LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Oscar ceremony next week will have the look and feel of a film, giving winners more time for speeches, while coronavirus masks will play a key role, the program’s producers said on Saturday.
The coronavirus pandemic and a trio of new producers led to the rediscovery of the traditional show where the world’s highest honors are handed out in front of a theater audience of more than 4,000 A-list stars and industry executives.
A large portion of the April 25 ceremony will be held at Art Deco Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, where a stage is being built and where presenters will do more than open an envelope with the winner’s name .
“It will not be like anything done before,” director Steven Soderbergh, who co-produced the show with Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, told a news conference.
Soderbergh, who directed the film “Contagion” in 2011, said the pandemic “provided an opportunity to try something that has not yet been tried.”
“We want the program to have a voice,” he added.
Soderbergh said the ceremony would be filmed like a movie, with presenters like Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Halle Berry playing themselves, or at least a version of themselves.
Speeches from Oscar winners were previously limited to about 45 seconds. This year, Soderbergh said: ‘We give them space. We encouraged them to tell a story and say something personal. ‘
The producers said strict testing and COVID protocols would be put in place, and many of them are up to standards developed last year to get film and TV production back on track.
They also consulted extensively with epidemiologists working ten years ago on ‘Contagion’, which predicted the devastating effects of a virus on the world and which had a huge increase in rents and flows last year.
Asked about masks during the ceremony, Soderbergh, who he calls, gave a deliberate cryptic answer.
“Masks are going to play a very important role in the story,” he said. “The subject is very central in the narrative.”
Nominees who will not be able to travel to Los Angeles for the ceremony will be able to participate via satellite connections from locations around the world, but there will be no Zoom performances.
The ceremony is preceded by a 90-minute pre-show that will include performances from the five original song candidates pre-recorded on the roof of the new Academy Museum in Los Angeles and in Iceland.
Reporting by Jill Serjeant