We’re getting started early this year. May to be precise. And we want you to join us. Literally.
This contest will be something unique in our history and has seldom been attempted elsewhere (at least that I’m familiar with). The winner of this year’s contest, to be announced in March of 2014, will get to be a Cinema Sight contributor for one year (starting May of 2014), culminating in the 87th Academy Awards coverage season and through the end of April 2015.
In addition to participating in prognosticating duties during the 87th awards, including but not limited to participation in monthly predictions lists and precursor analyses, you’ll also be part of our weekly Looking at the Weekend article and you’ll even get the opportunity to contribute a new article monthly on any topic (within reason and pre-discussion) and possibly even full-length film or television reviews. This is an unpaid position (everyone here is unpaid, but that’s beside the point) and after your participation has wrapped up in 2015, if we like what you’ve done, you could even become a permanent contributor here at Cinema Sight.
So, what do you have to do to win? Come out of the 86th Oscar season with the most points. Every month, on the first of the month, participants will be able to submit a list of five (or ten in the case of Best Picture) nomination predictions and one alternate in six Oscar categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress) along with a forecast on the winner of each category. Each prediction that comes to fruition will be worth 100 points. Each month, you may submit a new list of predictions, but anything from prior lists that is not on your subsequent lists will be reduced in value to 50 points if it turns out to be accurate.
If you add one of your older, abandoned predictions back to your list at a later time, the previous predictions will still be worth 50 points, but all subsequent months predicting will earn you 100 points. Ties will be broken based on the number and frequency of predictions that go back farthest. If two tied competitors had predictions going back to May, the one with the most May-based, 100-point predictions would determine the winner.
On May 1, the first predictions post will appear. You’ll have two weeks to enter your predictions (predictions must be made no later than the 15th of each month). If you miss a month, your prior month’s predictions will automatically be duplicated the next month so you don’t have to miss out if something unforeseen occurs.
You will be able to submit nomination and winner predictions for May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December and January. Nominations will be announced on January 16. You will have one more opportunity to predict the winners of the Oscars based on the actual nominations slate. This call will be made on February 15, 2013 and you will have until February 28 to submit your final winner predictions in the specified 6 categories.
Still confused? Here’s a quick sample of how points will be assigned:
Larry places “Oz the Great and Powerful” into his May Best Picture slate. He leaves it on June, but Sam Raimi makes a stupid statement about the Academy having no taste for not nominating “The Evil Dead” and Larry moves his prediction out from his July list. In September, Raimi donates his entire fortune to the Academy museum, which leads Larry to put “Oz” back into his October predictions and leaves it there through his final predictions in January. “Oz” gets nominated for Best Picture. Larry gets 100 Points each for December, November and October. He gets no points for September, August or July because it wasn’t in his slate. He gets 50 points each for June and May because it was present, but had been removed. Thus, he receives 400 points alone from his “Oz the Great and Powerful” prediction.
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