First of all, an apology. I had intended to do a more light-hearted Feature this month, but last week I read about something that I thought had gone away for good, and my interest in it was rekindled. And as I always say when writing about awards, it matters very little to you or me which films win which awards. But I'd like to spend this Feature talking about a body of professionals who are ignored by awards all over the world.

When I watch a film, my focus is always on the most traditional aspects of the production, such as the acting, directing, writing, music and cinematography. However, I also pay close attention to the more technical aspects, such as visual effects and sound design. I know when I see certain names in the credits that these cosmetic elements are going to be very good; I certainly have my favourite technicians. The other thing I always keep an eye out for are impressive stunts, but you won't be seeing a Best Stunt Coordination award at the Oscars anytime soon.

The support for this award is relatively strong, with names like Spielberg, Scorsese and Schwarzenegger closely involved. Things came to a head in 1999 when the category was rejected by the Academy, and I followed the story closely back then. However, until last week I was unaware that the category was rejected again in 2005.

In my view, the reasons the Academy have come up with are relatively weak. They are often reluctant to introduce entirely new categories, and much prefer to fiddle with existing ones; two different Best Musical Score awards were presented at the 1995-1998 ceremonies. Similarly, Best Animated Feature was only introduced after the Academy became confident enough that familiar faces (such as Pixar) wouldn't dominate the category.

The reasons why they have rejected the Best Stunt Coordination category are essentially twofold. First of all, they suggest that there has not been a compelling case made. I would argue that it's compelling enough that there is an award for pretty much every other technical skill, apart from stunt coordination. There is a visual effects award, and two Oscars for sound work. And while CGI effects are advancing all the time there are some things that will always be much easier to achieve through stunts, so it's not like skill is going to die out.

The other reason is that the Academy doesn't want to see the ceremony become bloated with too many awards. This argument is frankly ridiculous because the actual presentation of the awards themselves take up a relatively minor chunk of the ceremony - one more certainly wouldn't make a difference. And to be honest, if they wanted to make room for a Stunt Coordination Oscar, and maybe a couple of others too, there is one category they could certainly do without.

Best Original Song is probably the least interesting and most time-consuming award given out on Oscar night. Each nominee has to be performed, which means this category alone adds between 20-30 minutes to the length of the broadcast. Whenever a musical is in contention it usually hogs two or three of the song nominations, so the whole category becomes one big plug for that film. Then there's the simple truth that a lot of the nominees are actually pretty rubbish. Looking back over the history of the category doesn't reveal many stellar songs, and the standard of stunt coordination is likely to remain consistent, which is something else the songs don't manage. And then there's the fact that someone will take home an Oscar for writing a 3-minute song, whereas someone else takes one home for writing a 120-minute complete orchestral score. It has always bugged me that the awards essentially put the Score and Song categories on the same level when they're clearly not.

So there AMPAS, is your answer. Drop the least interesting, least enjoyable and most time-consuming category you have, and bring one in for the stunt men. And on second thought, if you did remove the Song category, you'd have room for a few more too.

© David Mercier
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