By Andrew Dalton, Entertainment Writer
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) --The slap sat front and center at Monday's Oscar nominees luncheon.
So much so that motion picture academy president Janet Yang neither had to describe it nor say the names Will Smith or Chris Rock for the ballroom full of award hopefuls to know what she was talking about when she aired her regrets.
"I'm sure you all remember we experienced an unprecedented event at the Oscars," Yang told a crowd that included Tom Cruise, Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett and Steven Spielberg during her opening remarks. "What happened onstage was wholly unacceptable and the response from our organization was inadequate."
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did little in response to Smith storming the stage and slapping Rock during last year's Oscars telecast or in the immediate aftermath. It was nearly two weeks before its board of governors voted to ban Smith from the Oscars and all other academy events for 10 years. Smith had already preemptively resigned as an academy member.
"We learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions," Yang said, "and particularly in times of crisis you must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry. You should and can expect no less form us going forward."
Yang, who was not president at the time, was interrupted by a mild round of applause, and did not elaborate further, moving on to happier topics.
She was met with whooping applause when told the nominees that all categories will be shown live on the March 12 ABC telecast. Last year, in a controversy largely eclipsed by the slap, several Oscars were handed out in a pre-telecast ceremony and edited versions of winners' speeches were squeezed into the main show.
The luncheon is a warm, feel-good affair where nominees are in general treated with equality, and a relative unknown up for best animated short might be seated next to an A-lister up for best actor.
Some, of course, attract more attention than others, and don't need to wear the nametags handed out to all.
Tom Cruise, nominated as a producer for best picture candidate "Top Gun: Maverick," managed briefly to mix in with the crowd in a ballroom at the Beverly Hilton before he attracted a crowd of gawkers.
He and Jamie Lee Curtis, up for best supporting actress for "Everything Everywhere All at Once," pressed their foreheads together and giggled when they bumped into each other.
He smiled widely as he posed for photos with his old "War of the Worlds" and "Minority Report" collaborator Steven Spielberg, up for best director for "The Fabelmans," and Michelle Yeoh, up for best actress for "Everything Everywhere All at Once," the year's most nominated film.
In a pairing representative of the random-seeming seating chart, Odessa Rae, producer of the nominated documentary feature "Navalny," chatted with table-mate and best actor nominee Colin Farrell during the lunch of risotto and oyster mushrooms cut to resemble scallops.
At another table nearby, Brian Tyree Henry, best supporting actor nominee for "Causeway," laughed with Jenny Slate, voice star of animated feature nominee "Marcel the Shell With Shoes On."
The centerpiece of the luncheon is the class picture, the staging of which feels like a high school graduation. An academy governor read off the names of 182 nominees and their peers cheered as they walked up and took their spots on the risers.
"Jamie Lee Curtis," producer DeVon Franklin enunciated loudly into the mic. Curtis leapt up and got a big ovation as she climbed alone to the top tier.
Henry, a first-time nominee, stood at his table, raised an arm in the air and yelped when his name was called.
Ke Huy Quan, another first-timer, up for best supporting actor for "Everything Everywhere All at Once," ran up to his spot in front and shook his fists in triumph. He hugged "Babylon" composer Justin Hurwitz, assigned to stand next to him.
Bassett, nominated for best supporting actress for "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," got one of the afternoon's biggest cheers when her name was called, and hugged Cruise when she got to her spot next to him.
The luncheon also functions as an Oscars orientation for would-be winners. Yang emphasized that acceptance speeches at next month's ceremony have to be kept to 45 seconds.
"Let's say it together, 45 seconds," she told the crowd.
They repeated it back to her in unison, though at least a few are sure to forget — or ignore her — once they get the statue in their hands.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More