Academy Award

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Image:Oscar2.jpg The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent film awards in the United States and arguably the world. The Awards are granted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional honorary organization which as of 2003 had a voting membership of 5,816. Actors (with a membership of 1,311) make up the largest voting bloc. The most recent awards were the 77th Academy Awards.

1 Oscar Statuette
2 Awards night
3 Nominations
4 Awards
- 4.1 Academy Award of Merit
  - 4.1.1 Current awards
  - 4.1.2 Retired awards
- 4.2 Special Awards
  - 4.2.1 Current awards
  - 4.2.2 Retired awards
5 Academy Award Statistics
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

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Oscar Statuette

The official name of the Oscar statuette is the "Academy Award of Merit." Made of gold-plated britannium, it is 13.5 inches (34 cm) tall and depicts a knight holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film. The root of the name "Oscar" is contested. Some believe it comes from Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who saw it on a table and said, "it looks just like my uncle Oscar!" Others claim that Bette Davis named it after her first husband. However it became, the nickname stuck and is used almost as commonly as Academy Award, even by the Academy itself. In fact, the Academy's domain name is oscars.org and the official website for the Academy Awards is at oscars.com.

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Awards night

The major awards are given out at a ceremony usually in February following the relevant calendar year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. The ceremony and extravagant afterparties, including the Academy's Governors Ball, are televised around the world.

The ceremony has consecutively aired on ABC since 1976.

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Nominations

Today, according to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film has to open in the previous calendar year (from midnight January 1 to midnight December 31) in Los Angeles County, California, to qualify. [1] Rule 2 states that a film must be "feature-length" (defined as 40 minutes) to qualify for an award (except for Short Subject awards, of course). It must also exist either on a 35mm or 70mm film print OR on a 24fps or 48fps progressive scan digital film print with a native resolution no lower than 1280x1024.

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