Ocar Awards
In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)was formed by 36 of the film industry's most prominent individuals, choosing film actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. as its first president. In 1929, AMPAS presented the first Academy Award. This award was for recognition of excellence in the motion picture industry. This award has remained the ultimate industry standard of recognition.
Voting members of AMPAS represent fourteen branches of the film industry to determine who receives the coveted awards. The Oscar voting process begins in November of each year. Movie studios, publicists and film distributors begin their attempts to coax the voting members of AMPAS to view their film offerings. These attempts are regulated in the interest of fairness. The following January, the Academy Awards ballots are distributed to voting members, who have one month to make their nominations and return these nominations to the offices of PricewaterhouseCoopers, formerly Price Waterhouse, a professional service used to tabulate the votes. PricewaterhouseCoopers guarantees the security of the balloting. Only two people employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers know the results of award balloting before the ceremonies.
The nominations for the award are made by members of the craft categories for each of the rewards. In the Best Picture category, however, all voting members are allowed to submit nominations. In February, PricewaterhouseCoopers announces the result of the nominations. Voting members then receive ballots to cast their votes to select winners in each category. They are then returned to the tabulating service. Although many of the fourteen Oscar categories have been broadened or changed since 1927, the awards still fall within the main branches of the Academy. This includes actors, producers, directors, writers and technicians. Even the names of some of the awards have changed. For example, the Best Picture award was known as the Best Production award prior to 1933. In that year, two Best Picture awards were given. One, to "Wings" for the Best Production and another to "Sunrise" for the Best Unique and Artistic Picture. After that year's awards the latter category was dropped. Until 1939, the award was called the "Academy Award of Merit" and was not a statuette but a plaque. The first Oscar statuette was awarded to actor Emil Jannings, who was named Best Actor for his role in "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Things".
How the awards statuette came to be known as "Oscar" is not known but it is generally accepted that Katherine Herrion, a future Academy Executive Director, remarked upon seeing the statue that it reminded her of her uncle Oscar and began referring to it by that name. Academy staff followed her lead and the name Oscar has been used ever since. The Oscar itself is a statuette, made by the R.S. Owens Company of Chicago. It is approximately 13.5 inches high and weighs 8.5 pounds. It is made from a copper, silver and nickel alloy and covered with 25-Carat gold. During World War II, the statues were made of plaster. Recipients turned in these plaster statues after the war for golden Oscars. In the 1930's juvenile recipients of the award were given miniature versions and there is one instance where a wooden Oscar was awarded to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. Walt Disney received seven miniature Oscar statuettes for the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first all-animated feature film. The statue was designed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer art director Cedric Gibbon and sculptor George Stanley. The Oscar depicts a knight holding a sword, standing atop a reel of film. The film reel has five spokes, representing the five original branches of AMPAS. 1949 marked the first year that the Oscar statuettes were numbered, beginning with number 501. In a surprising turn of events, 55 Oscars vanished before the awards program in March, 2000. Later 52 of the statues were found in a Los Angeles dumpster.
Shortly after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was organized in 1927, a dinner was held in the Crystal Ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. At this dinner they discussed ways to honor outstanding achievements to encourage higher levels of quality in all areas of motion picture production.A major item of the business discussed was the creation of a trophy to recognize achievement in film. MGM art director Cedric Gibbons took the idea to several Los Angeles artists who submitted designs. Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley was selected to create the statuette the figure of a knight standing on a reel of film, hands gripping a sword. The Academy's world-renowned statuette was born.Over 2,300 statuettes have been presented since the initial awards banquet on May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel's Blossom Room. In 2002, additional new golden statuettes were cast, molded, polished and buffed by R. S. Owens and Company. This Chicago awards specialty company has made the award since 1982.Initially, Oscar was solid bronze. Then, due to a shortage of metal during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Today, the statuette is gold-plated britannium, a pewter-like alloy. He stands 131/2 inches tall and weighs a robust 8-1/2 pounds. He hasn't been changed since he was first created, except when the pedestal was made higher in 1945.
Officially named the Academy Award of Merit, the statuette is better known by a nickname, Oscar, the origins of which aren't clear. A popular story has been that Margaret Herrick,an Academy librarian and eventual executive director, thought it resembled her Uncle Oscar. After she said so, the Academy staff began calling it Oscar. the Academy didn't use the nickname officially until 1939.The Academy won't know how many statuettes it will actually hand out until the envelopes are opened on Oscar Night. Even though the number of categories and special awards is known prior to the ceremony, the possibility of ties and of multiple winners sharing the prize in some categories, makes the exact number of Oscars to be awarded unpredictable.
