Today in History: The First Academy Awards Debut

And the Oscar goes to . . . The Academy Awards, which is universally nicknamed the Oscars, began its tradition of showcasing the best of the best in the film industry in 1928. On the night of May 16, 1929, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks (president of the Academy) in the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, roughly 270 guests sat down to dine at a lush banquet with fellow film industry moguls. Dancing and conversation ensued, but soon the orchestra was silenced as MGM Chief Louis B. Mayer decided it was time to get down to business. The Academy Awards did not start out with the glitz and glamour to which we have grown accustomed. The brainchild of Mayer, the banquet, the awards ceremony, and the Academy were meant to be more bottom line than a glamorous event. Mayer had hoped to unite the power players of the film industry by pushing out the labor unions. When that idea failed, it was decided that the Academy would serve as its own censor, as it was the fourth-largest industry in America. As movies became more risque´, the industry realized it needed a touch of class and a better relationship with the public. A night of glamour with a golden statue given to the best was just what the industry needed.

The awards were first printed on a paper scroll and then cast in gold. The statuette universally known as Oscar was designed by MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons and created by sculptor George Stanley. At first the award was sketched as a knight holding a double-edged sword standing on a reel of film with five holes in the base. These five roles represented the industry’s original branches: producers, writers, directors, actors, and technicians. The statuette and the base have since been streamlined, but as cast the statue remains 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper with a gold-plated exterior. The Oscar statuette is thirteen-and-a-half inches tall and weighs about eight-and-a-half pounds. Although it is unclear how Oscar got his name, the award has come to be called the Nobel Prize of motion pictures.

The awards themselves were originally presented in 12 categories, but have continually grown to encompass the new and innovative ideas and inventions of the film industry. At the first ceremony there was little suspense because the award winners knew they had won three months before the banquet convened. During the second year, however, all of that changed when the results were kept a secret, adding to the allure and mystery surrounding the ceremony.

In subsequent years, the winner’s list was handed out to the media so it could be in print the next morning, until a newspaper published the names of the winners in the evening post before the awards ceremony was actually broadcast. This led the Academy to adopt the sealed-envelope system in 1941; the system is still used today.

By the time the second awards dinner was held in 1930, enthusiasm for the star-studded event was so great that a Los Angeles radio station produced an hourlong live broadcast of the evening. The ceremony has been broadcast ever since, via radio between 1930 and 1952, and then via television from 1953 forward. Broadcast in color since 1966 and internationally since 1969, the Academy Awards ceremony is now beamed to over 200 countries, dazzling hundreds of millions of movie fan across the globe. For many film enthusiasts, the Academy Awards ceremony is the highlight of their cinematic year. Although the broadcast itself often drags, the opportunity to view the parade of stars moving across the red carpet in their designer outfits and “crown jewels” and to exult and bemoan the Academy’s choices for the best of the best has made the Awards into a cultural phenomenon.

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The above excerpt is a sneak peek from the forthcoming
Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia

Philip C. DiMare, Editor

Available June 2011

This provocative three-volume encyclopedia is a valuable resource for readers seeking an understanding of how movies have both reflected and helped engender America's political, economic, and social history.

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Additional Resources

Pop Culture Universe: Icons Idols Ideas

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Wes Anderson: Why His Movies Matter

Mark Browning

This is the first full-length study devoted to the films of Wes Anderson, one of the most distinctive filmmakers working today.

 

Cooking with the Movies: Meals on Reels
Anthony F. Chiffolo and Rayner W. Hesse, Jr.

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Storytelling with Dianne de Las Casas

Why Storytelling Is a Vital Art Form

Storytelling engages the listener in whole brain activity. Both the logical and creative sides of the mind are utilized when listening to a story. In addition, storytelling does the following:

• Encourages appreciation of language and literature

• Demonstrates values

• Promotes literacy

• Teaches communication and social skills

• Celebrates cultural diversity

• Preserves history

• Inspires creativity

• Engages the imagination

Through the oral tradition, we preserve the past and help shape the future.

How to Shape Stories

Shaping stories for telling and retelling follow three basic principles:

1. Build the story around a good plot.
2. Create characters that audiences will care about.
3. Good dialogue moves the story along.

Crafting the tellable story is an art. Written stories often need to be recrafted because the language is not suited to the oral tradition. What looks good on paper does not necessarily sound good to the listening audience. When telling a story orally, many dialogue introductions, such as “He said” and “She said” may be dropped because the teller is conveying that through body language and vocal characterization. 

Storytelling is often less formal than written language, even conversational in style. There are, of course, times when a more formal presentation of a story is appropriate, such as with literary stories or period pieces. Individual stories will differ. A “Brer Rabbit” tale will engage audiences with the loose, conversational style of the South, while the tale of “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe will need to retain its archaic language and structure.

Learning Stories

To learn a story, you must first live with the story. If you are learning a story from a printed version, read and reread the story several times. If you are crafting an original tale or a story from an oral source, it helps to write down the outline of the story line.

The story should become a part of you so that when you open your mouth to tell the story, the words magically fall from your lips. Kendall Haven, a renowned storyteller and author, says, “There are two parts to the word storytelling: ‘story’ and ‘telling.’ Beginning tellers often focus just on the telling part and forget to spend enough time understanding and learning the story so well that they could tell it naturally as if it had
really happened to them.”

Many beginning tellers make the mistake of trying to memorize a story word for word. This creates a problem when you are in the middle of telling the story and you struggle to remember the exact words. When this happens, you end up losing your place entirely, forgetting the story. There are several ways to learn a story without memorizing it. Storytellers of national reputation build repertoires of hundreds of stories by
practicing one or more of the following techniques.

Memorize Your Opening Line
Without memorizing the entire story, make the opening line significant and remember it.
Outline the Story
Write down the bare bones of the story from beginning to end.
Create a Storyboard
If you are a visual learner, draw your stories out, scene by scene, like a cartoon. A great example of a storyboard can be found at the Eduplace.com website.
Visualize the Story
Like a director directing a play, you are the director of the theater of your mind. Visualize how the story takes place in your imagination. Use words that describe what you are seeing.
Type the Story
If you are a visual/tactile learner, you may enjoy learning stories by absorbing them and then retyping them.
Listen to the Story
If you are an aural learner, record the story onto a voice recorder and listen to it. Many of today’s cell phones are even equipped with voice recorders that can then be synced to your computer! Take advantage of technology.
Fill in the Details
After you have learned the bones of your story, fill in the details using the visual pictures that you have created in your mind.
Memorize Repeating Refrains
With audience participation, there is often a repeating refrain. These lines should be memorized so that you can deliver them consistently, fulfilling the audience’s expectations.
Memorize Your Last Line
To give dramatic punch to your story, create a significant ending line that ties the pieces of your story together.
Keep Good Source Notes
It is always a good idea to keep track of the sources from where your stories originated. Sometimes, a storyteller needs to access their research to fill in story details or add participation elements to the tale.

If you are telling a traditional folktale, you may want to incorporate a traditional folktale beginning and ending. A great list of folktale openings and closings can be found in Tim and Leanne Jennings’s “Folktale Openings and Closings” at http://www.folktale.net.

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Excerpted from "Chapter 1: How to Tell A Story" from 

Tell Along Tales!: Playing with Participation Stories 

By award-winning storyteller Dianne de Las Casas

This book makes the perfect addition to teachers' and librarians' story time selections, containing 25 educational and entertaining tales from around the world as well as proven storytelling techniques.