comments… andy serkis gets plenty of praise already- there is no need for this. I enjoy his work but i think the amount of buzz he gets now might be at the point of being overblown or exaggerated.
Come on, this is ridiculous. How come nobody is asking for an Ensemble Oscar or a Stunt Oscar and we’re hearing this stupid lobbying for motion capture performance? It’s simple, it’s already done… when they name the cathegory “Best Male Performance in a Leading Role” it doesn’t mean in any point that only 1 man would have had to do it.
Remember the masterful puppetry of Frank Oz in Empire Strikes Back playing Yoda? That’s a hint of what could be done, when people should have started vindicating anything like this.
First Stunt, then ensemble and move Serkis and the technicians alltogether in the FYC for the performance.
’cause it says Performance, not performer
If this could include mo cap as well as animated film performances, this could be a very neat category.
Ensemble and stunt would also be really fantastic additions. Ensemble might have a hard time making it in, but it’s somewhat surprising that there’s no stunt award. I guess, who would you award? The stunt actors? The coordinators?
The Academy, for the moment, clearly still have issues with mo-cap, the lack of a nomination for The Adventures of Tintin in the Best Animated Feature category being a blatant example. And adding such a category would just be confusing; on top of that, imho, there are other categories that might be added before that specific one, namely Best Stunt Work and Best First Work (not to mention the fact that year after year, I keep thinking that reactivating the Best Adapted Score award would just be great.)
Hey!
@Deena Jones’ wig wipe that stuff off your mouth you nasty bitch!
Adding categories like stunt and ensemble cheapens the Awards, you’d be making them like the MTV AWARDS. My vote-NO!
@John Oliver and to think Lord of the Rings won 3 times for best movie at that awards show. And that the Black Swan, Blind Side, Slumdog Millionaire, Little Miss Sunshine, Avatar, Inception, and THe Social Network was nominated for Best Film on the MTV Movie Awards.
Stuntmen and women risk their lives for our entertainment. I see no reason why they shouldn’t be honored by the Academy.
I’m just reading over some of these comments that don’t want any changes and, geez, guys, is this the same site that was accusing the Academy of being closed-minded and stodgy for the past few days?
An award for stuntmen and women – long overdue; collaborative/creative award – would be a a game changer for the awards; replace “song” with a “use of music” or “adapted score” – definite yes, soon, please.
These are all factors of filmmaking clearly visible to the most uneducated filmgoer and vital to the success of the films in which they occur. Achievements in those specialties should not be ignored.
They already have a category for the people who collaborated to create the Caesar character: it’s called Best Visaul Effects.
New category: Best Film of Any year other than that year! They rank their favorite films that have never got a best picture nomination! And the ones with the most votes get in like the new best picture system! It would bring redemption for snubbed films!
Ensemble would be a great category!
And what about best weinstein movie of the year? That sounds about right!
Oh and Best Moment or Scene in a Feature Film and or Animated Film!
Maybe they should take a page out of the BAFTA’s book and have a Best American Film category.
I think there is merit in introducing a special achievement of the year award as Daveinprogress mentioned and others have agreed. It’s a deathtrap to limit it to best mocap as next year people will be crying about something else. Just put an extra category on the ballots ( nom ballots) – Name & Special Achievement. If after a number of years the same special achievement comes up, then maybe add a new specific category.
Off the top of my head, there is Serkis obviously, HP and the Deathly Occo’s part Scott, part Sclub3000 and the series, a few scores that I have loved to death but have been disqualified for being repetitious, Foreign Language Films that have not been selected by their countries to compete, films not eligible for whatever reason…etc
What else?
Best digital/animated performance would seem to do the job would it not? Doesnt need to be five nominees every year either.
“Maybe they should take a page out of the BAFTA’s book and have a Best American Film category.”
I like this – most countries do it, in one form or another. It would certainly shine a light on the fact that everything wonderful is not necessarily homegrown and could benefit serious American filmmaking efforts (outside of the fun factory industry movies that already do well).
The fact we are having this debate highlights alarmingly how arcane and out of touch hollywood is indeed oscar- well before lord of the rings and ‘gollum’ has it been proven, for good and bad performances that cg works of course there should be a category but first we need hollywood esp oscar to wake up to themselves
It’s a good Idea to have a new category to award people like Serkis, who is obviously an amazing physical actor, and gives one of the best performances as an Ape….his work here is parallel to actors like Daniel Day Lewis and Heath Ledger who physically shape their characters. Only difference is he is playing an animal
Calling it a collaborative performance is simply unfair and disrespectful. Does the guy who made that video not realize that EVERY performance is as collaborative as Andy Serkis’ CGI work? Does not realize that often it’s the direction from the director or clever framing of the shot, or editing (George Clooney anybody?), or music (Brad Pitt anybody?), or unique wardrobe (Rooney Mara anybody?) that makes a strong performance in a film where there was a weak one (thanks to the actors lack of ability)?
if we’re gonna call Andy Serkis’ performance a collaborative one, let’s be fair and call everybody’s performance a collaborative one.
@VVS,
The difference is obvious – you never SEE Andy Serkis in his performance. He’s not covered in makeup; he’s not part CGI to look younger; he’s not there.
I’m not trying to sell the man short. I realize that his physical performance serves as a reference point for the artists who animate and his performance is still a large part of the final product, but surely you see the difference between this and how music enhances an actors performance.
Aaron B. You’re being silly. He is covered in make up. Digital make up. The ape he plays moves exactly as he does and makes the facial expressions that he does….The ape never does anything that Serkis didnt do. Whether it is tiny nuanced facial expression or an arm gesture or movement of the body. It’s all Serkis. Serkis is not the reference point, he is the whole performance. It’s not different than putting a costume on an actor. If the actor moves, obviously the costume is going to move in sync with the actor.
Honorary Oscar to Jar Jar Binks.
I always wanted a category for ‘Best Crowd Extra.’ Sometimes people desperately want to get their face shown, other times…somebody looks so distinctive (or are at the right place at the right time) that they make a movie scene better!