With over 27 years of experience prognosticating the Oscars, Cinema Sight is launching its own brand called Awards Landscape. Built on years of expertise as well as hard data, the Awards Landscape team hopes to aid you in winning your office pool or better understanding the complexities of the various awards that lead up to each year’s Academy Awards. Our intent is to provide expert advice, forecasts, and other content that improves your understanding of or excitement over the chaotic, but rewarding awards season.
Wesley Lovell was one of the first Oscar prognosticators on the internet making his forecasts during the 69th Academy Awards for the year 1996. Originally launched on GeoCities as The Oscar Guy, the website went through several changes as it moved to oscarguy.com in 2002 and eventually settling on Cinema Sight back in 2010. After 13 years, an auspicious number, he decided it was time to break out the awards forecasting elements of the site into their own brand: Awards Landscape.
Peter J. Patrick came aboard in 2007 with the launch of his Home Viewing Report (then the DVD Report). His first predictions appeared on the site in 2011. Tripp Burton also jointed the team with predictions in 2011. Meanwhile, Thomas La Tourrette joined us in 2014 after winning an Oscar predictions contest in 2013. This is his 10th year with us and we’re very proud to have him.
There are many changes still to come for Awards Landscape, but I thought I’d start with a delineation of the new posting schedule for both sites with several pieces moving to Awards Landscape and a handful of things staying at Cinema Sight. Here’s a rundown.
Awards Landscape Schedule
Some articles will be changing names as they transfer over, but here’s what’s arriving from Cinema Sight: This Day in Oscar History moves from daily at Cinema Sight to daily at Awards Landscape with a new featured image based on the most honored film releasing that day in Oscar History. Oscar in Box Office History will also be moving over, shifting from the Friday before the weekend to the Monday after.
Our Oscar Preview article, which started a revamp back in April, will be moving over from Monday to Tuesday. We had intended it to be a twice-monthly article, but based on the trajectory the post has taken on Cinema Sight, a move to once a month would be more feasible. Most likely, it will be the second Tuesday of every month rather than the first Monday. Peter’s Oscar Profile will move over and remain on Thursdays. Until the end of its run, the Friday Face-Off: The Ultimate List poll series will be posted simultaneously on both sites.
We will be posting our monthly Oscar Predictions updates one Wednesday every month, but which Wednesday may vary from month to month depending on our contributors’ availability. We’ll also be making a change. The monthly predictions revision will take place as usual, but while the monthly article will only feature specific categories (June will take the ones we made in May and add screenwriting categories to it), but we’ll also have a full slate of predictions form any contributor who wishes to make them.
Right now, there are plans for two more sets of articles. There will be a weekly poll looking back at Oscar history, but its actual content has not yet been decided. Another feature we’ll be adding, but are starting from scratch on, is the Contenders series. Much like the Preview articles currently on Cinema Sight, these posts will feature each of several Oscar contenders for the year, chosen on specific criteria. How frequently they post will be dependent on a lot of factors, but we’re hoping to make them a daily offering, or at least a weekdaily selection. These new posts will be looking empirically at the Oscar contenders and applying various ratings to each film and coming up with a Contender Quotient (patent pending) based on several factors that often impact a film’s Oscar potential.
We also want to take this time to give the readers an opportunity to make suggestions for things they’d like to see? A series on individual Oscar categories and what their purposes are? Explaining various aspects of the Precursor Season? We’re open to suggestions. Here now is the calendar as currently envisioned.
Sunday:
This Day in Oscar History
Poll: Best of Oscar (Pending)
Monday:
This Day in Oscar History
Oscar in Box Office History
The Contenders (Pending)
Tuesday:
This Day in Oscar History
Oscar Preview
The Contenders (Pending)
Wednesday:
This Day in Oscar History
Oscar Predictions
The Contenders (Pending)
Thursday:
This Day in Oscar History
Oscar Profile
The Contenders (Pending)
Friday:
This Day in Oscar History
Friday Face-Off
The Contenders (Pending)
Saturday:
This Day in Oscar History
Cinema Sight Schedule
A lot of things are staying the same, but here’s what’s changing: Polls will now post at 9am Central rather than 6pm Central. Reviews will now post on Fridays instead of Wednesdays when they are available. We’re also looking to fill the slot vacated by Peter’s Oscar Profile, suggestions there are welcome.
Sunday:
Weekend Previews
Poll: Best Of / Most Anticipated
Film Preview
Monday:
The Morning After
Poll: Now That You’ve Seen…
Film Preview
Tuesday:
Home Viewing Report
Film Preview
Wednesday:
Looking at the Weekend
Poll: What Are You Watching?
Film Preview
Thursday:
Poll: Best of Oscar
Film Preview
Friday:
Film Reviews
Film Preview
Saturday:
Film Preview
While the above is the expected schedule, there are still some intended features that have not been formalized or laid out yet. We plan to have separate pages for our current predictions, precursor history, polls, and statistics among other potential pages. We’re hoping to have a regularly-updated calendar of upcoming events in the sidebar. There you can also find links to the Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board, our long-running forum discussing the Oscars, but also a wide range of other topics. There are also two link-backs to Cinema Sight, in the sidebar on the right and in the space between the current posts at the top of the page.
One last thing, with our launch, our updated predictions will be going live this Wednesday.
We hope you enjoy our content as much as you did before and we hope we’ll be able to pull in a new audience that hasn’t been with us before. Thank you for sticking with us through the years and, if you’re new, welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay.
(Editor’s Note: This post will remain stuck to the top of the main page of the website for a few weeks as a landing spot explaining who and what we are. The subsequent posts will all be in the order of publication date along with a slider at the top to look at the last ten articles as well as specific sections for each of four types of articles to the right of that.
