THE SPEECHES
“A concise speech is always a good
idea. You could give the winners
forever, and they still wouldn’t have
enough time to thank their grandmother and their piano teacher,”
Showbiz411 writer Roger Friedman
assured The Huffington Post. “Tell
them to be concise,” Friedman suggested, when we asked him how to
achieve the desired end. But ... the
thank-you cam! Bill Mechanic’s
instructions! If it were as simple as
telling the nominees why and how
to cut things short, why haven’t
past tactics worked?
Because everyone wants their
gratitude to be heard, and will
sneak the lines in no matter how
many times they’ve been asked not
to, said Boxer, of Vimeo. He proposed a way to build a winners’
thank-you list into the architecture
of the show instead.
Scenario: Catherine, an actress
wearing heels and a big dress,
wins. “It’s going to take her 45 seconds to get to the podium,” Boxer
said. “That time could be used by
the announcer saying, ‘Catherine
FILM ALL [THE PRESENTERS]
IN ADVANCE, OFF-LOCATION.
HUGH JACKMAN AND
HALLE BERRY PRESENT
BEST SOUND, RINGSIDE
FROM A BOXING MATCH …
JOSH BROLIN AND KATE
HUDSON PRESENT BEST
SPECIAL EFFECTS FROM
CHER’S PERSONAL DAY SPA.
‘‘
genre once and for all). But reducing the host’s screen time won’t
necessarily save our night, unless
something can be done about that
most hated thing.
‘‘
wanted to thank her manager and
this person and that person.’ By the
time she comes to the stage, it’s no
longer a fight against the music.”
Also, no repeating your speech
from the Golden Globes, or even
the Screen Actors Guild Awards,
once you’re up there, Catherine!
Channel the “wacky and emotionally pure” spirit of Jodie Foster at
the 2013 Golden Globes instead,
and go off-script, advised MovieLine’s DiGiacomo. “These actors
are so relentlessly on-message, it
takes away the thrill of the Oscars.”
Or there’s the “scorecard” idea,
emailed to HuffPost by humorist
Henry Alford. This system works
beautifully both as a way to enliven
bad speeches and to illustrate how
inbred the Hollywood thank-you
lists are: “Run tiny icons of Harvey Weinstein, Sam Mendes, all
the dialects coaches, etc. on a ban-