Oscars in several marquee categories–Best Director, Cinematography and Editing–were bestowed upon artisans with commercialmaking ties, the highest profile being Tom Hooper who won the Academy Award for Best Director on the strength of The King’s Speech, which also garnered Best Picture, Best Actor In A Leading Role (Colin Firth) and Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler) honors.
Hooper scored the Oscar a month after garnering the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film. Just prior to taking the DGA honor, Hooper told SHOOT that once the awards season wraps, he hopes to take on some select commercial work via Smuggler, the spot production house he signed with last year (SHOOTonline, 9/8/10).
Among the thanks Hooper expressed in his Oscar acceptance remarks was a very special acknowledment of his mother. “I know there’s been a lot of thanking of mums,” he said, “but this is slightly different because my mum in 2007 was invited by some Australian friends, she’s Australian in London, to a fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called ‘The King’s Speech.’ Now she’s never been invited to a play reading in her entire life before, she almost didn’t go because it didn’t sound exactly promising, but thank God she did because she came home, rang me up and said, ‘Tom, I think I found your next film.’ So with this tonight, I honor you, and the moral of the story is listen to your mother.”
Cinematography
Meanwhile, Wally Pfister, ASC, won the Best Cinematography Oscar for the Christopher Nolan-directed Inception. Just a couple of weeks ago, Inception earned Pfister the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award in the feature film category
Pfister said his first career Oscar wouldn’t have been possible without the “incredible vision” of Nolan. “His work has inspired me for 12 years and continues to.” Pfister has three other Academy Award nominations, also for Nolan-directed films: The Dark Knight, The Prestige and Batman Begins.
On the commercialmaking front, Pfister sits firmly in the director’s chair, represented by Independent Media through which he has helmed notable work for The Montana Meth Project and a 2010 Super Bowl spot for Vizio, both for San Francisco agency Venables Bell & Partners.
Backstage at the Academy Awards, Pfister was asked about his thoughts on 3D, particularly in light of the fact that Inception had gone through the 3D post conversion process for some scenes before it was ultimately decided not to release the film in 3D. Pfister replied, “I’m personally not a big 3D fan. It doesn’t really work for me. I don’t like the glasses, I don’t like the dark image, you know, through there. And it’s it feels a little gimmicky to me. That’s my own personal preference, I’m not a big fan of that. We like to, in terms of the immersion for the audience, we like to do things like film things in IMAX and put it on a much larger canvas and higher resolution rather than three dimensional. So in turns of what’s happening with Inception, you know, Chris [Nolan] and I are like minded in that way. I don’t know whether they’re going to release a DVD version in 3D or not, but…it’s just not something I’m that interested in as a filmmaker.
Editing
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter won the Oscar for Best Editing on the basis of the David Fincher-directed The Social Network. The honor comes on the heels of Wall and Baxter’s work on The Social Network copping the Association of Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award for best edited dramatic feature.
This is Wall and Baxter’s first Academy Award. They were nominated two years ago for the Fincher-helmed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Wall and Baxter are spot-cutting mainstays at Rock Paper Scissors.
Short success
Taking the Oscar for Best Animated Short film was The Lost Thing, a Passion Pictures Australia Production.
Passion Pictures, headquartered in the U.K., has a track record in animated commercials. One of the two recipients on stage to accept the Academy Award was Andrew Ruhemann, owner/executive producer of Passion.
Big picture
Tied with The King’s Speech with four Oscars was Inception with Academy Awards for Cinematography, Best Visual Effects (lead VFX house was Double Negative in London), Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.
The Social Network garnered three Oscars–Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score, the latter honor going to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Composer Ross is no stranger to commercials, a recent credit being DirecTV’s “Ice Cream” directed by Rupert Sanders of MJZ for Grey New York.
The Fighter picked up Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress honors for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, respectively. Also scoring a pair of Academy Awards were: Alice in Wonderland which took the Art Direction and Costume Design categories; and Toy Story 3 which was named Best Animated Feature and had the Best Original Song (“We Belong Together”).
Black Swan earned one Oscar–for Natalie Portman as Best Performance by An Actress in A Leading Role.
The Best Feature Documentary was Inside Job while the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject went to Strangers No More.
In accepting for Inside Job, director/producer Charles Ferguson said, “Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that’s wrong. Thank you, but this is, this is also, this is about the movies, in fact, and that’s what this is. So, thank you all for this profound honor. You’ve made us very, very happy. Thank you all.”
In a Better World was Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the third movie from Denmark to earn such distinction.
God of Love won for Best Live Action Short Film.
And The Wolfman won for Best Achievement in Makeup.
