For better or worse, winning an Oscar is as good as it gets within the Film Industry. Haven’t we all imagined our thank you speech where we acknowledge our moms or give the metaphorical middle finger to our enemies? However, getting nominated for an Academy Award requires more than just making a good film -- and for a documentary, you have to start thinking about this early or risk disqualification, as filmmaker Hunter Weeks explains in the FilmCourage interview below.
Hunter Weeks, director of a feature documentary about the oldest people in the world, knew he wanted to try to qualify his doc Walter for an Oscar. But beware, the Academy doesn't believe in self-distribution or social media campaigns: the Academy wants films that have already been vetted by the Industry, and to them this means having a commercial run and reviews by the biggest critics, for starters. For a grassroots documentary, Weeks points out, you'll have to jump through some expensive hoops, but it CAN be done:
Weeks mentions that you can expect to spend at least $25,000 on your commercial theatrical run, from booking the space to hiring the publicist. That’s a lot of money to spend on one aspect of a low-budget documentary! But, as Weeks points out, at least you are getting yourself a commercial run and -- most likely -- a critical review (let’s hope it’s good):
These are minimum requirements -- You’ve got to be in the big city with all the other films that come out every week, and there’s about 20+ that come out each week. And you’ve got to have reviews in New York and on the West Coast in proper newpapers like The New York Times. Which becomes fairly easy to do if you have a commercial release in New York, because as of right now, it’s the New York Times policy to review films that play for over a week there.
Think you might want your film to go this route? Dive in to the Academy's Rule Eleven: Special Rules for the Documentary Awards, and take a gander at a few of the requirements you’ll have to complete:
- Your film must have a 7-day commercial run in BOTH Manhattan and Los Angeles County (where the film screens twice a day between noon and 10pm.)
- You need to advertize for the film in The New York Times, Time Out New York or The Village Voice AND Los Angeles Times or LA Weekly.
- The film must have a review in The New York Times and/or Los Angeles Times.
- Your film may not have had first public exhibition on TV, Cable, or the Internet.
- You need to send 250 DVDs to the Academy, with no art on them whatsoever.
And that's the short list! What do you think about the rules on qualifying for an Oscar? Should they make exceptions for independent films, or is this system the best way to ensure material of the highest caliber?
Links:
