LOS
ANGELES- Addressing complaints about previous ceremonies, the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed that this Sunday’s
Academy Awards will have a total run-time of 10 minutes.
The
show is notoriously known for its extremely long run-time, which
frequently spills over into other programs scheduled by its
broadcasting channel, ABC. Hawk Koch, president of the Academy, said
that it was time for the Oscars to, “be a little more considerate
to vital shows like Eyewitness News and reruns of Who Wants to be a
Millionaire”.
Although
show runners in recent years have tried to allow for a cleaner,
shorter show, it has not resulted in making the timing any less than
three and a half hours.
The
new format will forgo traditional Academy Awards practices such as
“nap-time musical numbers” and the old news segment, more
commonly known as “In Memoriam.” It will also not have portions
like the Best Sound Mixing award “which no one deserves anyway”
and commercial breaks. Further, it will axe some of the most time
consuming parts, like having the host announce someone that then
announces the winner- in an effort to eliminate pointless redundancy.
The
show’s producers for this Sunday, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, did
not want to give away too many details. Zadan explains, “It’s not
that we’re afraid of giving away spoilers. There just won’t be
anything special that happens.” Meron found a way to drop another
hint by saying, “No, for real. We’re going to have Seth
MacFarlane joke about famous people for five minutes, and then the
rest of the time will be just him giving out the Oscars. He won’t
even read the names of the other nominees first.”
E!
Network, working in coordination with ABC to provide the Red Carpet
portion of the day, announced that it too would cut back on the
length of its show. The original broadcast length for “Live from
the Red Carpet” of two and a half hours will be cut by almost two
and a half hours. The new show will simply be a 30-second clip of
notable outfits to air immediately before the start of the ceremony
on ABC itself.
The
new Oscars run-time is already receiving universal acclaim from
critics. Sandy Topher of the Los Angeles Times wrote in Friday’s
editorial that she is “delighted” to hear the news. “A roomful
of rich people patting each other on the back and giving themselves
gold statues gets a little tiring after ten minutes or so anyway.”
At
press time, Koch was overheard asking the producers if they could cut
the show down to 7 minutes instead by, “having Seth just throw the
awards at the actors in the audience so they don’t have to waste
time walking up to the stage.”
by Mike Vandenberg
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