As you drive down Cahuenga, a side street that eventually turns into Highland into Hollywood, California, you see a traffic sign on the side of the road announcing that the road will be closed on February 22nd. The tents are already up and Hollywood Blvd. is cordoned off from what looks like Orange Avenue to Highland. This is where the Dolby theater is where they host the Oscars.
I watch the show when I can. More than likely, very little of it interests me anymore. Mostly because the awards they hand out are kinda' dumb. And I'm hardly an expert when it comes to sound design, or sound mixing or visual effects. It just all looks like people spent a ton of time on it to make things look real but oftentimes are met with "it looks SO fucking fake." Yeah, because it is fake. Visual effects without story is stupid. So in essence we're back to story. A good story with VFX to back it up, makes it a nomination for best visual FX? Not really, just meant you were the cheapest around that the producers found. Very few FX houses guide the story, in terms of what can be done and what can't.
Costume design always got to me too. You can't have good costumes unless you have a good story to have costumes with? And who knows what's good costumes. If done right, very little of that is really noticed. Same with VFX. Same with cinematography. It all boils down to story. Yet...screenwriters get so much shit. As far as being considered "above the line" (a term used to determine worker bees from office bees really) writers are just at the basement of above the line. Some (if they don't direct their own projects) would even be seen as lower than line producers. In the sense that they are usually uninvited to the shoot. Who needs a writer on set to second-guess things? And it also makes most actors nervous.
I stand by my conviction that there should only be two Oscars given out. Best Picture and Best Screenplay (the fuck is there one for adapted? A screenplay is a screenplay).
That is...until I win one for cinematography.
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