On the evening of January 31 local time in the United States, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organizer of the Oscars, announced that after consultation at the board meeting, it will not revoke the British actor who won the best actress nomination for the film "To Leslie" Andrea Riseborough's eligibility will not be punished in any way. "The Academy has determined that the practices in question were not serious enough to warrant rescission of the nomination, but the social media canvassing practices adopted by those involved did raise concerns and the Academy has communicated directly with them about this."
It seems that this turmoil will die down with an official statement, but it reflects the evolution of the methods and means of competing for Oscars, which is also of great reference value in the future.
Andrea Riseborough in "To Leslie."
One step away from being hidden in history
Since this year's Oscar nominations were announced, compared to Cate Blanchett in "Tal" and Michelle Yeoh in "The Universe", who is more likely to win the Best Actress, the outside world has paid more attention to "For Rice". The unexpected nomination of Andrea Riseborough for Leigh sparked a heated debate in Hollywood.
"To Leslie" is directed by the newcomer director Michael Morris who has only filmed TV series before. It tells the story of alcohol abuse similar to "Leaving Las Vegas", and the filming cost is only 100 yuan. It cost less than 10,000 U.S. dollars, and it took 20 days to finish the shooting.
"To Leslie" will have its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in the United States in March 2022, and won unanimous praise from the media. Subsequently, Canada's Momentum Pictures bought the distribution rights in North America and arranged for the film to be distributed in North America. It was released last October. However, this little-known company obviously didn't have much expectations for "To Leslie", so it didn't invest any promotional funds, and the so-called public screening was only shown in a theater in Santa Monica for five days , it was down, and the total box office was only 27,000 US dollars. For Momentum Films, "Fur Leslie", which received rave reviews from the media, will be able to sell a lot of money on the online on-demand platform later, enough for them to recoup the cost and make a small profit.
"For Leslie" had previously only shown in one North American theater.
However, director Morris, lead actor Riceborough and others seem unwilling to let the hard-working work become an unknown passer-by. In July 2022, Morris approached his friend Howard Stern (Howard Stern) and asked him to watch his hard work. Stern is a well-known radio DJ in the United States. In his early years, he acted in an autobiographical film. The actress Mary McCormack (Mary McCormack) who played his wife in the film later became Morris' wife. The two became friends. In October 2022, Stern really promoted the film on his own show, bringing "For Leslie", which had been almost completely forgotten, back to some attention.
In November 2022, the nominations for the American Independent Spirit Awards were announced. Andrea Riseborough, the heroine of "To Leslie", unexpectedly won the nomination for Best Leading Role, and Cate Blanchett of "Tal" , Michelle Yeoh and others in "The Instant Universe" are evenly divided. Although the results of the Independent Spirit Awards will not be announced until March 4 this year, in the context of no publicity investment, just being able to get such a nomination is a huge deal for such a low-budget independent film. success. Perhaps inspired by this, the film crew of "To Leslie" began to increase investment and fully participated in this year's awards season, aiming at Riceborough's Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Riceborough in "Black Mirror"
The 41-year-old Andrea Riseborough was born in the UK and graduated from the Royal Academy of Drama in London. She has been in the industry for 17 or 18 years and has participated in "Birdman", "The Death of Stalin" and "Oblivion". And other popular works, the role of a female architect in the episode "Crocodile" in the fourth season of the British drama "Black Mirror" also left a deep impression on many audiences. But on the whole, she stands out as a dark horse in this year's awards season, but she still lacks the star halo and media topical blessings.
Andrea Riseborough has starred in films such as "Birdman", "The Death of Stalin" and "Oblivion".
More importantly, the Momentum Film Company behind "To Leslie" wanted money but no money, and experience but no experience. Even though they had already found two public relations companies in Los Angeles to help with publicity, it was not very practical at first. It worked. Competing in the same arena with Neon, A24 and other "Olympic" veterans who specialize in the distribution of literary films, it pales in comparison.
From obscurity to star support
As the most sought-after film crown in the world cinema, the Oscars are voted anonymously by nearly 10,000 judges from all over the world. It seems fair and just, and it is judged purely by the degree of completion and the artistic level of the work, but there are hundreds of films participating in the "Olympic Games" every year, and only twenty or thirty films can really stand out. How to make the judges notice you depends on all kinds of publicity methods and canvassing campaigns.
Specifically, the first is to purchase media space, from national heavyweight media such as "New York Times" and "Los Angeles Times" to professional media such as "Variety Show" and "Hollywood Reporter" that face industry insiders, from their print media advertisements to other media. Electronic advertisements on social media... In short, the more publicity in various forms, the better, and the Oscar judges must be familiar with your name first.
The second is to contact the judges directly, but it is said that only the Oscar Society has the detailed contact information of nearly 10,000 judges. To this end, the academy provides a paid mass mailing service, which can be purchased by film producers for $2,000, and your campaign manifesto can be sent directly to the e-mail addresses of all Oscar judges. So far, according to Variety, To Leslie has sent three such mass emails, costing $6,000.
In addition, the most important thing is that your work must be seen by the judges. In the early years, everyone relied on watching DVDs. You can entrust the society to mail the CDs to the judges. After entering the digital age, the academy has its own dedicated streaming app (Academy Screening Room), you can upload your work, and the judges who want to watch it can see it anytime, anywhere. However, the film studio also needs to pay a handling fee of 20,000 US dollars for this. Momentum Films, the producer of "To Leslie", is said to have been reluctant to pay even the money.
Obviously, just like all kinds of political elections in the United States, hitting the Oscars is actually a very expensive thing, and what the film crew of "To Leslie" lacks most is money. However, there is no unparalleled road, and there are many things in the world that are more precious than money, such as connections. Director Morris's wife, Mary McCormack, has been in Hollywood since she was a child star, and has accumulated a wide circle of friends over the years. At the critical moment of the "Olympic" nomination in December 2022, it is said that many people in Hollywood have received emails or phone calls from her, imploring them to take the time to watch this work of their husband; I hope that the other party can post some impressions on social media after watching it, so as to help the heroine Riceborough increase her popularity.
Someone leaked an email from Mary McCormack to the media, who sincerely wrote in the letter: From now until January 17, if you will post every day (mentioned "To Leslie" and Riceborough), that would be great! Even if you don't post every day, any day you post will be of great help to us. So, please help as much as you can when it is convenient for you. Having said that, is there anything simpler than posting a post every day! "In addition, in her email, she also thoughtfully prepared the distribution pictures, keywords, and who you need to @.
In addition to the efforts of her good wife Mary McCormack, it is said that her agent Jason Weinberg (Jason Weinberg) also helped a lot in the canvassing work of "To Leslie". Untitled Entertainment, founded by Weinberg, cooperates with Hollywood's top CAA brokerage company, and is itself one of the world's top brokers, representing Juliette Binoche, Penelope Cruz, Eddie Redmayne and a large number of internationally renowned actors, and Andrea Riseborough, the heroine of "To Leslie", is also an artist under his banner.
Not long after, at almost the same time, a large number of fellow actors and actresses recommended "To Leslie" and Riceborough's posts on American social media, including Cate Blanchett, Susan Sarandon, Helen Big names like Hunter, Courtney Cox, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Mia Farrow, Liam Neeson. Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore, Courtney Cox, and Edward Norton also hosted screenings for the film, and the Oscar judges were specially invited to watch it. Kate Winslet and Amy Adams extended their reach further by interviewing Riceborough online.
Kate Winslet (below) was full of praise in a video interview with director Morris and star Riseborough.
Among these industry fans, Jane Fonda, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton, Aniston, etc. are all signed by Jason Weinberg's agency Actor, Norton also worked with Riceborough on Birdman. It has to be said that some of the reviews are exaggerated. For example, Kate Winslet chanted for her compatriots: "This is the greatest actress I have ever seen in my life." Paltrow wrote: "All the actress awards this year, whether they are Whether it’s there or not, it’s all hers, that’s right.” And some comments from different actors have exactly the same rhetoric-"This is a small production, but it has a big heart". As a result, it quickly attracted doubts from American netizens.
Jane Fonda gave the film a high rating on her personal social media.
Paltrow praised "To Leslie" on his personal social media.
Grassroots canvassing victory or violation
The next story is that the Oscar nominations were officially announced, and "To Leslie", which was hardly known before, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress. That meant at least 218 of the 1,302 casting judges who were eligible to nominate for the nomination put Riceborough at the top of the ballot. In this regard, supporters praised this as an impossible miracle, a replica of the battle between David and Goliath, and a victory in the grassroots "Olympiad" battle, which proved that the Oscars are not only about the power of money, but also about actors its own strength. Opponents believed that this method of soliciting votes was unfair and had been suspected of violating regulations, which eventually led to a special meeting of the organizers to discuss the matter.
The first person to publicly question the illegal canvassing of "To Leslie" was Matthew Belloni, a senior media person who just left the post of editorial director of "Hollywood Reporter" magazine in 2020. Writing on the online media Puck, he exposed the above-mentioned email sent to the Oscar judges by the director's wife Mary McCormack, and also pointed out the British-born veteran actress Frances Fisher (Frances Fisher) on her social media. A post on the homepage calling on the Oscar judges to vote for Riceborough is also suspected of violating the rules. At that time, Fisher posted several times asking everyone to vote for Riceborough, on the grounds that in the Best Actress segment, "In addition to Michelle Yeoh and Blanchett, Viola Davis of "The Belle of Daho" and "Best Actress" The nomination for Danielle Dedwyler of "Tear" is definitely not out."
Frances Fisher campaigned for Riceborough on personal social media.
In the end, the two black actresses were both unsuccessful, and the director of "Till" Chi Naye Chuku even publicly condemned Oscar's discrimination against black actresses. The nominations that should have belonged to the two black actresses were taken away, but it happened that none of the ten candidates for the best actor and actress this year was black, and the Oscars also attracted a lot of criticism for this. The opposing party completely politicized the nomination issue, pointing out that although Sony Pictures and Amazon Pictures have invested a lot of publicity resources in the works starring the two, they are not as capable as the film crew of "To Leslie" to find a large number of authorized members. Powerful white Hollywood actors came to help her make waves.
"Teel" star Danielle Dedwyler was originally considered a strong hope for an Oscar nomination.
In all fairness, this year's Best Actress nominations, in addition to Riceborough, Ana de Armas in "The Blonde Beauty" can finally be shortlisted, which is somewhat surprising, but "To Leslie" has previously It was too unknown, and Riceborough's rise was too sudden, so that the outside world almost focused all their firepower on this miracle of canvassing votes.
As for Frances Fisher's passionate post, at the age of 70 this year, she starred in Eastwood's "Unforgiven" when she was young, and had a daughter with Eastwood, and she later had a relationship with George Clooney has been in a relationship and is considered a well-connected celebrity in Hollywood. But her post is not strictly speaking a violation of Oscar voting rules. Because at least on the surface, she seems to have no interest in the crew of "To Leslie", and it is likely that she is purely out of the mentality of recognizing heroes and valuing heroes. In fact, at the Critics' Choice Awards earlier, when Cate Blanchett took the stage to receive the Best Actress Award, she specifically mentioned Riceborough's wonderful performance in "To Leslie", This kind of appreciation among peers has nothing to do with illegal canvassing.
However, Matthew Belloni, a lawyer, has a clear view of right and wrong. In the article, he severely reprimanded Mary McCormack and her team for being "brazen" because of the practice of directly emailing the judges and asking others to post. It is really against common sense; more importantly, it skips the traditional public relations company's publicity strategy, playing the favor card and using the circle of friends, which is quite detrimental to the overall image of Hollywood and makes it easier for the outside world to recognize Oscar It's just a small circle game, lacking fairness and fairness.
But there are also many people who hold the opposite opinion. Anne Thompson, a senior media person who did film public relations in the early years, and Scott Feinberg, a well-known journalist who has written the awards season column for "Hollywood Reporter" for more than ten years, both think that Lai There is nothing wrong with Siborough being nominated, and the Society will not and should not disqualify her. In their view, there is no need for the outside world to exaggerate this matter too much. It would be too much to say that some judges voted anonymously for Riceborough after seeing the likes of Winslet and others. Underestimate the IQ and professional ethics of these judges. It's not so much a trick, it's better to say that those judges who had never heard of "For Leslie" were influenced by the craze on social media, watched this niche movie on demand, and then really Think Riceborough's performance (the film has a 97% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes) is admirable and worthy of their vote.
All in all, for Riceborough, one of the parties involved, the first hurdle has been passed smoothly, and the nomination has not been affected in any way. Next, the final round of voting for the Oscars will start on March 2 and end on March 7. How the ups and downs that have lasted for a long time will affect the judgment of all 9579 Oscar judges, it seems that there is really a big unknown at present.
Generally speaking, this year's Best Actress Award has long been regarded as a game between Michelle Yeoh and Blanchett, but will there be a large number of judges because of Riceborough's grassroots identity and the victim of criticism? On the contrary, she cast a sympathetic vote for her. Perhaps no one could foresee it 100% until the moment the vote was revealed. Even if you don't win in the end, the Oscar nomination itself can be regarded as a rich stroke on an actor's resume.
There have been precedents for Oscar canvassing all kinds of tricks
Historically, in fact, at the beginning of the Oscars, there were various black-box operations and disguised canvassing practices, and no one was surprised at the time. In the heyday of the so-called eight major Hollywood film companies, these film companies all explicitly or implicitly required the filmmakers under their contracts to vote for their own works in Oscar votes. Therefore, the Oscar selection in those years was largely based on which company had the most number of Oscar judges.
In 1987, Sally Kirkland, the heroine of the movie "Anna", contacted the Oscar judges one by one by herself because the distribution company had no money to canvass votes for her, pleading with them to pay attention to her performance. Actress nomination. And this kind of situation of directly contacting the judges also happened to the supporting actress Diane Ladd and others in "Wild at Heart".
"Anna" star Sally Kirkland (right) contacted the Oscar judges to canvass votes.
In the 1990s, with the rapid rise of an independent film force represented by Harvey Weinstein, the competition for the annual awards season became more intense, and various off-the-chart tricks also intensified. For the movie "Shine" (Shine) released in 1996, the American distributor New Line Films, in order to compete for the best actor statuette for the leading actor Geoffrey Rush, specially found a public relations company to give them one by one. The judges called, and although the dream finally came true, it also made the academy feel unacceptable, so it strengthened various competition rules, including not directly canvassing votes, etc. However, there are still many gray areas left. For example, the reception and screening specially arranged for the Oscar judges stipulates that the food provided should not be too extravagant. Metrics.
New Line Cinema commissioned a public relations firm to make phone calls to Oscar judges for the nomination of Geoffrey Rush, the leading actor in "Sparkling Presence."
In 2003, the then 88-year-old director Robert Wise admired "Gangs of New York" very much and wrote an article for the newspaper, implying that this year's Oscar should be Martin Scorsese's turn. At that time, Cosese had won many Oscar nominations for "Raging Bull", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Goodfellas" and "The Age of Innocence", but he never won a single one-even if the production quality of "Gangs of New York" itself was not good enough. Not enough to win the best director award, but it can be regarded as a kind of summary of Scorsese's past achievements. The best director award is used to affirm his long-term achievements, and the Oscar has never given him a director award in the past. in debt.
As soon as this article came out, Harvey Weinstein, the boss of Miramax, the film’s distributor, quickly found someone to buy the media page and typed: “Robert Wise, who won two Oscars, announced that Gangs of New York Martin Scorsese deserves an Oscar this year."
Harvey Weinstein used Robert Wise's commentary to buy space for Gangs of New York.
This approach was opposed by Frank Pierson, then president of the Academy, who publicly condemned Weinstein’s move as a violation of the canvassing rules, and even claimed that several Oscar judges had contacted him, expressing their dislike of “New York” This way of soliciting votes for "Gangster" hopes to take back the ballots that have already been sent, vote again, and cross out the vote for the best director award that was already voted for Scorsese! In the end, Scorsese did not have the last laugh, and the best director award that year was awarded to Roman Polanski for "The Pianist". The society quickly added relevant regulations, prohibiting film companies from using such comments from seniors in the industry to advertise alone when canvassing votes.
During the Oscar voting in 2004, DreamWorks Films, the distributor of the film "Home in Dust and Fog", asked someone to vote for the best supporting actress candidate Sori Andasru in the "Variety" Daily, directly citing the "New York Times" "Rolling Stone ", "Premiere" and other media authoritative film critics gave the Oscar result prediction copy: Best Supporting Actress award, I guess Renee Zellweger will win, but I think Thorie Andasloo should win more That's right. The move drew immediate public criticism from the Academy, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, then head of DreamWorks, published a public apology in the Los Angeles Times the next day. In the end, Andasloo was not deprived of his nomination qualifications, but he still lost to Zellweger in "Cold Mountain".
In 2010, Nicholas Chartier, the producer of "The Hurt Locker", sent emails to the Oscar judges he was familiar with, imploring them to vote for him instead of "Avatar". "The Hurt Locker" won the best picture as expected, but Chartier's violations were exposed by the "Los Angeles Times" in advance, which led to the Academy's order to ban him from attending the awards ceremony that year.
Producers of "The Hurt Locker" sent emails to Oscar judges, and the film won Best Picture.
In 2014, well-known composer Bruce Broughton (Bruce Broughton) also sent emails and phone calls to many Oscar judges, hoping that they would consider the title of his own film "Alone Yet Not Alone" (Alone Yet Not Alone) when voting. theme song. Broughton was nominated for the best original song and had the opportunity to compete with the theme song "Let Him Go" of "Frozen", but the matter was soon exposed by the media, and the society revoked the nomination qualification of this song for the first time .
The situation in Broughton is actually somewhat similar to that in Riceborough this year. The movie "Not Alone" was unknown back then, and now it has long been forgotten. The distribution company behind it also had no money and power, so Broughton had to use his contacts to contact more than 70 judges in person, hoping that they would put aside their prejudices and listen to his work.
After this incident, there were actually two opinions in the industry that year. One side thinks that the rules are the rules. Although Bruce Broughton did not force the judges to vote for him, the practice of directly contacting the judges during the awards season is already out of line; The practice of buying media pages for works is essentially the same, it is just publicity, not forced sales, and these small independent films are really hard-pressed, if they are not allowed to use this direct door-knocking publicity method, then It means that no matter how fragrant the wine is, it can only be hidden deep in the alley. Interestingly, when Bruce Broughton defended himself at the time, he used the rhetoric that this was a kind of "grassroots canvassing", which is exactly the same as the label that the outside world puts on the "To Leslie" film.
In 2017, Greg Russell, the sound mixer of "13 Hours of Crisis", also violated the rules of canvassing because he called the judges directly. nominated filmmaker. Back then, Russell had been nominated for Oscars as many as 15 times before that, but every time he ran with him. Perhaps it was because he was really eager to win the award that he used such an illegal method, but it turned out to be a laughing stock.
In 2018, Weinstein went to jail. Although it was because of the sexual assault scandal, from another perspective, it also seemed to mean that the instigator of this illegal canvassing was put back in the cage. It's just that the new scourge is already eager to try, and that is social media, which has long become a part of Hollywood's propaganda machine. In the traditional sense, canvassing methods must be realized by buying advertisements and holding receptions. Account expenditures and money transactions have traces and laws to follow. For online promotion like "To Leslie", just click on the keyboard, repost or like the comments of Paltrow, Winslet and others, and it can achieve the same or even better publicity effect than buying pages. .
Long before the announcement of this year's Oscar nominations, the current president of the society, Janet Yang, praised Michelle Yeoh's performance in "The Transient Universe" on her personal social media. It's over. As a senior Hollywood producer, Yang Yanzi, who is famous in the film industry for films such as "The Joy Luck Club" and "Sex Book Tycoon", saw the wonderful performance of Michelle Yeoh, who is also a Chinese filmmaker. It's understandable to say hello, but starting from August 2022, she has become the new president of the society, so a short post will be used to enlarge and deal with, let alone something like "To Lai" Seeley" this kind of overwhelming battle.
Yang Yanzi (left), the new president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, caused controversy by posting a post on personal social media in support of the heroine Michelle Yeoh (right) of "The Transient Universe".
However, looking at it from another perspective, this time "To Leslie" and Riceborough stood out thanks to their special publicity campaign. Does it also mean that there were actually many such works and actors in the past, precisely because of the lack of Such an opportunity finally became unknown? So is this a loss for the audience, or a loss for the entire Hollywood film industry?
Last week, actress Christina Ricci spoke out against Riceborough after the academy announced it was looking into the matter. "It seems ridiculous to me that a show that was already very good, without a lot of money to spend on publicity, was unexpectedly nominated and investigated because of it. Is it true that only those Movies and actors with deep pockets are worthy of Oscar nominations? Wouldn’t that be elitism and clique culture?”
Rich’s speech on his social media account resonated with many people, but at the same time, some netizens pointed out that Rich’s agent is also Weinberg, who is regarded as the driving force behind the incident. There is also a well-known Hollywood screenwriter and director Paul Schrader, who has nothing to do with this matter, posted on social media to support Riceborough: "I voted for her, come on, come and check me." It seems that in In this "post-truth era", it is really not easy to choose sides.
Paul Schrader took to social media to support Riceborough.
