April Foolish Predictions #5: Visual Categories
Monday, April 8, 2019 at 3:10PM [drumroll] Our annual April Foolish Oscar Predictions continue
"Nomadland" was shot by the cinematographer of "The Rider"
We always mention at the start of all this that we call them April Foolish predictions because it's foolish to assume we know anything at all quite yet. Oscar buzz begins the day of announcement for projects with "pedigree" but the reality of the Oscar race is much more complex than that as the quality of films, size of campaigns, box office results, media pets, and public perception all end up weighing in later in the year. So consider these early bird predictions as "what ifs"... we do not pretend to have the year figured out just yet as we're going on hunches...
CINEMATOGRAPHY
I've predicted three Oscar favourites (Roger Deakins, Robert Richardson, and John Toll) and two fresh cinematic eyes: Joshua James Richards, who won much praise for shooting The Rider last year, on Nomadland and Yorick LeSaux who has been doing amazing work since I Am Love but has a much more mainstream gig now with Little Women.
The only Tarantino movies, the Academy has fully ignored were the "Reservoir Dogs", the "Kill Bill" movies and "Death Proof"
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Tough category to see this particular year because usually the showiest projects that scream "Most Likely to Be Nominated" go to Oscar regulars but that's not really the case this year. The Oscar regulars are on projects that feel very iffy so this category might be a 0/5 at the end of the year (in terms of early bird predictions) but it should be interesting to see it develop. A curious note here: one movie that looks like it will have ample room to wow in production design is Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (production designer Barbara Ling and Oscar-winner Nancy Haigh on set decoration) but did you know that NONE of Tarantino's movies have been nominated for Production Design? Weird right, given how memorable looking his films have been.
THE VISUAL CHARTS *new*
Production Design, Editing, Cinematography, Makeup, Visual Effects
Check out the charts and let us know what you think.
Reader Comments (7)
We're so gay when the actress categories are dead last because they're of upmost importance.
/3rtful -- i can't do it any other way.
Why is Thelma Schoonmaker so low?
Suzanne -- i just dont have positive hunches about Irishman, and she's not nominated every time. Even if the film is a Best Picture nominee (see Wolf of Wall St)
There's rumours '1917' is a one-shot movie a la Birdman. If true, this means Smith is less of a prospect in editing, but the film overall gets a boost in Cinematography and Director.
https://theplaylist.net/sam-mendes-1917-one-shot-20190405/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
I'd assume THE LION KING is *winning* Visual Effects, so should probably be in your top tier.
I think Disney PR will go into overdrive about how the film is not *really* animated with lots of behind-the-scenes featurettes of actors in mo-cap outfits playing animals, to try and convince us.
ALADDIN, on the other hand, will probably also make a ton of money but get critically slammed and I wouldn't expect to see it nominated for Visual Effects. It may well be in the running for Most Production Design however.
Thanks, Nat!