Chapter 445: Process

Chapter 445: Chapter 445: Process

Everyone knew that the most tedious and patience-testing segments of the Oscar ceremony were the opening shorts, documentaries, and technical awards presentations.

With long durations, trivial categories, low attention, and poor public awareness, the procedures were nevertheless rigorous and indispensable.

Especially for Irene, who was in the front row, she was constantly within the primary coverage of the cameras. The live broadcast cameras would sweep across the core creative seats in the front row from time to time, capturing the micro-expressions and states of every popular candidate.

She could not bow her head to play with her phone, whisper to others, or let her mind wander and slack off. She could only maintain an upright posture, a calm expression, stare blankly with open eyes, and patiently cooperate with the entire process.

The three short film categories nominated this year—Best Animated Short Film, Best Live Action Short Film, and Best Documentary Short Film—were of mediocre overall quality, with no works that stunned the audience or exploded in popularity, making the competitive landscape relatively bland.

As one of the Academy judges with voting rights, Irene had previously reviewed the finished films of all nominated short films in full according to the requirements. However, this type of niche short film had unorthodox themes, niche styles, and obscure narratives, leaving her with a vague impression after watching them, unable to remember the specific details and the gap between their strengths and weaknesses.

Her voting followed her heart the whole way and relied solely on personal intuitive preferences, without deliberately delving into the pros and cons from a professional dimension.

When the final results came out, her three ballots only hit the Best Animated Short Film category.

Compared to the obscure, hard-to-understand, and profoundly themed live action short films and documentary short films, the visual texture, camera language, and artistic expression of animated short films were more intuitive. She could still rely on her aesthetics and visual beauty to distinguish the good from the bad and make judgments.

As for the remaining two types of short films, with scattered plots, obscure themes, and restrained and introverted documentary styles, she was left completely confused and unable to tell which was better. Her voting relied entirely on intuition, and their eventual failure to win was well within her expectations.

After the short film awards were settled, the process quickly advanced to the batch of technical awards, which was also the core battlefield for the head-on clash between The Aviator and Brokeback Mountain this year.

Best Makeup, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing—the eight major technical awards were presented sequentially, covering the full-dimensional details of the film’s industrial production.

With the absolute advantage of eleven nominations, The Aviator was a crushing presence in the technical track, monopolising the nomination slots for the vast majority of technical awards. Focusing on the retro aesthetics of Hollywood’s The Best Years of Our Lives, exquisite costumes and make-up, retro set design, and delicate editing, it perfectly matched the academic faction’s aesthetic preferences for industrial aesthetics and retro texture.

Meanwhile, Brokeback Mountain, featuring minimalist narrative, natural cinematography, and restrained texture, was only nominated for two major technical awards: Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.

The final results were unsurprising, presenting a distinct polarisation.

Brokeback Mountain steadily won the grand prize for Best Cinematography. The ultimate cinematic aesthetics of distant wilderness mountains, dawn and dusk, and vast plains were unanimously recognised by the Academy judges, fully deserved.

And The Aviator strongly harvested three heavyweight technical awards: Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design, leading the field.

On stage, the creators and behind-the-scenes staff of The Aviator crew successively stood up, took the stage, and accepted their awards, repeating similar acceptance speeches over and over again.

Uniform thank-you scripts, uniform gratitude logic, and uniform humble attitudes. The acceptance speech process basically focused on thanking Warner Bros. and Miramax Films for their production support, thanking director Martin Scorsese for his precise guidance and meticulous polishing, and thanking the Academy judges for their recognition and favour. The script templates highly overlapped, being nearly copy-pasted.

Irene quietly watched the repeatedly repeating speech process, unable to help secretly laughing in her heart.

She guessed that the acceptance speeches of the entire crew of The Aviator were most likely uniformly written, batch-modified, and template-produced by the same public relations team. In order to adapt to different awards and winners in different positions, only minor adjustments were made, and the rest was basically direct copy-pasting. Doing this indeed perfectly adapted to the official scene requirements of the Oscar, but it lacked any originality, making listeners want to sleep.

After a round of technical awards was presented, the venue briefly entered an intermission rest stage, which also meant that the heavyweight script and music awards were about to debut, and the atmosphere of the entire venue instantly tightened.

The crew staff, make-up artist, and assistants around Irene were all full of confidence in her, with anticipation shining in their eyes.

Nearly everyone up and down the team unanimously agreed that this Best Adapted Screenplay trophy was already in her bag, just waiting for the official process to be announced and to take the stage to accept the award.

During the intermission break, the make-up artist deliberately walked quickly to Irene’s side, softly reminding her to go to the backstage restroom to touch up her make-up and tidy up her styling.

The live broadcast cameras constantly spotlighted the front row. The closer it got to the heavyweight award segments, the denser the camera capture became, leaving no room for the slightest lapse in state.

Irene cooperated by standing up and walked slowly toward the backstage make-up area.

After simply touching up her base make-up, tidying her hairstyle and gown, and adjusting her overall state, Irene walked out of the make-up room and happened to encounter Meryl Streep walking towards her.

Meryl wore an off-white elegant formal suit, steady and gentle, with a calm aura. The foundation of a veteran best actress was natural, carrying the warmth and strength precipitated by time.

Seeing Irene, gentle smiles immediately rippled in her eyes. She took the initiative to stop and greet her, with a cordial and amiable tone: "The state tonight is great, and the script of the entire Brokeback Mountain is polished delicately and movingly, restrained yet powerful. I like it very much."

Irene politely nodded and smiled back: "Thank you for your recognition, Meryl. I hope we can have the opportunity to collaborate once."

Then Meryl smiled and told a news that made Irene feel quite coincidental: "Tonight I happen to be responsible for presenting the Best Adapted Screenplay award, and I am very looking forward to the final result."

Hearing this, Irene was slightly stunned, and then the smile at the corners of her lips deepened.

It had to be said that the fate in this world was often wondrous beyond words.

The two bid a brief farewell, and under the soft urging of her assistant, Irene quickly returned to her front-row seat and sat down.

Almost the moment she sat down, the stage lights lit up again, and the host stepped onto the stage, loudly inviting the presenters for the Best Original Screenplay to take the stage. The rhythm was compact and the transition smooth, without the slightest procrastination.

Soon, the Best Original Screenplay award was announced, and the screenwriting team of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind successfully won the crown. A group of screenwriters took the stage to express gratitude and share their creative journeys, with bursts of applause and a warm atmosphere at the scene.

Ang Lee beside her became increasingly nervous and restrained, his body leaning forward slightly, his gaze frequently turning to look at Irene, hiding obvious anticipation and apprehension in his eyes.

As a co-creator of the film, he knew the difficulty of polishing this script better than anyone else, and he extremely anticipated that this achievement could be officially recognised.

Irene keenly captured his tension, turned her head slightly to gently raise her hand, gently patted Ang Lee’s back of the hand, raised a calm and steady smile at the corners of her lips, and silently pacified his emotions.