Awards season is upon us, which means glitz, glamour, and most importantly: a lot going on behind the scenes. While people focus on the winners and losers, the real win is all the free, detailed material you can use to learn about all these incredible films.
Each distributor from Disney to Netflix to Neon, have their own “For Your Consideration” websites that inform voters on what categories each film is running in, when screenings are, and what I’m interested in: extras. Under this tab are copious amounts of recorded post-screening question and answer sessions with directors and actors, and chats with the department heads. I love to hear from the production and costume designers as well as the set decorators and cinematographers, who get into the nitty gritty of their jobs.
This kind of material reveals the true collaboration on these films as well as highlighting the under appreciated elements. Hearing “Avatar: Fire and Ash’s” Vanessa Cole, Dylan Cole, and Ben Procter break down the specifics of how the Na’vi wind traders and RDA’s sec-ops work is much more enlightening than hearing the actors repeat the soundbites that they have in countless press interviews.
My favorite behind the scenes material is the scripts, which you can read online through Deadline’s “read the screenplay” article series. While some of these documents are cleaned up for awards readers, most of them are the shooting drafts so that you can see what shifted during the production and post-production cycles. For example, you can see how the structure of “Sinners” shifted. Instead of Jack O’Connell’s dastardly vampire first appearing at the midpoint like he does in the final film, he’s in the opening scene of the script. For “Wake Up Dead Man”, the first change comes from the title page. What Rian Johnson subtitled “A Benoit Blanc mystery”, Netflix made “A Knives Out Mystery.”
For film geeks, this stuff is fascinating!
Who wins and loses these awards definitely has an impact, but the real impact is how these behind the scenes material can inspire our next generation of Oscar winners.
