Academy Awards

by **Garry** Sun 27 Mar 2011, 12:01

Global Shuffle will be considering an Academy Awards run in the documentary section. If you are interested in being a part of GS2, then these are the rules we are covered by and will be following for future Global Shuffle Productions.

These rules relate to 2010 and will be updated, so please check this link for the latest information.

http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/rule12.html

Rule Twelve: Special Rules for the Documentary Awards

DEFINITION
An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released nonfiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial reenactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.
CATEGORIES
The Documentary awards are divided into two categories:
1. Documentary Feature - motion pictures with a running time of more than 40 minutes, and
2. Documentary Short Subject - motion pictures with a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1. Eligibility
  1. To be eligible for 83rd Academy Awards consideration, a documentary feature must complete both a seven-day commercial run in a theater in Los Angeles County, and a seven-day commercial run in a theater in the Borough of Manhattan during the eligibility period.
  2. The eligibility period begins on September 1, 2009, and ends on August 31, 2010. An extension of the eligibility period to September 30, 2010, may be granted only if the film has legal contracts with exhibitors guaranteeing that it will complete both qualifying commercial runs before the extension deadline. All paperwork (including legal contracts if applicable) must be completed and received by the Academy no later than 5 p.m. PT on Wednesday, September 1, 2010.
  3. Both commercial runs must take place in the same eligibility period and within two years of the motion picture’s completion date. A run in only one of the qualifying cities disqualifies a picture from Academy Awards contention in the Documentary Feature category in any year. Documentaries submitted for consideration for the 83rd Academy Awards in any category will not be eligible for consideration in subsequent Awards years in any category. The picture must be submitted in the same Awards year in which it first qualifies.
  4. The picture must be exhibited using 16mm, 35mm or 70mm film, or in a 24- or 48-frame progressive scan format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels; source image format conforming to SMPTE 428-1-2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Image Characteristics; image compression (if used) conforming to ISO/IEC 15444-1 (JPEG 2000), and image and sound file formats suitable for exhibition in commercial Digital Cinema sites. The audio in a typical Digital Cinema Package (DCP) is 5.1 channels of discrete audio, and that is the preferred audio configuration. The minimum for a non-mono configuration of the audio shall be three channels as Left, Center, Right (a Left/Right configuration is not acceptable in a theatrical environment). The audio data shall be formatted in conformance with SMPTE 428-2-2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Audio Characteristics and SMPTE 428-3-2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Audio Channel Mapping and Channel Labeling.
  5. Screenings during each of the qualifying runs must occur at least twice daily and must begin between noon and 10 p.m. The motion picture must be exhibited for paid admission, and must be advertised during each of its runs in major newspapers: The New York Times, Time Out New York or Village Voice (New York); Los Angeles Times or LA Weekly (Los Angeles). Advertisements must have minimum dimensions of one inch by two inches and must include the theater, film title and the dates and screening times of the qualifying exhibitions.
  6. Works that are essentially promotional or instructional are not eligible, nor are works that are essentially unfiltered records of performances.
  7. Only individual documentary works are eligible. This excludes from consideration:
    - episodes extracted from a larger series,
    - segments taken from a single “composite” program, and
    - alternate versions of ineligible works.

The significant dialogue or narration must be in English, or the entry must have English-language subtitles.

No type of television or Internet transmission of a contending documentary feature may occur anywhere in the world until 60 days after the completion of the New York and Los Angeles County seven-day qualifying runs, with the exception of password-protected Internet screenings for press review or film festival submission. Ten minutes or ten percent of the running time of a film, whichever is shorter, is allowed to be shown in a nontheatrical medium prior to the film’s theatrical release. DVD release and airline or cruise ship exhibition may be simultaneous with the first day of a U.S. qualifying run