The boo-boo heard around the world.
Off the back of Tuesday’s Oscar nominations, everyone is buzzing for the ceremony on Sunday 4 March.
However, nobody could forget who last year’s ceremony ended, with the greatest twist ending this side of a Shyamalan movie.
Let us remind ourselves of it, anyways:
Clip via ABC News
That all kicked off because somebody gave the envelope for Best Actress (Emma Stone in La La Land), instead of the envelope for Best Picture.
Tim Ryan, the US Chairman and Senior Partner over at the Price Waterhouse Coopers (the peeps in charge of all of the envelopes on the night) ultimately took the blame for the snafu, and he told AP about the six ways they are changing up this year’s format to make sure something like that never happens again:
- The addition of a third balloting partner, who will sit with Oscar producers in the show’s control room. Just like the balloting partners stationed on either side of the Dolby Theatre stage, this person will have a complete set of winners’ envelopes and commit the winners to memory.
- Ryan himself has said he will be personally involved with Oscar operations this year.
- The two partners who worked on last year’s Academy Awards have been replaced, though Ryan confirms that both still work for PwC.
- A new formal procedure is in place for when envelopes are handed over. Both the celebrity presenter and a stage manager will confirm that they’ve been given the correct envelope for the category they are about to present.
- All three balloting partners will attend show rehearsals and practice what to do if something goes wrong. “Because, as you’re well aware, it took a long time to respond last year when there was a mistake that we made,” Ryan said. “So we’re formally practicing the what-ifs.”
- PwC partners are prohibited from using cellphones or social media during the show.
Will this help there be no major mix-ups this year? Who knows?
Of course, there has always been a history of presenters accidentally reading the wrong winner through the years.
And on an entirely-unrelated-to-that-last-sentence-note…
Clip via Oscars
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