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Answerman - Are Oscar Campaigns For Anime Worth It?


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#861208



Joined: 07 Oct 2016
Posts: 423
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 1:05 pm Reply with quote
I think that the trendy, attention-getting concept of "Huge hit all over Asia that you've never heard of! Gorgeous visuals! Music from a rock band you've never heard of! Be the first of your friends to see it!" will be enough to pique people's interest and their hipster side and make it a success outside of just anime fans in the US. "Snubbed by the Oscars" adds to that, I think.

I hope they play that angle with the marketing, when April comes.
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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 1:39 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
"Huge hit all over Asia that you've never heard of! Gorgeous visuals! Music from a rock band you've never heard of! Be the first of your friends to see it!"


Worked for The Mermaid...

"Big in Japan" has always been a backhanded compliment.
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Gemnist



Joined: 10 Feb 2016
Posts: 1754
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 1:56 pm Reply with quote
Funimation tried showing it to several LA critics for one week in December. They loved it, and gave Funimation the LAFCA Award for Best Animated Film, as well as two pending Annie nominations. Unfortunately, without a wide release the film became obscure to the actual voters; it really should've had a wide release earlier, or gone for next year's awards...

On that note, when else has Funimation gone for an Oscar? Their film division was only created in 2014, and before this they mostly did non-Oscar movies like Battle of Gods, so I don't think they've gone for an Oscar before.
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Brutannica



Joined: 18 Mar 2007
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:05 pm Reply with quote
But let's be honest with ourselves here -- how many of us watch all the animated film nominations each year? Especially the obscure, usually European movies that usually get nominated at least once each time?
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Moroboshi-san



Joined: 06 Apr 2015
Posts: 174
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:11 pm Reply with quote
Gemnist wrote:
On that note, when else has Funimation gone for an Oscar?

I think Bakemono no Ko last year was their first shot at Oscars. It didn't make the first cut either obviously.
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Pokenatic



Joined: 24 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:19 pm Reply with quote
Gemnist wrote:
On that note, when else has Funimation gone for an Oscar?

I think they also tried with Summer Wars and The Boy and His Beast. I recall they really botched it up for Wolf Children though.
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Posts Sometimes



Joined: 27 Jul 2014
Posts: 38
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:22 pm Reply with quote
Moroboshi-san wrote:
Gemnist wrote:
On that note, when else has Funimation gone for an Oscar?

I think Bakemono no Ko last year was their first shot at Oscars. It didn't make the first cut either obviously.

They submitted Summer Wars before that, but I think that's it for them. (And no, Wolf Children wasn't submitted for the Oscars. I assume they saw no point in campaigning the same year a Miyazaki film came out.)
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slau783



Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 40
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:34 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
As anime fans and professionals, we should probably stop looking to the Oscars for affirmation.


This is exactly how I feel. I have read those "Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot" reports and they are just horrible. The Academy Awards as a whole is pretty bad these days and I stopped paying attention to them years ago except to see who was nominated and won Best Animated Film. The nominee list is still useful for pointing out good foreign animation.

Brutannica wrote:
But let's be honest with ourselves here -- how many of us watch all the animated film nominations each year? Especially the obscure, usually European movies that usually get nominated at least once each time?


It's incredibly hard to do legally before the awards but I do watch try to watch all of them once they hit Amazon, Netflix, etc. Unfortunately not all of them do. The closest theater to me with The Red Turtle right now is a 4 hour round trip if I wanted to go. I will probably make the trip to see Your Name when it comes out.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:37 pm Reply with quote
Let's just say, from personal experience, that it's not worth it, if you expect the voters not to be racist, elitist snobs, when it comes to picking these things.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:43 pm Reply with quote
Justin wrote:
As anime fans and professionals, we should probably stop looking to the Oscars for affirmation.

In fairness, we should strive to adopt an attitude like this. That is not to say it isn't difficult though!
Given that the charade is so respected by the public as the primary indication of which films are the most aesthetically significant, one cannot help but see the omission of highly worthy titles as somewhat of an injustice. Not an especially large one given the world's political woes, but still significant enough for a pang to register.

Certainly, I can admit to being somewhat sullen after I saw the nomination list. It was to suggest that this juggernaut of an award ceremony, which for all its organisational flaws still ensnares the media and thereby the general viewer, is highly unlikely to acknowledge even the most exceptional anime for the foreseeable future.
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Snakebit1995



Joined: 25 Apr 2015
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:51 pm Reply with quote
As many Film buffs will tell you the Oscars are an antiquated, overated system for most of the Film Industry to stoke it's own ego. Most will agree not getting nominated doesn't mean your film is bad and winning an Oscar doesn't even mean your film is good. Some Directors and Actors get nominated every year for just being who they are and not for the film the made. For years people would say Miyazaki got nominated for being Miyazaki, not for making great films (Not that his films were awful or anything but not always as good as some that were snubbed for his to get in.).

Fortunately the culture has started to shift and most people have stopped putting as much stock in the Oscars as they used too. I would still encourage people to check out the nomination list, sometimes you can find interesting films you may have missed.

What it really boils down to is that you should see what you want as a moviegoer. The production companies care a lot more about profits from theaters than they do how many Oscars they win.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:54 pm Reply with quote
Lemonchest wrote:
Quote:
"Huge hit all over Asia that you've never heard of! Gorgeous visuals! Music from a rock band you've never heard of! Be the first of your friends to see it!"


Worked for The Mermaid...

"Big in Japan" has always been a backhanded compliment.
Haven't those big in Japan titles nearly always become big in the west later on. I'm sure Queen and Def Leopard were both Big in Japan early in their careers.
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residentgrigo



Joined: 23 Dec 2007
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Location: Germany
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 3:05 pm Reply with quote
Kimi no Na wa. didn´t get "snubbed", it´s the Titanic equivalent of the anime scene. It sure looks nice but boy oh boy is it a formula driven slog. And now hype driven on top. It will get a reassessment in a decade, mark my words. Back on topic:
An overlooked factor by Justin is Hayao Miyazaki´s utter lack of respect for the academy. He is Mr. Anime to them and he kind positioned the well with his behavior. The Oscar race is a "political" game after all!

The nominations this year are fairly good, so the reforms of the deserved backslash last year bore fruit. The Oscar Bait season was pretty good too. Hacksaw Ridge gets my Best Picture vote from the ones selected and Zootopia should win the animated category.

PS: La La Land is ok, but it is THE textbook definition of Oscar Bait. Especially the throw it all away to become an actor ending. The crazy amount of nominations are as preposterous as they are predictable.
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0nsen



Joined: 01 Nov 2014
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 4:16 pm Reply with quote
Haven't the Oscars stopped being relevant, like, 20 years ago? Are they still doing their shenanigans? Geez.

By ze way, does the anime industry have something comparable? I mean a huge advertising campaign centered around giving awards to yourself for publicity?
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 4:45 pm Reply with quote
Back before Spirited Away, we had an Oscar campaign. Two of them, in fact, both for Ghibli.

Anime fans were pleased to see that 1994's "Pon Poko" was Japan's entry for Best Foreign Film, they wanted to make sure the Foreign Film committee (which is separate from the main awards, and screens films privately) knew it.
In '99, though, the stakes were higher: Disney was still in its "No more Ghibli!" mode after Princess Mononoke's theatrical misfire, but when it became Japan's entry for BFF, fans turned warrior. It may have been only the days of PetitionOnline and not Change-dot-Org, but we wanted to make sure that if Disney wanted Oscars that badly, a statue for Mononoke would shove their bad decision back down their throat with once-and-for-all irony and make them reconsider it.

According to one insider on our movie Usenet board, committee members hated it. They'd not only been through the Pon Poko campaign, they'd also been through 90's Disney acting like an attention-struck pig about their one Best Picture nom for Beauty & the Beast, and if they never, ever heard about another animated movie nominated for Oscars again, it would be a million years too soon.
(The Best Animated category wasn't created until '01, partly as a result of Mononoke, but more because of B&B fans who wanted to see Picture-nom lightning strike twice with Aladdin or Lion King, and even more fans who demanded that 00's Toy Story 2 not be forgotten.)
Even worse, they didn't find it very good: From reports, the committee found it "too melodramatic" with "thin characterization", and too didactically preachy compared to Pedro Almodovar's that year, and some of the bolder films from Sweden and Nepal.

Basically, play by the rules: If an Anime plays NY/LA theaters, it'll qualify for an Animated nom, just like Wind Rises and Princess Kaguya did. Your Name didn't play NYC, so there ya go.
If it did, but it's not GOOD or universal enough to court more winners than Zootopia or Inside Out did (and why Inside Out didn't get the Best Picture push behind it is another story), that's your misfortune, ain't none of my own.

residentgrigo wrote:
PS: La La Land is ok, but it is THE textbook definition of Oscar Bait. Especially the throw it all away to become an actor ending. The crazy amount of nominations are as preposterous as they are predictable.


Technically "Birth of a Nation" and "Silence" are the definition of Oscar bait, and the committee didn't bite.
L3 is THE textbook definition of "Sundance independent movie with millennial commercial-breakout success", and that's the only stupid thing we've been getting since they changed the Oscar rules thirteen years ago.

Snakebit1995 wrote:
As many Film buffs will tell you the Oscars are an antiquated, overated system for most of the Film Industry to stoke it's own ego. Most will agree not getting nominated doesn't mean your film is bad and winning an Oscar doesn't even mean your film is good. Some Directors and Actors get nominated every year for just being who they are and not for the film the made. For years people would say Miyazaki got nominated for being Miyazaki, not for making great films (Not that his films were awful or anything but not always as good as some that were snubbed for his to get in.).


"Many film buffs" can recite fifty years of winners from memory, even the ones you haven't seen--since they own a percentage of them on Blu-ray--AND explain why Hurt Locker and Chicago won, even when millennials still puzzle their poor heads about why they did.
It's only disgruntled teens who tend to talk about "Eh, they're just old guys who don't like real films like The Dark Knight and The Lego Movie!"

When Johnny Carson said "Tomorrow morning, you will be Trivial Pursuit answers", he didn't necessarily mean they'd be "forgotten". That's why Many Film Buffs watch.
(And why we complain about how the eight-nomination Picture system destroyed the awards.)
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