Oscars: A Lot of Beyonce and the 60 Second Rule

Sure, Beyonce is hot and cool and all of that, but so are lots of people and I’m not sure why the Academy has chosen her to dominate the best original song performances of the evening.

Beyonce will perform “Look to Your Path” from Les Choristes accompanied by the American Boyschoir, “Learn to Be Lonely” from The Phantom of the Opera, and duet with Josh Groban on “Believe” from The Polar Express. Counting Crows will perform their best song nomination “Accidentally In Love” from Shrek 2, which is by far the liveliest and best known of the bunch. A performance of the remaining contender – “Al Otro Lado Del Rio” from The Motorcycle Diaries – has yet to be announced. There’s always Beyonce.

Oscar telecast producer Gil Cates’s blog has some revealing info on the inner workings of the show today:

the main order of business for me as Oscar producer [at the Nominee’s Luncheon] is to remind the nominees that when someone wins an Academy Award they have 60 seconds from the announcement of the win to the end of the acceptance speech.

And, really, they can say whatever they want to say. But I always point out that mentioning 10 people’s names may make 10 people happy, but it makes millions of other people miserable. I encourage them to talk about what the Oscar means to them, maybe something personal, definitely something interesting.

During the Oscar broadcast, I sit directly behind our talented director Louis J. Horvitz in the production control truck. When an Oscar winner reaches 45 seconds, I instruct Lou to tell our great musical conductor Bill Conti to cue the orchestra. I don’t enjoy using music to play off Oscar winners in their moment of glory, but it is the most polite way we have devised yet to control the length of our show.

Fortunately, not every winner loses track of how long they have spoken or feels compelled to thank a few more family members. In fact, some of the best moments of every Oscar telecast come from the emotional, heartfelt expressions of joy by Oscar winners.

Some rather large hints dropped there on how he wants the show to go, but is it more important for him to be happy or the award winners? There you have the central tension of the broadcast.

ABC announced that they will impose a time delay on the broadcast to leave time to edit out anything untoward, a legacy of Janet Jackson’s right breast. It’s a shame that one bad egg can ruin it for everyone.