By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Behind the Academy Awards® Tallies for 78 Years and Counting! PwC Preserves Hollywood’s Best Kept Secrets

Posted Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 - Comments Off on Behind the Academy Awards® Tallies for 78 Years and Counting! PwC Preserves Hollywood’s Best Kept Secrets
Be Sociable, Share!

Final Ballots Mailed Today

Completed Ballots Due to PwC on Tuesday, February 21, 2012

BEVERLY HILLS, Feb. 1, 2012 – PwC celebrates its 78th year leading the Oscars® balloting process on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy).  PwC balloting leaders Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas will again oversee the tabulation and will be the only two people in the world who will know the identity of the Oscar® winners before the 84th Academy Awards live telecast on ABC at 4 p.m. PT (7 p.m. ET) on Sunday, February 26, 2012.

In the 78 years that PwC has managed the balloting process, there has never been a single security breach.  Oltmanns and Rosas lead a tight-lipped team to conduct the same ‘tried and true’ method that they have used for decades. PwC’s long-established balloting system involves the precise tallying of every single ballot at a concealed location to maintain the utmost level of accuracy, objectivity and confidentiality.

“Our long-standing, 78-year relationship with PwC is built on the utmost trust and integrity,” said Tom Sherak, Academy president. “We look forward to continuing the tradition with PwC as our balloting partner for many years to come.”

Once the votes have been submitted and tabulated, PwC prepares two briefcases with a complete set of envelopes bearing the Oscar winners’ names. As a precautionary measure, both briefcases are then transported to the ceremony via separate, secret routes with each of the PwC balloting leaders. As a second preventive measure, the PwC balloting leaders also memorize every winner. During the live telecast, Oltmanns and Rosas remain backstage and hand each envelope to award presenters before they walk onstage.

“PwC’s ongoing relationship with the Academy exemplifies the highest level of precision and trust,” said Brad Oltmanns, a PwC partner and Oscars balloting leader since 2004. “This is an event we look forward to every year and our precise work with the Academy through the years is a tribute to PwC’s renowned heritage and reputation.”

“Being involved each year in maintaining the highest level of secrecy is one of the most rewarding assignments of my career” said Rick Rosas, a PwC partner and Oscars balloting leader since 2001. “Our work with the Academy not only highlights our long-term and trusted relationship with Hollywood and the entertainment industry, but also serves as an incredible source of honor and pride for PwC.”

Oscars nomination ballots were mailed to 5,783 voting members of the Academy on Tuesday, December 27, 2011, and nominees were announced on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.  Final ballots will be mailed today (February 1, 2012), and completed ballots are due back to PwC on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 (by 5 p.m.).

PwC Fun Facts from 78 Years of Oscars Balloting

As Hollywood prepares for the 84th Academy Awards,  PwC has tallied some other numbers to illustrate what has gone into keeping Hollywood’s biggest secret under wraps and getting the world’s most famous statuettes into the hands of the winners:

  • 450,000+: The approximate number of ballots counted by PwC in 78 years on the job.
  • 2,600+:  The number of winners’ envelopes stuffed since the envelope system was introduced in 1941.
  • 1,700: The approximate number of “person-hours” it takes the PwC team every year to count and verify the ballots.
  • 78:  The number of years PwC has conducted the Oscar® balloting.
  • 24: The number of awards categories to be tabulated for the 84th Academy Awards at a secret location known only to the members of the small PwC ballot team.
  • 7: The number of days it takes to count the ballots for nominations.
  • 3: The number of days it takes to count the final ballots.

For additional information, visit: www.pwc.com/balloting.

# # #

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on Behind the Academy Awards® Tallies for 78 Years and Counting! PwC Preserves Hollywood’s Best Kept Secrets

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon