The nominations for the 2012 Academy Awards have been announced. Sound engineer Resul Pookutty of Slumdog Millionaire remembers his big night - including all the dos and don’ts.
A few months before the 81st Academy Awards, I was working on a project in Los Angeles. I was invited by the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ Guild of America for a screening of The Dark Knight, already being hailed as an Oscar contender. On my way back, I walked past Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center — the venue for the Oscars for the last 11 years. On instinct,
I said to my assistant, “One day, we will come back here.”
In November 2008, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire released in the US. The following January, the nominations for the 2009 Oscars were announced. While Slumdog was already nominated in 10 categories, I was intimated by the Academy (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences or AMPAS) about being nominated in the Sound Mixing category along with Richard Pryke and Ian Tapp for Slumdog. It was a full-circle moment.
The Oscars are a whirlwind of gala affairs. It all begins with an annual “Oscar nominees luncheon” in LA. The luncheon was held on February 2 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. But due to a hectic travel schedule, I couldn’t make it. A R Rahman scolded me for missing the “big affair”!
An AMPAS official, who was assigned to me, mailed me a travel plan with a list of wines and an elaborate menu to choose from during my stay at LA. He also arranged my tickets and visa. My wife, Shadia, and I were flown first-class from Mumbai by Lufthansa Airlines. Waiting for us at the Los Angeles International airport was a chauffeur-driven limousine. It took us to one of the finest five-star hotels in the city, though I can’t recall its name. I was to attend the awards ceremony and the official Oscar’s party, known as the Governor’s Ball, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood & Highland Center. There were also after-parties to attend, organised by Vanity Fair and Fox Searchlight. As long as you had an Oscar in hand, you could walk into any party.
The process of nomination is long. The Academy mails ballots to its members in December. These must be sent to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The results are announced in January at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills.
In the nomination form, I had to describe myself, reasons for choosing filmmaking and favourite scene from Slumdog. Once the ballots are tabulated, only two senior partners at PwC know the results until the famous envelopes are opened. The contract I signed with the Academy had a rather strange condition — forbidding me from selling the Oscar statuette! If I didn’t want to keep it for some strange reason, I was to return it to the Academy.
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The Academy also sent me a video of “dos and don’ts”. It had Oscar veteran Tom Hanks listing the rules of the night. In his trademark tongue-in-cheek style, Hanks drove one significant point home — we had to keep our speeches under 60 seconds! He advised the nominees to make the most of their precious minute and avoid thanking the entire family. He reiterated that if an Oscar-winner exceeds a minute — the countdown appears in front of you on a screen — the microphone simply goes off (though they might be lenient towards the Best Actor/Actress winners). An usher mimes the words “please wind up” and escorts the winner off stage. Naturally, I was terrified.
The dress code was strict, a black tie affair, though we could wear our national dress. I chose a grey bandhgala by Isha Ahluwalia and Darshan Jalan, my lucky charms. The duo had already dressed me for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards which I won.
For the ceremony at 6:30 pm, we had to reach by 5. We had already sent our passport-sized photographs to the Academy’s TV crew to ensure we were recognised. We didn’t face that problem on the red carpet — there was a huge crowd cheering for Slumdog outside the theatre. The carpet leads to a wine and champagne section. Name your choice and they have it.
I was informed that my category was to be announced at 7:20 pm, so I must be in my seat at the time. Every segment is roughly 15 minutes long. Since it is telecast live across the world, we could visit the washroom only during commercial breaks. If one is outside and the next segment begins, he/she isn’t allowed in till the next break. I chose to stay put. Intimidated by Hanks’s jovial, yet tacit, reminder, I rehearsed for hours in front of the mirror. I was seated in front of Penélope Cruz (who also won an Oscar) and next to Heath Ledger’s family (Ledger died in 2008; his family collected his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight).
When my name was announced, I blacked out. I still don’t remember how I walked up to the podium. Tapp and Pryke elected me as the speaker. I remember looking at the usher and hoping I don’t exceed my time! The great Will Smith whom I had met before presented the award. We then walked a “winner’s walk” across the red carpet leading to the “Oscar camera” where we could make a longer speech without a ticking countdown to worry about. My throat was so dry that all I did was drink water in front of the camera.
The official took us to the international press room. ABC (the broadcaster) arranged a photoshoot on the Oscar dais. All I remember is champagne flowing like water. Backstage, I ran into Rahman who was using both his Oscars as dumbbells! “You got one?” he beamed at me. “You got two!” I exclaimed. Steven Spielberg walked up to me and said, “Congratulations, my boy!” I was so dazed that all I could think was how soft his hands were.
But, for Hollywood, Indian cinema is still limited to Satyajit Ray and Bollywood music. I retired to my hotel room at 5 am. Two hours later, a Malayali gentleman brought me some gifts for my daughter. When I said I couldn’t accept them, he said because of me he’d won $14,000. He’d put money on me in “Oscar betting”!
