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Since the Academy announced its latest mathematical tweak to the Best Picture category last week, few have taken against the adjustment in principle — in a race notionally about “best,” it seems fair that films liked by many but loved by few should be left out, even if there’s no clear way of knowing which films that might hinder. (Many are taking it for granted that the new system would have spared us a “The Blind Side” nomination last year — but can we be so sure that fewer than 1 in 20 voters named it their favorite film of the year? I’m not.)
The downside of the change, as The Wrap’s Steve Pond explains, is that the new-model Best Picture slate will likely end up representing a smaller portion of Academy members than the previous one. The beauty of the old system, which redistributed the votes of those members whose top choices hadn’t made the cut, is that nearly every ballot wound up contributing to the final list of nominees. Even if a member’s vote eventually went to, say, his fifth-favorite film, he still exerted a measure of influence on the outcome — encouraging for voters whose ballots are dominated by less Oscar-friendly fare.
That all changes under the new system, where in most cases, a voter’s #1 choice is all that counts. Pond, always a whiz at crunching the numbers in Oscar discussions, offers an extensive explanation — and reveals that, while a few ballots may end up being reallocated to voters’ runner-up candidates under the new, one-round counting process, a number of ballots topped by votes for little-favored contenders will end up being discarded altogether.
Pond simulated the new voting process with a selection of critics’ Top 10 lists from last year — and while obviously allowing for the fact that critics are likelier than Academy members to pick left-of-center titles, he still estimates the proportion of discarded ballots to be as high as 25-30% of the total:
Using the old system, my 2010 simulation took 11 rounds to produce 10 Best Picture nominees. At the end of those 11 rounds, only 10 ballots (six percent of the total) had been discarded, because those critics opted entirely for films that ended up out of the running.
The new system, though, uses just one round of counting and redistribution to come up with the nominees. Using that system, a full 43 ballots, representing almost 28 percent of the total vote, ended up having no impact on the slate of nominees.
This isn’t quite the bad news it seems for discerning Academy members who vote with their hearts, placing the films they truly believe to be the year’s best at the top of their ballots — even if they’re the kind of extreme arthouse, independent, documentary, animated or genre films that they know have little to no chance of Academy recognition. Pond explains that the third and final step of the new tallying process entails redistributing the votes of those whose #1 choice received less than 1% of the collected #1 votes (still with me?) to the highest-ranking film on their ballot that is still in the running.
To reuse Pond’s critics’ list comparison, imagine (hard as it may be) that I am an Academy member, and my 2010 Top 10 list my Best Picture ballot. It’s safe to say that my #1 pick, Claire Denis’ “White Material,” would have fallen well short of the aforementioned 1%. So, presumably, would the next few arthouse titles on the list, meaning my ballot would eventually have landed on the pile of my #5 pick, “The Fighter” — which is how it probably would have played out under the old system too.
That’s all well and good — but what about the voters whose #1 choice (“The Town,” say, or “Another Year”) has more than 1% of the collected #1 votes, but still falls short of the 5% required for a Best Picture nomination? Seems the hard truth is that their ballots won’t be redistributed, meaning they have no input into the final nominee list at all.
If you think that seems a curiously random and undemocratic way of doing things, well, you’re reading my mind. The lesson to voters appears to be that if you want to make sure your vote counts, the film on top of your ballot should either be a frontrunner or a wild outsider — but nothing in between. Chances are the unused ballots wouldn’t dramatically alter the shape of the nominee list, but it still seems unfair to deny certain unsuspecting members a say.
Irrespective of the number of nominees in the category, the advantage of the admittedly flawed old system was not dissimilar to that of the oft-criticized preferential ballot used to determine the Best Picture winner: members were free to support their true favorite without fear of “wasting” their vote. Now, savvy Academy folk will be forced to consider the potential votes of others when casting their own, which isn’t really in the spirit of artistic competition. And if those voters decide to stay on the safe side, it’ll be the more left-field contenders that suffer.
46 responses so far
1 6-23-2011 at 7:29 am
Dean said...
Totally agree this is the major flaw. Most people and Academy members won’t understand it though so…
2 6-23-2011 at 7:30 am
Alex in Movieland said...
…and that’s why it was better with just 5.
3 6-23-2011 at 7:31 am
Alex in Movieland said...
@Dean,
I think it’s better they don’t understand it. We want the Academy members to be honest in their choices, not pick strategies. :)
4 6-23-2011 at 7:52 am
Dean said...
@Alex in Movieland
Not necessarily, I suspect members will feel pressured to only list a number 1 they perceive has a good shot.
On a different note, the article clarifies that a movie does NOT have to be listed as #1 on 5% of ballots. It just has to have 5% after the surplus redistribution and the under 1% redistribution. This is an important clarification that wasn’t suggested in the original announcement.
5 6-23-2011 at 8:06 am
Matthew Starr said...
I don’t think there is any possible scenario where films like The Illusionist or A Prophet would make it in as best picture.
By the time the voting process begins I would assume most Academy members know who the race is between. So even if their favorite film of 2010 was Blue Valentine, they should be smart enough to know they should vote for something like King’s Speech or Social Network #1.
Voting for Blue Valentine #1 is essentially the same as voting for a third party in the presidential race. Waste of a vote.
6 6-23-2011 at 8:29 am
Maxim said...
I’ve beeen saying this was a terrible change from the very beginning, for some of the very same reasons.
I do disagree, however, that this rule change would have “spared us a “The Blind Side” nomination”. You had people already voting it as their #1 pick, and I a lot of them did so, I suspect out of a sheer desire to see it being nominated. Not only is this likely to contiue happening but with a vey clear goal insight (5%) you are more likely to see grassroots efforts to cheat the system that’s already pretty messed up.
7 6-23-2011 at 8:30 am
Guy Lodge said...
Matthew: But do you think that should be the case? I admire members who vote for their favourites on principle, regardless of the films’ place in the race, and don’t think their ballots deserve to be invalidated for that.
It may be “smart” to vote for one of the small band of presumed frontrunners, but it also takes a lot of air out of the race if everyone does that — and makes the race even more campaign-led.
Under the old system, you could follow your heart and put “Blue Valentine” at #1 and , say, “The Social Network” further down the list and not worry about your vote being scrapped.
8 6-23-2011 at 8:32 am
Guy Lodge said...
Maxim: We’re saying the same thing about “The Blind Side.” I also think it would very likely have been nominated.
9 6-23-2011 at 8:49 am
Kaylie said...
Thanks for writing this, Guy. I had read about the “wasted” ballots on a couple other sites, but was having trouble wrapping my head around it. Your example contrasting your own ballot to someone who put The Town as their #1 finally did the trick for me. I had a “eureka!” moment. Thanks.
10 6-23-2011 at 9:08 am
Matthew Starr said...
No one here thinks a member’s vote should be invalidated for voting with their heart but that seems to be the way it is going to be. If my choice is between voting with my heart and having my vote mean absolutely nothing and voting strategically and improving the chances of say my 4th favorite film of the year to beat something like The King’s Speech then I am voting strategically.
We all know the air is already out of the race long before the Oscar telecast.
It seems like most Academy members only have five or so films that they love and want to vote for anyway. I read somewhere that a lot of them did not like Winter’s Bone and their difficulty finding a 9th and 10th movie led to this change.
That they had difficulty finding a top ten in a year where the aforementioned Blue Valentine was not even nominated for best picture really says all we need to know about AMPAS voters.
Here’s to hoping that Russell Brand and Beyonce will find time to watch Tree of Life, Win Win and Jane Eyre.
11 6-23-2011 at 9:43 am
Cinesnatch said...
“So even if their favorite film of 2010 was Blue Valentine, they should be smart enough to know they should vote for something like King’s Speech or Social Network #1.”
Wow. Really? I’d like to see Matthew apply that logic to the 2000 race.
12 6-23-2011 at 10:02 am
john said...
If there’s one saving grace it may be that Academy members probably don’t understand how the voting works.
The old system made strategic voting a non-issue since voters could vote for whatever they wanted. As their top choices got eliminated, their redistributed ballot could still help another contender. But did they ever understand this? I’m guessing many voted strategically anyway by voting only for contenders and not little films they knew were long shots (or no shots).
Now the system does reward strategic voting, but they’ve been doing that all along so oh well.
13 6-23-2011 at 10:04 am
red_wine said...
Lets say 5000 members voted. You would need a minimum of 250 No. 1 votes to get a nomination. 250 No.1 votes!!
In the earlier model you would think a minuscule movie like Winter’s Bone would progressively scrap through the rounds, amassing precious numbers each round until it finally went over and got nominated.
Now, it is impossible. Winter’s Bone getting 250 No. 1 votes is a pipe dream. and we are talking about the second most acclaimed English language film of the year (following Social Network). If the second most acclaimed English language film of the year does not have chance because it is small and depressing, imagine what chance does a foreign language art house film has.
Based on these rules, if am to hazard a guess, I’d say King’s Speech, Social Network, Fighter & True Grit would have made it in easily. Black Swan very likely. Inception and Toy Story 3 are dicey, remember we are talking 250 straight no.1 votes. With 127 Hours, Kids & Bone likely failing to get nominations. If these scenario panned out, 3 of the best nominees in Toy Story 3, Kids & Bones would have not been present.
14 6-23-2011 at 10:35 am
SJG said...
Can I just say that I find it tiresome to see all this handwringing over wasted ballots? Kris calls this “undemocratic”, but I don’t know how anyone can pretend that there’s anything “democratic” about the Academy anyway.
It’s an institution limited to invitees who are selected specifically because they represent the tastes and outlook of the institution. It’s an inherently “conservative” and “elitist” process of recognition for excellence in the film industry, and I don’t use either of those words in a pejorative sense, just in their descriptive senses.
I don’t really see the voting process as being about “giving a voice” to the voters. The nature of AMPAS is to build consensus around standards of excellence in the industry. It’s “conservative” in the sense that it’s designed to recognize productions that follow in continuity with what the film industry has done for decades (rather than recognizing major outliers and avant-garde work), and it’s “elitist” in the sense that the constitution of the Academy and the processes for nominating and awarding films is based on the idea that there are arbiters of taste, quality, and appeal who get to decide what is “best”.
We can rend our garments all we want at the thought that true gems of filmmaking may get lost in the shuffle, but I don’t really see that as being inconsistent with what the Academy does. There’s never going to be a way of perfectly recognizing “objective” goodness or perfectly aligning that recognition with movie-lovers’ tastes, so why all the fuss?
In the end, I think that the nature of the Oscars is to build consensus–to recognize films that are regarded as the highest quality by the widest range of voters (voters who themselves were invited to the Academy because of their contribution to the sort of films the Academy already prefers)–and this new process of Best Picture nomination will serve that purpose suitably.
If the occasional voter’s ballot gets tossed out in the mix, or if the savvy voter tries to vote tactically in order to maximize his or her vote’s weight, then that’s all still within the purview of what the Academy is trying to do, which is, I still maintain, to build consensus.
15 6-23-2011 at 10:38 am
SJG said...
Sorry, I said Kris called the process undemocratic, but Guy wrote the piece. Mea culpa.
16 6-23-2011 at 10:41 am
Matthew Starr said...
Cinesnatch – Obviously the voting strategy would change on a year to year basis but most Oscar races are between two films, and lately have just not been races at all (No Country, Slumdog, Hurt Locker).
By 2000 race I assume you mean the one between Gladiator and Traffic and not the year American Beauty won a one horse race? How is Gladiator vs Traffic any different than TKS v Social Network?
Really all this rule is going to do is bring the best picture nominees back down to five or six of which one or two will have any prayer of actually winning.
17 6-23-2011 at 10:56 am
Matthew Starr said...
“It’s an institution limited to invitees who are selected specifically because they represent the tastes and outlook of the institution.”
Have you seen some of their recent additions?
Other than that I agree a lot with what you said. I think the main problem is with the voting body. I don’t think the majority of members watch enough films.
18 6-23-2011 at 11:15 am
Kristopher Tapley said...
I have no shame in stating this all makes no sense to me and I’m officially done trying to figure it out. I’ll just accept that my Best Picture predictions will be wildly off, because I’ll be damned if I’m going down that rabbit hole in order to figure it out.
19 6-23-2011 at 11:38 am
Dean said...
It’s actually much simpler than the old system. It only has 1 round and 4ish steps.:
1.Ballots are put in piles of films by #1s
2.If any piles have more than 20% of all votes, they are redistributed with relative weight to next choice.
3. Films piles with less than 1% of total votes are redistributed by next choice until they get in a more than 1% pile.
4. Resulting final piles with more than 5% of all ballots get nominated.
20 6-23-2011 at 11:38 am
doctor said...
SO this is a bit unrelated, but I have been waiting for a piece about what Cars 2′s critical reception (currently 39% on RottenTomatoes) might mean for the upcoming Best Animated Feature race. I may be jumping the gun, but I think it’ll be quite interesting to see what happens now that Pixar doesn’t necessarily have a lock on the win.
Will it even be nominated? What animated films will be and who could win? Rango? Kung Fu Panda 2? Doesn’t seem like too strong of a field, especially compared to last year with Toy Stopry 3, How to Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist, Despicable Me, and Tangled (all great films, in my opinion)
21 6-23-2011 at 12:07 pm
pascal le duff said...
I have decided, in a fair combination of brain damage and bold choice, not to try and understand the Matrix of the Oscars this year and just wait to find out how many nominees there will be next year. If Twilight 4 is nominated, I may not be surprised.
22 6-23-2011 at 12:31 pm
THE Diego Ortiz said...
Can’t they have something like “Pick your Top-Ten” then only the movies that get mentioned in 51% of the ballots the nominated.
5-10 films still get nominated.
If less than 5 films crack 51%, then use remaining highest percentage films to fill the 5 minimum.
If more than 10 crack 51%, the ten highest movies get nominated.
23 6-23-2011 at 12:43 pm
/3rtfu11 said...
Guy are there any interesting rules to the voting process actors have for their categories?
24 6-23-2011 at 12:45 pm
JJ1 said...
Gotta ditto the peeps here who are throwing their hands up at the new ballot system.
It just comes across as convoluted to me (even if it isn’t – for those who get it).
I don’t mind the change itself, I just have no desire to buckle down and do the math.
I’m just gonna predict (in my own lists) 8 or 10 or so and however many movies make the actual cut … I’ll assume they were enough ahead of the rest.
25 6-23-2011 at 12:46 pm
THE Diego Ortiz said...
Oh, and no throwing away ballots once they reach 51%. If a movie got mentioned on all ballots, then good.
Count them all you lazy PriceWaterhouseCooper bums!
p.s. to the Academy, have a rule like after 5 or 10 years, the results of the voting are released, both nominations and final ballots. That way nerds like us can analyze them.
26 6-23-2011 at 1:03 pm
Kristopher Tapley said...
Dean: Confused. Still.
27 6-23-2011 at 1:20 pm
Dean said...
I realize it’s not the clearest process, but it is definitely easier than the ten wide system.
Which of those 4 steps confuses you (or do you understandably not care) ?
28 6-23-2011 at 1:37 pm
JJ1 said...
I smell a diagram coming …
no? :)
29 6-23-2011 at 2:17 pm
Cordy said...
Red_wine…actually this article confirms that a film does not NEED 250 #1 votes, just 250 votes after the <1% and the surplus films get their ballots resistributed
30 6-23-2011 at 2:40 pm
Guy Lodge said...
/3rtfu11: Not really. The acting categories still work according to the same system that the Best Picture category used to, only with five nominees.
The only difference comes with the rule that an actor can only be nominated once in a category, so if they’re effectively competing against themselves for a nomination (as was the case with Kate Winslet in the 2008 race), the first performance to reach the required number of votes during the tallying process is the one that gets nominated.
31 6-23-2011 at 2:40 pm
Andrej said...
Jesus Christ, they won’t vote for stuff like Enter the Void or The Tree of Life because they’re too weird and complicated to them, yet this voting system is a piece of arthouse cinema in itself. @_@
32 6-23-2011 at 4:01 pm
Fitz said...
So the placement of #2-#10 doesn’t matter anymore?
33 6-23-2011 at 4:37 pm
Guy Lodge said...
As I explain in the article, the placement of #2 – 10 does matter for voters whose #1 choice receives less than 1% of the total — their votes will be redistributed to one of their alternate choices.
But with most ballots, the #1 vote will be all that counts.
34 6-23-2011 at 5:36 pm
Fitz said...
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
35 6-23-2011 at 9:16 pm
Hans said...
So why don’t they just take the 1% to 5% ballots and redistribute those? Is it not that simple?
36 6-24-2011 at 8:08 am
Ben M. said...
I need to see this system in practice to fully judge it, but I didn’t like the change when I first heard about it and everything since only seems to strengthen my early opinion that it was a bad move.
I was perfectly fine with 10 nominees given the number of movies that come out every year means you can always find 10 deserving films if the academy chose well, sure there is a slightly increased chance you would get a weaker movie nominated but there were already some weaker films that got in during years of five.
37 6-24-2011 at 1:03 pm
john said...
Hans, if you redistributed the 1-5% ballots then all you’d be left with are those with 5+% to begin with.
38 6-24-2011 at 2:50 pm
JJ1 said...
When all is said and done, if there are, say, 7 noms … we’ll be able to figure out (probably) who the real 5 were, and who the 8th, 9th, 10th might have been.
PGA, DGA, SAG, WGA, ACE. They’ve proved to be good indicators in recent years.
i.e., 2009, the 5 were most likely THL, Avatar, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, & Up in the Air.
In 2010, the top 6 were clear. And The Town was most likely 11th, etc..
39 6-24-2011 at 3:32 pm
THE Diego Ortiz said...
I’m just waiting for the PGA to announce that they too will be going 5-10 pics.
40 6-25-2011 at 7:49 pm
Fernando said...
But this new rules, will it give a chance to “The dark knight rises” to be nominated. I know we haven’t even seen a frame just yet.
But c’mon, The dark knight was sublime, and just one year later we have 10 nominees and now this!
The academy has something against Nolan!
41 6-26-2011 at 1:56 am
Hans said...
john: but say there are 12 films that received 5%+ of #1 votes. Couldn’t the 13th/14th/15th place film ballots (in the 1-5% range) assist in narrowing the field to 10, possibly, say, bumping the 11th place contender into the nominee field?
I’m not going to lie, ten felt neat and tidy. Winter’s Bone and A Serious Man were the only two films I didn’t enjoy as much as others but I recognized their value.
42 6-26-2011 at 2:07 am
red_wine said...
Yes Fernando, I smell a conspiracy against Nolan within the Academy. They are doing their best to side-line him. First with The Dark Knight – they said a big Fuck Off by not nominating him. Then they knew the sequel was gonna come out in 2011. So just to goad him and increase his expectations they changed to 10 nominees only to change the rule again this year to again make it difficult for the sequel to get in. And last year for Inception, to throw salt into the wounds, they again bitch-slapped him by refusing to nominate him for direction.
I don’t know why they are so trying to break him down but Nolan won’t back down, he has the people’s support. He is the people’s director.
The Academy members better beef up their security if they plan to snub him again because this time its not gonna be just assassination attempts like the last 2 times but the real deal.
43 6-26-2011 at 8:27 am
m1 said...
Nolan does not make films which appeal to the Academy.
That is why his films often get snubbed in at least one major category.
People should be glad that Inception got whatever nominations it got because I would not have nominated it in the Best Picture category.
44 6-27-2011 at 3:26 pm
Fernando said...
I’m sorry, I just don’t see how Crash, or the blind side among other past winners/ nominees are better than Inception or whatever Nolan has done before.
Except of course Insomnia, but that is different since he was hired by the WB to do the american remake. not his own creation.
45 6-28-2011 at 8:00 am
Evan said...
I understand your criticism, but really- for people who really care about a film or the integrity of the claim that these are the “Best” pictures of the year, the goal should be to ensure that you’re voting for the film that you believe to be the top film of the year, not to ensure that your vote is counted.
If you really loved The Town, vote for it. If your vote ends up in the ‘discard’ pile because of it, at least you tried to get your favorite film in there. Is it really that satisfying to know you had a voice when, to ensure that voice, you had to support a film that you didn’t like as much and that was likely already in the BP lineup?
46 6-28-2011 at 8:02 am
Evan said...
^Just to add: your argument is kinda like saying that everyone who votes for the loser in an election had their vote discarded because they didn’t vote for the winner, and that therefore the election isn’t fair.