At what point is the orchestra told who the Academy Award winner will be?

At what point is the orchestra told who the Academy Award winner will be? - Businesspeople Posing with a Recognition Award

During the Oscars, the presenter says who wins a particular award and then the orchestra immediately begins playing part of the score from the associated movie.

In years where there is a live orchestra, I can't imagine that there is enough time for the orchestra to hear the presenter and then in the span of a second or two figure out which instruments should be playing, what tune it should be, and at what tempo. So surely they must be informed ahead of time of who the winner would be so that they know which song to play.

So at what point is the orchestra told who the Academy Award winner will be?



Best Answer

When everyone else does - when the winners are announced.

I can't find an answer originating directly from the Academy on this, but Time covers the 2014 Oscars and had an article which stated:

• A small team of people (about six people, not including Rosas and Cullinan) split up the ballots so that nobody is counting an entire category, which means nobody knows how the different entries stack up. Those subtotals are added up by Rosas and Cullinan [two accountants]. By Friday evening, the two accountants will know all the winners.

• Though they won’t disclose how many vote are received, there are about 6,000 voting members of the Academy. All of the counting is done by hand. “It’s old-school,” says Cullinan. “It’s as boring as it sounds. You have lots and lots of stacks of little pieces of paper.”

• All of the categories are counted several times, and extra if there’s a tie (which has happened). There has never been a post-awards recount required.

• The Academy provides triplicates of cards listing each movie in every category. Rosas and Cullinan put the winning cards in the envelopes; the losing cards and extras are destroyed.

• Two identical and complete sets of cards are put in two identical briefcases. This year, PwC has introduced a new style of briefcase — seen above — which is the first one to bear the Academy’s logo as well as the accounting firm’s.

• Having rehearsed their blocking on Saturday, Rosas and Cullinan will travel to the show separately, in cars with security details. They carry the briefcases down the red carpet, pausing for interviews, and each take their places on opposite sides of the stage. As presenters come on from either side, they’ll be handed the right cards.

This process is backed up in several other places, including the Journal of Accountancy:

Secrecy is paramount. Team members from PwC meet at an undisclosed location, and each accountant tabulates only a portion of the votes so he or she won’t know the final results. Only Ruiz and Cullinan put everything together in the end to determine who the Oscar winners are, and they commit those results to memory. The winners’ names are not typed into a computer or written down, to avoid potential lost slips of paper or breaches of security.

In the final hours before the Oscars ceremony, Ruiz and Cullinan will quiz each other to make sure they have accurately memorized the winners in each category. They then will look through the preprinted cards for all of the nominees, select those that list each of the victors, and stuff the envelopes. Both will head to the ceremony on Sunday carrying the correct set of envelopes. If one gets hung up in L.A. traffic, the other will also have the results in his or her briefcase. Once at the event, both will be backstage to hand the appropriate envelopes to the celebrity presenters during the live event.

So inferring from what both of these articles say, the orchestra find out when most of the world finds out - when the winner is announced. This means they will likely have rehearsed multiple pieces of music for each winner. As @sanpaco says in his comment above, this is certainly not uncommon for a highly professional musical outfit.




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How are Academy Award winners selected?

Each person belongs to one of 17 branches. Each branch nominates for its own category \u2014 e.g., editors nominate editors, actors nominate for the four acting categories. Everyone gets to nominate best picture. For the final voting of the winner, all branches vote for everything.

Can you win an Oscar for a musical?

There's a rich history of musicals at the Academy Awards\u2014in 93 years, 10 of them have won Best Picture Oscars alone. From An American in Paris and The Sound of Music to West Side Story and Chicago, there's always been an audience for epic stories told through song and dance.

Are Oscars given to musicians?

The main event of every Awards Season is the Academy Awards. Sure, the night is reserved for honoring the best in film that year, from lead actors to directors. However, plenty of popular musicians have taken home Oscars in years past.

Is there an orchestra at the Oscars?

The awards show's music director, Adam Blackstone, will lead the group in performances during the show as well as with an in-house orchestra, returning to the Oscars stage this year after last year's modified ceremony. The Samples, a vocal group led by Jason White, also will appear on the show.



Sam Smith - Writing's On The Wall (from Spectre) (Official Video)




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