Want to be confused? Here's the lowdown on Oscar's voting system
The New Oscar Voting System: How Avatar lost PGA?
So it seems most Oscar pundits were absolutely knocked over in shock when The Hurt Locker managed to upset heavy favorite Avatar at PGA. If there was one award this season that Avatar was supposed to win by a mile, it was the Producer's Guild. Many predictors were calling Avatar's win a month ago and it only seemed more inevitable when it took home the Golden Globe last weekend.
So imagine everybody's surprise when the Producer's Guild went with the movie that made $12 million at the box office over the movie that's closing in on $2 billion. Apparently, what many people failed to notice or report beforehand is that PGA also adopted Oscar's new preferential voting system this year. They mimicked the Academy's change to 10 nominees and in turn, also changed their ballot system.
++ Now preferential voting is not exactly a new thing altogether. The Oscar nominations process has always been preferential in that, you MUST get #1 votes to be nominated. If every single member of the Academy places you at #2, you still will NOT get a nomination. What this essentially means is that there must be at least some passion behind a movie for it to be nominated, which is why you often see one or two out-of-nowhere nominations on Oscar morning that got few precursors.
++ What's changed this year, is that the preferential system is now being used to vote for the Best Picture winner. All the other categories like Best Actress and Best Director will remain the regular straight-up one ballot/one vote per category. Why did they change? Well, because they changed back to 10 Best Picture nominees so they're also going back to preferential voting since they don't really want a movie to win with just 11% of the vote. Also with a large number of nominees, vote splitting and other issues can create random problems. This way, it becomes more about consensus.
++ Here's how it works: After the first round of counting, the nominee with the lowest number of #1 votes gets eliminated. Then they move on to the #2 votes the ballots in that pile and they get redistributed to the remaining nominees. End of round 1. Now they take the new lowest nominee and do the same with their ballots. They continue this until there are only 2 movies left, and the one that gets 50% + 1 wins.
++ Steve Pond at The Wrap had this very interesting article explaining how this system might potentially screw over a film like Avatar, that might have good support among a segment of the voting body but not enough overall. Especially with actors' branch-- we all know they probably won't be throwing their support to Avatar but they could potentially rank it low enough to really mess up its chances.
++ Most people didn't even know this until yesterday's shocker, but the PGA also adopted this voting system. Which, may or may not explain how The Hurt Locker managed to pull off a miraculous upset.
A Potentially Useful Analogy (or another way to confuse you):
++ For those of you who are familiar with Presidential primaries-- this may be a useful analogy. Think of the regular voting system as like the New Hampshire primary; this is also how the General Election works. One person gets one ballot and they put a check mark next to one name. That name is the only one who will get a tally from your ballot. You get one choice, no runner-ups. The end.
++ The new preferential system is like the Democratic Iowa Caucus. If anyone has ever been to a caucus (I haven't since I don't live in a caucus state but I followed the 2008 Democratic primaries religiously), what happens there is pretty much like this Oscar voting system. You choose the candidate you want to vote for and you stand in their corner of the room. If your first choice candidate has viable support and passes a certain percentage threshold (for example, Obama or Hillary), then your job is done and your vote counted. End of story. However, if your first choice candidate doesn't have sufficient support (for example, Dennis Kucinich), that candidate gets eliminated and then you get to throw your support behind one of the candidates who made it past the threshold. So in essence, the winner in a caucus is often decided by second-choice voters.
++ As you probably noticed from how the 2008 Democratic Primaries turned out, Caucus' heavily favored Obama and were a pain in the ass for Hillary Clinton. Why you might ask? Because Hillary Clinton is the more polarizing candidate. People who loved her had her as their #1, but people who had someone less viable/eliminated as their #1 were more likely to throw their second choice vote to Obama because he was more of a consensus candidate.
++ As you might've guessed, it seems Avatar is probably the Hillary Clinton of the Oscar race. The more important question is-- who is Obama? I would guess The Hurt Locker but really, you can't be sure. It could be Inglourious Basterds or Up in the Air.
++ This is basically what the new Best Picture system does, only they continue redistributing and eliminating until only 2 films remain (and if your 2nd choice also isn't viable, then they move on to your 3rd choice and so on). After that, whichever movie has 50% + 1 wins. You could potentially win the whole deal without even having the most #1 votes if you get a lot of #2 or #3 votes and your main competitor is too polarizing.
Sample Ballots:
Let's use a hypothetical set of nominees:
Avatar
An Education
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
Here's an example of a very very easy ballot to count. Say my favorite movie of the year is The Hurt Locker. My extremely generic ballot looks like this
1. The Hurt Locker
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. Up in the Air
4. Avatar
5. Precious
6. An Education
7. Up
8. District 9
9. A Serious Man
10. Invictus
++ The Hurt Locker will most likely get enough #1 votes to pass the threshold. In fact, it will almost certainly end up being one of the two films standing at the end. The End. My vote was counted, it went to The Hurt Locker.
Here's one that gets very tricky:
1. District 9
2. A Serious Man
3. Up in the Air
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. The Hurt Locker
6. Precious
7. An Education
8. Up
9. Avatar
10. Invictus
++ My #1 choice, District 9, is not a viable contender. It gets eliminated in an early round. The ballot counter moves on to my #2 choice, A Serious Man. Whoops, that's been eliminated as well. #3 choice-- Up in the Air. Let's say that one is still in the running, but after another round, that also gets eliminated. #4 choice-- Inglourious Basterds gets my vote for now, but gets eliminated and let's say the final two movies left are The Hurt Locker and Avatar. That's where my #5 choice comes in-- my vote would go to The Hurt Locker. Something as far down as my #5 spot could very well end up deciding the winner.
The "Just Happy to be Nominated" Films Play an Important Role:
++ What becomes extremely important now to look at when the nominees come out next Tuesday is this-- who are the obviously non-viable contenders going to be? The top 5 are already decided it seems (Avatar, The Hurt Locker, IB, Up in the Air, Precious) but what could be more interesting for the race is who the lower 5 are. Because those non-viable films are still going to have quite a bit of support and many people will place them in their #1 spots. Which means, when these films get eliminated early on, what could tip the race will be those people's #2 and #3 spots.
++ Let's look at A Serious Man, probably the classic non-viable nominee. It'll be lucky to get a nomination and will have almost no chance of winning, but it will still get some #1 votes. If I'm someone who LOVES A Serious Man and have it as my #1, what other films on that list would I most likely also like? To quote George in Up in the Air: Let's stereotype cause it's faster. The Coen Brothers' big strength is in their writing, so let's say I'm a previously nominated screenwriter and someone who really loves great dialogue. Therefore I give my #2 and #3 spots to Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air, both of which also feature sharp writing. Whichever one of those ends up being more viable will get my vote now. But as a lover of great film writing, what movie would be least likely to get any love from me? Probably Avatar, so I'd have that very low on my list. Based on this stereotypical simulation, A Serious Man's presence in the nominees list would benefit Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air, and would be detrimental to Avatar.
++ Next one: An Education. Let's say, I'm one of the many many British people in the Academy with a lot of country pride and my #1 choice is An Education. Okay, but that gets eliminated in an early round. So what other movies on that list have some British presence? Inglourious Basterds featured Winston Churchill in a scene! That's my #2 vote. There we go, IB gets my vote. But let's say just for kicks, IB gets eliminated in a subsequent round. What's another Britishy movie on the list? The Hurt Locker had a cameo from Ralph Fiennes! There you go. The Hurt Locker ends up getting my vote.
++ Let's try Invictus. I know, who on earth would possibly put Invictus at #1? Well, let's say I'm one of the geriatric members of the Academy. I love the old-fashioned and Clint Eastwood. What's most likely going to be my #2 vote? I'm really old, so maybe I identified with the main character from Up and gave that my #2. That's not a viable contender either, so what's next? Wow, this list not very friendly to the elderly. OK, I guess Up in the Air gets my #3 just cause it makes me nostalgic for how movies used to be made. But what movie would least benefit from this kind of voter? Probably the sci-fi movies. Inglourious Basterds could go either way. It may be too violent for me or maybe I like the whole World War II fantasy cause that was my era.
++ So this all looks very bad for Avatar so far but what if the Academy somehow nominates the sci-fi trifecta (Avatar, District 9 and Star Trek)? Well, that could actually end up being helpful if you assume people who like one sci-fi movie are more likely to like another. On the other hand, the reasons why a potential voter loves District 9 (the screenplay and acting) are probably not going to be much help to Avatar. Star Trek, however, could play into Avatar's hand since neither are exactly Coen Brothers' level writing though Star Trek's dialogue is much sharper and less of a drag and the cast is more engaging.
++ I will say this-- even though this system requires more brain cells to figure out than the straight-up ballot, I think it is a good idea when there are this many nominees. Also, consider this: If a preferential system had been used for our Presidential Elections, then George W. Bush would never have become President. The number of people who voted for Ralph Nader in Florida was far greater than the vote difference between Bush and Gore. Who would Nader voters have placed at #2? Al Gore, obviously. Therefore, Nader would've been eliminated ASAP and all those votes would've gone to Gore, thus giving him the Presidency. Though come to think of, if this system had been in place in 1992, Bill Clinton probably would've lost... Oh well, it's a mixed bag!
So if you managed to get through of all that, congratulations! You now have a semi-decent grasp of how the Best Picture winner will be determined.
