It's time now for Oscar's campaign
By Lawrence Kootnikoff
LOS ANGELES (AFP): Top stars have been chatting with television's Jay Leno, David Letterman and Rosie O'Donnell, and posing for paparazzi at glittering parties.
Directors have been pressing the flesh at bookstore signings. And most of all, studios have been spending millions -- on mailings, full-page ads in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Tinseltown's two major trade dailies, and on videos and DVDs.
Oscar nominations won't be announced for another 10 days yet, but campaigning for Hollywood's biggest prizes has been going full tilt for months now.
The goal is to win the hearts and minds of some 5,600 souls, the men and women of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who will anoint the Oscar winners on March 25.
"All of us have been working to the very last minute to hopefully capture the attention of Academy voters, to make sure they see our films," said publicist Steve Elzer of New Line Films (Thirteen Days).
Sometimes Academy members need "a little bit of nudging" to watch all movies in the running, adds Laura Sosin of Lions Gate Films (Shadow of the Vampire).
Nominees will be announced on Feb. 13.
The stakes are high: not only the honor of the award, but a potential box office gold mine. An Oscar can mean millions, both in post-award ticket sales and in the video and DVD market.
Laura Linney, star of You Can Count on Me, Juliet Binoche of Chocolat, Geoffrey Rush of Quills and Jamie Bell of Billy Elliot have all appeared on Today NBC television's highly rated morning program.
Publicists for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon scored a coup when stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh landed on the cover of Entertainment Weekly's Oscar preview issue.
It wasn't always this way.
Willem Dafoe, generating Oscar excitement as a real-life Dracula in Shadow of the Vampire, remembers his best supporting actor nomination for Platoon, Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam War drama.
"I found out that I got nominated when my son's baby-sitter called me up," Dafoe told the Times.
The cinematic arms race has escalated since then.
Glossy ads in the trade press "have increased exponentially in recent years," said Academy executive Ric Robertson, whose office sets campaign rules.
But the public didn't tune in until two years ago, when Miramax Films -- after an aggressive, expensive campaign -- walked off with seven statuettes, including best picture, for Shakespeare in Love.
Oscar has issued new, strict guidelines, banning glitzy promotional mailings, organized telephone campaigns and targeting Academy members for invitations to receptions or other events. But Robertson insists the guidelines were already in the works, "principally inspired by revolution of video tapes being sent to members in the early '90s."
"The packaging was getting more attention than any thing else," he said.
But that has not deterred studios' "awards offices."
Lions Gate is pushing Vampire for best picture, best actor (John Malkovich) best supporting actor (Dafoe), and best supporting actress (Catherine McCormack) and several other categories.
"We try to be optimistic," Sosin says.
Other studios must overcome short memories.
Erin Brockovich opened last March and is already out on video.
But Universal Pictures recently paid $100,000 to $150,000 a pop to splash star Julia Roberts' face across double-page ads in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.
Dreamworks did the same for Gladiator and Almost Famous.
"If your film is released very early in the year, you have to create a strategy to reinvigorate interest at academy time," Universal's Terry Curtin told the Los Angeles Times.
But the keepers of the flame hope people remember the reason for the awards.
"What the Academy wants the focus to be on is the movies," Robertson says. "And when you and your colleagues in the press are writing more about packaging, that defeats the purpose."