Oscar Nominations announced

When specifically did I do that?

You seemed hard fixed on your blanket "2>1" concept and didn't appear willing to acknowledge that certain performances like these rely on varying degrees of technological involvement. Again in some cases the amount of "technological merging" between actor and machine is relatively minimal. At the very least these things should be more obviously judged on a case-by-case basis for Oscar merit worthiness.

I see this apparent tendency to dismiss non-traditional and/or technology based performances as lessor caliber or unworthy of full consideration a fundamental failing on the Academy's part to adapt to the future of the medium they are supposedly still in authority to judge. I simply question an authoritative body which displays overt biases such as this. *shrugs*

Which is consistent with what I said, which is that voice acting and performance capture are at a significant disadvantage, because they contribute only a part of the overall character performance that is being judged for the award.

There's no "black and white" distinction on the nature of the performances that I'm making or implying, unless you believe there's a black and white distinction between one and two.

(Of course, its not literally one vs two, that's just a simplification of the general statements I made separate from that).

Again it just seemed that you were endorsing the dismissive concept that "if there is -any- technological involvement with an actor's performance it must automatically be marginalized". Hollywood seems to favor that as a binary absolute, unwilling to accept there is a grey area to this.

I think you and I both agree that Hollywood does in fact have a bias against such performances. That was never in question. I simply felt that your take on this was that they were justified in maintaining that arbitrary bias regardless of how the medium is evolving over time. I consider it backward-thinking to accept the current status quo of the award criteria. Either the awards are going to have to change to accept the evolving reality of the artform or risk becoming that much more inconsequential themselves.

I think it would be unfair bias to disqualify voice acting and performance capture out of hand. I do not think its entirely arbitrary, however, to consider conventional performances to have, for lack of a better way of putting it, "more bandwidth" to the viewer, and that they therefore deliver more content to the viewer: this then places the onus on the voice or performance actor to deliver a far stronger performance within their remaining channel in order to overcome that disadvantage.

Yes, but I still consider the "disadvantage" to be institutionalized when it comes to how the Academy stubbornly pigeon-hole these things.

I don't dismiss the idea that voice/performance actors may have to be "more exceptional" than traditional actors in order to be considered for these awards. But I think the reason they have to work harder has as much to do with outmoded mindsets biased against their forms of expression as it does some kind of "lack of bandwidth". Do you accuse the guys nominated for Sound Mixing to be unable to win for their Writing ability because they "lack the bandwidth" to express their full expertise or is it because what they do has nothing specifically to do with Writing?

I'd submit that the current categorization of the Academy Awards is simply becoming insufficient to express the overall range of awardable expressions in the artform.

That would seem to suggest that contrary to what you implied earlier, you yourself feel that voice acting and performance capture do contain a "black and white" distinction from conventional acting that can only be remedied by offering them a special category of award.

Because the alternative, to redefine the existing award in a way that is specifically designed to neutralize any advantage conventional performances may have simply by fiat, would itself be unfair. That would be asking voters to arbitrarily weight some performances higher than others for technical reasons having nothing to do with their evaluation of the performance itself.

Technical reasons such as lighting, camera work, musical score, make-up, and editing...

I would recommend reading the context of a post before quipping off of it.

The context seems to be an implication that motion capture/voice acting performances are lacking in validity because of the tools they use outside of the actor, while discounting the heavy dependence conventional performances rely upon outside the actor. But if I've misread, by all means correct me.

1. You're responding to me, but I did not express the opinion that voice acting or performance capture performances were "lacking in validity." In fact, since I said the exact opposite, that would seem to be an odd error on your part, either in terms of quoting and responding to the wrong person, or failing to comprehend the person you are responding to.

2. What's more, I did not in any way discuss the tools or associated trappings of the performance as such in terms of whether they contribute or detract from a recognizable performance. What I was talking about was the fact that in most cases, voice actors contribute only a part of the character they portray, and a completely different artist or set of artists contribute a sizable converse percentage, and a similar statement can usually be made for performance capture actors. That's significantly different from things like makeup, because makeup itself is not a part of the dynamics of a performance: that's why there's a separate award for makeup.

3. As to your other specific examples of lighting, camera work, musical score, and editing, these things are far more obviously not specifically part of a character performance, and in all four cases as well there are technical awards for lighting, cinematography, cinematic musical score, and editing. They are so obviously irrelevant I can only assume you conflated expeditiousness and hastiness.

4. The specific technical reasons I was referring to in my reply to Lothic were within the context of the discussion we were having, which appears obvious in context simply by reading mine and Lothic's posts, that touch on whether the definitions of the awards themselves properly recognize that such performances were in fact valid performances worthy of recognition for the major performance awards. Lothic earlier implied he was against the notion that voice acting and performance capture was a radically different form of performance from conventional acting, because he seemed opposed to the belief that I implied so. However, he then seemed to suggest that it was the definitions of the awards themselves which failed to recognize the specific character of those performances, which suggest that he thinks they may be sufficiently different from conventional acting that the definitions of the awards doesn't do them justice.

I sought clarification, because if that's the case there's only two remedies for that: create special awards for those kinds of performances with its own definitions and parameters, or adjust the defintion of the current major performance awards to level the playing field between conventional acting and performance capture and voice acting. But that means taking into account the technical differences between the two kinds of performance, and somehow instructing voters to ignore them for purposes of awards.

It is those technical differences that I was referring to, which appears obvious within the content of the posts I suggested you reread carefully before responding in a manner that suggested a higher degree of confidence than seems advisable.

You presented the 'not entirely wrong reality' of voice acting/motion capture being considered ineligible for awards as compared to conventional performances. Such awards are a type of validation.

It seems a bit disingenuous to say that you're not discussing the tools or trappings in terms of whether they contribute to a performance, and then state that the actor in question only contributes a part of the character. Unless the other part(s) is being birthed from the ether, it's coming from the tools/trappings (and, necessarily, the artists who employ them) and thus that's being discussed.

Makeup contributes to character. Musical score, lighting, and camera work may all contribute quite heavily to the emotion of a scene, lending weight to a performance it might not otherwise have. Editing is the skillful selection of the best bits of an actors performance. These are all elements that help create a performance, and thus are as relevant as animations digital or otherwise.

And there is a separate award that can cover such digital endeavors - Visual Effects. The work on King Kong and Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean both earned it.

And said discussion was bugging me before it had even quite blossomed into a discussion. I resolved to stay out of it, and that resolution held... for a bit.

In any case, the whole Academy Awards has long seemed to be of questionable consistency to me. The only tenable solution to the current issue would likely be a creation or reformation of categories, as the recognition of such performances as being in a similar vein as conventional performances is highly unlikely given common prejudice and thought (whether I agree with it or not).

Or what? I might end up looking foolish? Surely it is clear by now that I am well beyond fearing such an outcome. Fools rush in... and they find that I got there ahead of them.

When I said "black and white" I was trying to make the distinction of how Hollywood seems to have a bias towards traditional acting because it's, well, traditional and perhaps easier for them to conceptualize. They deal with everything in binary absolutes without taking the effort to realize there are some examples of voice/performance acting which actually rely so -little- on merged technology that there are shades of grey that they fail to consider. I attributed the "black and white" idea to the backward thinking of Hollywood - it's not the way I personally feel about it.

Case in point Hollywood seems to look at ALL motion capture the same regardless of how much of the actor's individual performance you can glean from a specific example of it. That would be the black compared to the white of traditional live acting. The true reality is that SOME motion capture does merit individual Ocsar consideration while SOME motion capture does not based on the overall degree of technology's involvement. I accept that Hollywood still operates under an outmoded binary thought process of marginalizing any tech-based performances but I do -not- accept that that's a reasonable way to handle things based on the evolution of the media.

There's no contraction in what I'm saying here. I believe your confusion over my position stems from the lack of your acceptance that there's a full greyish spectrum that spans between performances that are almost completely morphed by the involvement of technology to other performances that are influenced so little by technology that it's hard to argue they are significantly different than just having some lights and cameras like they had 50 years ago. This inability to accept that these things should not be all lumped together as equally dependant on merged technology is the crux of Hollywood's blind-spot here.

No one said it was ever going to be easy for anyone to judge these blended performances case-by-case regardless if the Academy comes up with dedicated awards for them or not. It may be easier for them to create new awards than to overload the current categories, but I'm not going to claim that I know that would be the perfect solution for this. Whatever the ultimate solution I think it's clear that the Academy's approach to this is currently outdated in some form or fashion.

I completely liked the American version of "Dragon Tattoo" better than I did the Swedish version as well. I thought it flowed more smoothly, had more punch and gave us a more plausible ending as well. Please understand, I really liked the Swedish version. I thought Noomi Rapace did a great job bringing Lisbeth to life. But Rooney is more what I think of when I think of Lisbeth: small, quiet, full of pent-up rage but also very afraid of much of the world. Rapace embodies a confidence that I just don't get from Lisbeth's character, and that always created a teeny bit of disbelief when I watched the Swedish version of the movies.

As for "Let the Right One In," I'd be hard-pressed to pick either version as clearly superior to the other. Chloe Moretz did a terrific job (as always for her) and the pacing/editing of the American version felt better, but the glimpse of CGI we got was weak and didn't do as good a job as the Swedish version in capturing both the attack on the neighbor woman and the subsequent aftermath. Like in the pool scene, sometimes less is more; both versions did a fine job there, with the American version showing wisdom in not messing with what already worked.