The Academy Awards (and the red carpet) will look different this year because of the pandemic. The ceremony, which begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, could go down in movie industry history.
The Academy Awards (and the red carpet) will look different this year because of the pandemic. The ceremony, which begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, could go down in movie industry history. By Matt Stevens When you watch tonight’s Oscars, there’s a chance they will look a little different than you expect. If something feels a little off or tad bit unusual, rest assured, there are technical reasons. The producers of this year’s Oscars have said the ceremony will be broadcast in a wide-screen format at a frame rate of 24 frames per second. As a point of reference, most television viewers are used to watching their favorite shows at a higher frame rate of either 30 frames per second or, these days,60 frames per second. The difference can be hard to discern during many shows, but higher frame rates can help smooth out action sequences and live sports. So what does these changes mean in practice for the Oscars? “We are just trying to create an experience that has the aesthetics of a film, as opposed to a TV show,” one of the show’s producers, Steven Soderbergh said at a news conference over the weekend. “It means compositionally setting up shots that look more like movie shots than television shots, where people aren’t just nailed to the center of the screen all the time.” “It’s going to sound different in terms of how Questlove is approaching the scoring of the show,” Soderbergh added. “So we just want the whole thing right out of the gate to announce itself as being different. And if you like movies, you will feel like you are watching a movie.” That’s about as much specificity as we’ve gotten from officials so far. We’ll update this post after the show begins, and we’ve all gotten a chance to register what exactly is different. By Chloe Malle Dr. Erin Bromage, a professor of immunology and infectious diseases at UMass Dartmouth, is the lead Covid compliance consultant for the Oscars, which means he is responsible for health and safety protocols at the awards show. He has overseen on-set compliance for more than 35 film productions since last June. But live events are different. “With TV and film, you’ve got time to get it right,” he said. “With the Academy Awards, it’s live. There’s no learning on the go, and there is no second time around.” Safety at the show has been a team effort. Steven Soderbergh and Stacey Sher, who are producers of this year’s Academy Awards and helped create the movie “Contagion,” consulted many of the same epidemiologists who weighed in on the 2011 film to help safeguard the awards ceremony. Mr.
