Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourous Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air

Best Actor In A Leading Role
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up In The Air
Colin Firth – Single Man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker

Best Actress In A Leading Role
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Helen Mirren – The Last Station
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Gabourey Sibide – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia

Best Actor In A Supporting Role
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglorious Basterds

Best Actress In A Supporting Role
Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farminga – Up In Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up In Air
Mo’Nique – Precious

Best Director
James Cameron – Avatar
Kathyn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino – Inglorious Basterds
Lee Daniels – Precious
Jason Reitman – Up In The Air

Foreign Language Film
Ajami
El Secreto de Sus Ojos
The Milk of Sorrow
Un Prophete
The White Ribbon

Best Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Up

Best Adapted Screenplay
District 9
An Education
In The Loop
Precious
Up In The Air

Best Animated Feature Film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
The Princess And The Frog
The Secret Of Kells
Up

Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Documentary Feature
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc
Which Way Home

Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit a la Berlin

Film Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Make-up
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Music (Original Score)
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Music (Original Song)
The Princess and the Frog
Paris 36
Nine
Crazy Heart

Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Short film (Animated)
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Short Film (Live Action)
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

Oscar® winners to be revealed on Sunday, March 7, 2010.

Not all the best get nominated, but that’s why we can all have our own viewpoint. No doubt a large percentage of people will disagree with the winners, but that’s life as we know it.

Some trailers are completely misleading. There was a Will Smith movie, Hancock, where the official trailer gives you the impression that the movie is about one subject, yet when you get to see the finished product, it has another entirely different focus. Fortunately, the second route it took was the best part of that screenplay.

Experts will tell us that the trailer should give us enough to want to get us to the cinema. It should entice us to tell our friends to join us on a gamble none of us have ventured to yet. It most probably deals with only the first third of the screenplay so we have a lot more to see.

Murder By Mistake, written and directed by Carolyn Hodge, is a movie doing the festival circuit at the moment waiting to be picked up for full distribution. The logline tells us

it is a story of mistaken identity when a pair of twins separated at birth are reunited 27 years later and one is murdered.

Without giving too much away, the living twin is a police detective. Already, you know where the movie may be going.

Murder By Mistake trailer from Carolyn Hodge on Vimeo.

If this trailer http://www.vimeo.com/5146878 is anything to go by, it’s got me hooked to purchase a ticket or two when it comes my way. If it doesn’t make it to the full release, I’ll certainly rent the movie.

I’m already intrigued. The trailer shows me enough to have me hooked for more, but not so much so I know what the outcome will be, although we’ll all take a guess and hope it’s got a great twist to stop it going down any obvious routes.

In a recent article we looked at what the top earning screenplay writers achieve for top script sales, including some which don’t get made into movies. Now we can see whether you’d be better off moving your writing skills in to the world of novels.

Forbes magazine has just unveiled its top list of novel writers and their pay scale information.

The top ten novelists on their list of the best-paid authors pulled in a combined $563 million between June 1, 2007, and June 1, 2008, thanks to large advances, imposing sales and movie adaptations. About JK Rowling “Over on the big screen, her Potter franchise has already generated $4.5bn at the worldwide box office – and she still has three more flicks to come” so perhaps it’s best to write novels and have them turned into movies – if you can get the writing gig after your novel has been optioned to a producer or studio.

The Top 10 Best-Paid Authors for the year:

1st JK Rowling – £300m
2nd James Patterson – $50m
3rd Stephen King – $45m
4th Tom Clancy – $35m
5th Danielle Steel – $30m
=6th John Grisham – $25m
=6th Dean Koontz – $25m
8th Ken Follett – $20m
9th Janet Evanovich – $17m
10th Nicholas Sparks – $16m

Many screenplay writers have thought about turning their screenplay into a novel, but then the thought of moving into another arena concerns a number of writers. However, it appears that it might well be worth the effort after all.

It’s all about numbers (after skill, talent, motivation and perseverance) – Ms Rowling has her name on over 375 million books, Stephen King also tops 350 million sales, James Patterson over 150 million. Twenty of Danielle Steel’s books have been turned into television movies.

I’ll spend some time looking at the major differences between a screenplay and a novel and share the article when it’s ready.

Now where’s that software programme that automatically turns a 90 page screenplay into a 450 page novel?

All screenplay writers should know to write too many scenes as the director is always going to want to cut a few scenes (to prove control), although they’ll film everything if the producer holding the money isn’t close by.

Sometimes scenes are requested to be altered. There’s a story about a graphic explosion of a 747 in the show, 24. It was changed considerably because of the likeness and closeness of the 9/11 (murder) incident.

Most, but not all, movies are shown to test audiences before they get released to the general public. The audience is then asked for detailed views about what they’ve seen. I have to add here that I wonder how some movies got through the test screening process and were released as they are and how many producers ignored the viewer’s suggestions for changes to the movie when they should have listened.

This can lead to scenes being deleted for varying reasons. Perhaps the movie was too long. Maybe a character was introduced that didn’t need to be; their introduction possibly confused the audience and it was seen that by removing the character the film flows better.

The running time of a movie is an important point. If it’s a kid’s movie, then apart form Harry Potter where you have to keep the kids sat still for around five hours, most kid’s movies are shorter than most regular movies. This is, however, changing as more animated movies hit the two hour plus mark. Some movies like Mamma Mia! could have easily lasted another hour, but I guess we’ve all sat in a movie and wondered why they didn’t cut out a good half hour to help keep us awake.

Marketing will tell us how long a movie should be; marketing experts are always right – you ask them.

When we get to see deleted scenes on a DVD release, they can often be without correct colour adaptation, sync audio and timing. This is because they were considered for the delete pile before they completed the final processing of the movie.

Some scenes get cut in length. Often a scene goes on too long at the director’s request. They can then decide later to cut down to the part that matters.

Next there are alternate endings. How often a typical Hollywood movie has that sugary tasting ending when even after blowing up the whole world people still get to hug and kiss and make up. Alternate ending sometimes show us the ending the director really wanted. Perhaps more directors should fight for the ending that’s best merited rather than listen to marketing studios who insist that we have the nice sit down and a pleasant cup of tea finish.

On balance, most deleted scenes are cut for valid reasons. Which scenes should have stayed and not just been filmed for the DVD extra’s part of the package?

Stacey Parks wrote the excellent book, ‘The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution.’ She’s recognized as one of the indie film world’s most knowledgeable people when we talk about distribution, but the MeDeploy plan only surfaced after her last book, so I wonder what she thinks of this new service to aid indie film makers get their films sold via the internet.

MeDeploy have designed a pay-media distribution to be incorporated straight on to websites, social networks, blogs and to use web widgets. The API allows complete control over look, layout and function.

It allows video download to own, digital rental and on demand sales distribution to be added to mobile devices. The dashboard allows clients to manage all content, sales and distribution easily.

It’s available in two versions: professional at £199.95 per month while indie, with up to two films, can be used for $19.95 per month.

They say that everything is included:

• media transcoding,
• content management,
• media storage and delivery,
• anti-piracy tools,
• secure credit card processing and much more.

There’s a revenue share model for both professional and indie (higher for professional) which enables content holders to build a digital video distribution business with a distribution platform that scales as business grows. All without risk, or the excessive costs usually associated with introducing a digital media business.

Filmmakers out there who want to test the waters prior to signing up can get started with a free 30-day trial: just visit www.medeploy.com

Please let us know what you think, once you’ve used it. We’ve not tried it ourselves yet so we can’t comment yet, so please do.

Looking forward to Stacy Parks’ view.

I can see the sense in these plans. It provides you with the money when you need it. If you have the money in the bank (at least in stage payments) then you can go ahead and write knowing you’re getting paid for the writing you’re undertaking. If someone has paid you for the script there’s a much higher chance you can pre-sell the distribution rights before you make the movie. This may give you the funds to actually go ahead and make your film and save you from the many horrors of trying to arrange funding.

Attachments help as well. If you say you’ve got Halle Berry attached to your script/film, then the money that follows will be plentiful and quick. In fact, companies will be bidding against each other to get your screenplay.

We like Halle Berry – she’s a wonderful actor who has appeared in some great films, but even she will admit that a couple haven’t been up to her usual high standards. Is that because the money came first and the ideas fell into place at a later stage?

Having the right elements in place will bring bonuses. Knowing what is going to be the right genre in two years time will help.

Brainstorming here again now; planning is making lists of the reasons why people would want your story and the reasons why they would pass. Then clear away the second list and you’ll have a best seller.

5 stars*****
1.   A Mighty Heart – The movie of the year

A film that moved you all the way through, made you angry and put you in admiration of the journalist who lost his life and his wonderful wife.

2.   The Brave One

Jodie Foster strikes back and we were on the side of the revenge killer, which means the film worked well because we must not go there…

3.   Juno

The best script of the year, well acted by Ellen Page

4.   Fracture

Anthony Hopkins at his best with a great script

4 stars****
5.   Notes On A Scandal

Great Brit film with Judi Dench at her best

6.   Charlie Wilson’s War

A surprise and a great result

7.   Perfect Stranger

Halle Berry at her best in a movie with a very strange ending

8.   Live Free Or Die Hard

Some franchises are worth watching when they upgrade like this movie

9.   The Bourne Ultimatum

The best of the three

10.   Bee Movie

A wonderful kids delight

11.   The Invasion

Kept us wondering throughout

12.   Death At A Funeral

A Brit movie with fantastic British humour

3 stars***
13.   Mr Bean’s Holiday

Strange ending, but good fun throughout

14.   Ratatouille

Second best kids film of the year

15.   28 Weeks Later

Good, but not up to the standards of it’s predecessor

16.   Ocean’s Thirteen

At last they got it right

17.   Hot Fuzz

A hot script

18.   Atonement

Delightful

19.   Shrek The Third

Keeps the standards going

20.   PS I Love You

But I didn’t care for much

2 stars**
21.   The Water Horse

Nice film, but just lacked going to the next level

22.   Fantastic Four- Rise Of The Silver Surfer

Time to give up on this franchise

1 star*
23.   Spiderman 3

Two films too many in this group

24.   I Am Legend

One dimensional, unbelievable, plot holes abound

25.   I Think I Love My Wife

Only gets the1 star because I didn’t leave during the show

Those I wanted to see, but didn’t hit my drive in (now for DVD hire list):

1. The Hoax
2. Michael Clayton
3. Sicko
4. Across The Universe
5. Things We Lost In The Fire
6. Two Days In Paris