Who would get your write-in votes?

Here’s an easy one for serious Oscar trivia geeks: what’s unusual about Hal Mohr’s 1935 Best Cinematography win for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” I offer no prize, but pat yourself on the back if you knew that Mohr was the first and only person to win an Oscar on write-in votes — or in other words, that he won despite not being nominated.

Mohr’s victory was the result of a groundswell of industry support for his work on the Best Picture nominee after he surprisingly failed to secure a nomination; the year before, Bette Davis was the beneficiary of a more famous, but less successful, write-in campaign for her acclaimed, un-nominated work in “Of Human Bondage.”

As it turned out, she received fewer votes than two of the three actresses who beat her to the nomination, but the legend stuck — and Davis got a blatant make-up Oscar a year later.

75 years on later, the Academy has got too big (and the awards game too monolithic) for rebel campaigns of this nature ever to be successfully engineered — but that doesn’t mean Academy members can’t exercise the write-in option as a point of principle, should they feel particularly strongly about a snubbed film or individual. I remember hearing one Academy voter two years ago boast that she was planning to write in her Best Picture vote for “The Dark Knight,” and had persuaded some of her colleagues to do the same — suffice to say history wasn’t made (and today’s preferential balloting system for the top race doesn’t exactly mesh with the write-in concept), but good on them for the gesture.

This year, there are more than a few categories where I’d like to color outside the lines as an Academy voter. We all know Best Actor is a done deal, so why not fly the flag one last time for the year’s best, and most disappointingly snubbed, performance? By nominating only four contenders, the Academy is all but begging for write-in candidates for Best Original Song — that invisible fifth slot is a “use your imagination” invitation if I ever saw one.

The following categories, then, are all ones where the impractical dreamer in me would be tempted to stick up for the year’s finest work. Who would your ideal write-in candidates be?

Best Picture: “White Material”

Best Director: Claire Denis, “White Material”

Best Actor: Ryan Gosling, “Blue Valentine”

Best Actress: Emma Stone, “Easy A”

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender, “Fish Tank”

Best Supporting Actress: Charlotte Rampling, “Life During Wartime”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Claire Denis and Marie N’Diaye, “White Material”

Best Foreign Language Film: “White Material”

Best Art Direction: Bjarne Hansen, “The Illusionist”

Best Costume Design: Mark Bridges, “The Fighter”

Best Makeup: “Black Swan”

Best Original Score: Daft Punk, “TRON Legacy”

Best Original Song: “Welcome to Burlesque” from “Burlesque”

Best Sound Editing: “127 Hours”

Best Sound Mixing: “The Temptation of St. Tony”

Best Visual Effects: “TRON Legacy”

Best Animated Short: “The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger”

[Photo: The Weinstein Company]