The Oscars: Where it All Began

The Academy Awards, also known as The Oscars, is a special event that celebrates the achievements made by famous actors, producers, directors and so on. There are a total of 24 Oscars being given away during the annual ceremony by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for artistic and technical merit in the American Film Industry.

The first-ever Oscars was held at Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1929 overseen by AMPAS. The statue was designed by an American Sculpture named George Stanley, who designed the Academy Award of Merit (Oscars) and the Muse Statue at the Hollywood Bowl. There were only 270 guests at the private dinner in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The cost of the guest ticket was $5, $71 in 2018, and the after party was held in Mayfair hotel. The winners of the Oscars was introduced 3 months before the actual ceremony. The average time for the ceremony was only 15 minutes. The first-ever broadcast of The Oscars was on the radio in 1930. The first ever television broadcast was in 1953. In 1957, during the 29th ceremony, the Best Foreign Language Film Award was introduced. In the 74th ceremony held in 2002, the Academy Award for the Best Animated Feature was introduced. The ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment show and is seen by more than 200 countries. The Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy awards for music were all inspired and modeled by the Academy Award of Merit.

FUN FACT: Did you know ever since 1979, the ceremony always ends with the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Oscars is an award to present artists and designers to not only show the achievements they’ve made, but also to have reliability and status towards the film industry. The majority of the studios are impacted each year negatively or positively by who wins The Oscars. Each artist is assigned to a film they have performed. The film is created by a studio and a director. If the actor/actress/director wins an Oscar with the name of the Film, the Studio grants positive attributes towards the film industry and possibly changes the landscape of the media. With that said, the majority of the studios (Fox Searchlight, Universal’s Focus Features, Sony Pictures Classic) focus on ways to make big bucks from the box-office. Now, bigger live stream companies such as Netflix and Amazon are radically changing the media landscape and possibly gulp up old studios they’ve relied on to make a splash in award seasons. Overall, The Oscars is a special moment for artists in the film industry to express their talents through winning the Academy Award of Merit.