by Marshall Flores
As promised yesterday in Part 1, we have returned with Part 2 of Awards Daily’s final Statsgasm predictions for this year’s Oscars. Yesterday, we revealed Statsgasm’s forecasts in all the major and feature categories, so today we will unveil its estimates in all ten tech categories.
The techs are *never* a breeze to predict, and I’ve seen many ballots get spoiled here by upsets and surprises. Let’s see if Statsgasm can help clear up the fog.
Cinematography:
With an estimated win probability of almost 95%, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki is considered to be the biggest lock on Oscar night by Statsgasm. One of the best and most inventive DPs working today, Lubezki finally collecting a long overdue Oscar should be a happy moment for many cinephiles (Now, if only AMPAS would finally get their act together in belatedly awarding Roger Deakins…).
Costume Design:
12 Years a Slave scored a surprise win on Saturday by taking the CDG Period Film award, giving it a shot in the arm not only in this category, but in Production Design as well. I still feel this will be primarily a contest of the flashiest two: Flapper 20’s (Great Gatsby) versus Groovy 70’s (American Hustle). But 12 Years could certainly take this en route to a BP win.
Editing:
A perpetually reliable harbinger for Best Picture, Editing will act again as a potentially critical bellwether for BP Sunday night. Statsgasm’s prediction here is against the fairly strong pundit/expert consensus for Gravity. But it’s one I agree with, as much as I’d want to see Cuaron and Sanger to win for their seamless work.
In general, voters tend to vote for “most/most obvious” editing, and they’ve demonstrated their preference for the Rouse/Greengrass aesthetic before in 2007, when Bourne Ultimatum won over the heavy BP frontrunner No Country for Old Men.
Makeup:
I’ve been seeing quite a bit of upset predictions for Bad Grandpa lately, and honestly, I don’t get it at all. It’s fun work, don’t get me wrong, but I really don’t see many voters popping in the Bad Grandpa screener at home, much less continuing to watch the film after the first raucous 10 minutes. But kudos to the makeup branch for consistently going their own way with their choices.
The film with the most overall nominations has won this category 11 out of 13 times since 2000, and Dallas Buyers Club also has the benefit of being a widely-seen BP nominee, so I think it’s an easy pick here.
Original Score:
This is the one category I’m allowing myself to be emotionally invested in this year. First-time nominee Steven Price’s work for Gravity is a stunning accomplishment – an accurate aural rendering of the death/beauty duality of space that gets powerfully cathartic in its final 10 minutes. For this score buff, Gravity would be the best winner in this category in a decade – the only other nominee that comes close is Her.
Longtime Oscar bridesmaids Alexandre Desplat and Thomas Newman will likely walk home empty-handed again. Desplat could pull off a longshot upset (and some are predicting accordingly), but voters weren’t inclined to award him for either The King’s Speech or Argo, and I doubt they’re inclined to award him now for breezier and lighter fare.
Original Song:
The closeness of this race as depicted by Statsgasm may be surprising, but do remember that “Ordinary Love” won the Globe and U2, after getting upset by Eminem in this category in 2002, is campaigning pretty hard. Meanwhile, “Happy” has been dominating airwaves recently – this may be the first Song lineup that features two very popular hits since 1999. “The Moon Song” is probably the least likely to win, but the coolness of seeing Karen O. perform this lovely song live on Oscar night will be enough of consolation prize for me.
In the end, I think “Let It Go” will still take it. And I fully expect Idina Menzel to bring the house down when she takes the stage on Sunday.
Production Design:
For the 2nd year in a row, Production Design qualifies as the cluster**** of all the tech categories to predict. Gatsby, Her, and Gravity each took home an ADG award, but the ADG overall has barely hit a 50% match rate with Oscar since 2000 despite having 3 at-bats each year.
Flashy usually prevails here, which favors Gatsby. But with Lincoln’s surprise win here last year, it seems voters are willing to make this a consolation prize in the BP race. Additionally, the *only* time since 2000 in which a non-BP nominee defeated 4 other BP nominees in a tech category was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s shocking Editing win in 2011.
Honestly, I think any of the nominees can win. My preference is for Her, but no ADG Contemporary Film winner has ever won the Oscar (in fact, the last contemporary film to win Production Design was All the President’s Men) so I won’t be personally predicting it. It would be exciting, though.
Sound Mixing:
Sound Editing:
Visual Effects:
Not much to be said here; Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and VFX should all easily be picked up by Gravity as part of its below-the-line domination.
And there you have it, Statsgasm’s final predictions in 21 categories. As I stated in Part 1, we don’t expect Statsgasm to bat 1.000, and neither should you. But hopefully Statsgasm has given you an idea of how certain races are shaping up in the final week before the Oscars. And of course, we hope that Statsgasm can give you a leg up in whatever Oscar pools and prediction contests you enter. 🙂 Speaking of contests, if you haven’t done so already, I again implore you to enter AD’s Predict the 86th Academy Awards Contest.
Signing off from the Nostromo. Happy predicting!
Email: marshall(dot)flores(at)gmail(dot)com
Twitter: IPreferPi314
