2 A'C~";:.-::,,"'; : """:n ~~r-------------------------------------------------------__ S~(-:~ ~.;~ C ~·: ': / ~ ~-~f'!: ----- / Interview with Howard W. Koch Howard W. Koch is the producer of the 44th Annual Academy Awards, to be held at the Music Center on April 10 and telecast over the NBC network. Mr. Koch's office at Paramount is the nerve center of this year's show and one afternoon, recently, we interrupted his preparations to ask him if he would enumerate some of the problems in putting together an Awards presentation. The difficult part of producing an Awards show stage at the end, all the presenters and winners is the inability to get the people you want, the and performers, and have a finish song. We've presenters, the stars, the glamour. Nominees talked about maybe, seeing it's Chaplin's birth­ don't seem to want to come. They' re not avail­ day, doing 'Happy Birthday' at the end. We're able. It makes it very difficult, and you have to still trying to make up our minds. compromise. It's always settling, rather than I got involved with this in December, and I getting what you really want. don't think that was early enough. Whoever Logistically it's an impossible kind of thing, produces next year should start sometime in too, because you're dealing with about 600 September, because this is a big job. We've people-the nominees, their agents, their busi­ been using glamour and nostalgia as our theme, ness agents, their press agents, their agents' but it wasn't until January we knew we had agents-and the presenters. Chaplin. Anytime you go after a presenter, you have to The first thing you do when you get the re­ go through his agent and his public relations quest to produce the show is to look at last man, so it takes time and energy, much more year's script, and the year before and the year than making a plain old movie. With a movie before, to see how you can improve on it or get you' re hiring people and you pay them, but a show as good. Looking at last year's show, when you're doing the Academy Awards you' re seeing the format of the Friends of Oscar, we always dealing with people who have other felt it didn't give the presenters a real introduc­ commitments. tion. This year we try to give them an entrance. One of the big problems is, always, what do I learned at least that. the girls wear? " I don't have the dress, I don't We try to write a screenplay and have a con­ have the right dress, should it be decollete or tinuity. Write a first draft, then try to change it, very simple and a high neck?" For each girl on bring it together, get it better all the time. We're the show you have to go through that with the trying to avoid being too cute. Last year had people who are doing the clothes. This year some cutesies. But each year you learn a little. we're asking the girls to wear one of three Another problem this year is the minor colors, black, white or gray. And we' re thinking awards. Naturally they don't seem minor to the about tails for the men-but it's tough for a lot people nominated, but we know the visual of guys to get tails. effects man is not going to be a personality the And, of course, everybody says "Will you pay whole world wants to see. Sometimes three or for it?" Wherever they may be they want to be four share an award. We don't want each of paid to be brought. Even the nominees want to them to get up and thank Mr. Zanuck. I hope be paid transportation. If I were nominated I they' ll understand. I hope I'd be smart enough, would swim across the ocean. if it were me, to say "Thank you, it was great The show, this year, looks like it's going to be to produce the picture," and walk off. But very different in many ways. We have a begin­ you' re dealing with people, and can never pre­ ning and end, which we never had before. If dict how their emotions will run. you remember, last year and all the other years, This year we' re using Liza Minnelli. That could they said: " Ladies and Gentlemen, the President be a very emotional moment, because she's of the Academy welcomes .... " This year we' re giving the Best Song Award. Songs are very going to start and finish with a number. We're much a part of her life and, although the words going to try and get everybody back on the we use are not directly about her mother, she 3 is saying that "music and lyrics have been some­ the set-up. There are really two production units thing of my life ever since I was born." working, and this results in some duplication of Charlie Chaplin should be very emotional. expenditure. You'd never make a movie that We don't know how to rehearse that. Wi" he way. But otherwise we' re moving right along. get an ovation, or won't he? We've been trying Also there's a problem with the Music Center. to figure out, maybe five minutes, maybe six. You can 't get the lights where you want them, Could be twenty. We thought we should re­ you can 't nail anything, everything has to be hearse the ovation on the days we rehearse at hung. We've always had a flat light on the audi­ the Music Center. But then we thought, maybe ence before but, this year, we' re trying for a not, maybe it ought to be completely spon­ little more mood. That stage is big, and we're taneous. These decisions have to be made right using a" of it. up to air time. I notice NBC is advertising April 10 at 7:00, Camera is three days. The last two are the and every time I hear that I think, We'd better heaviest. Sunday, we get a" the nominees and be there! There are a few sticky days before we presenters. We go through them quickly. Then, start construction on the sets, before the Monday we have the dress. That's three days dancers start, before the costumes are designed. down at the Music Center. Of course, we' re Everything looks as if it wi" never come to­ rehearsing here at Paramount for three weeks. gether. It's the same as movies. The toughest 32 dancers this year, and a very mobile set. thing about movies is the preparation, but once Everything wi" be reflected in that set. you have a starting date you gotta go. It's like I' m known in my business for hitting a budget, pushing off a ski jump run, once you're started but I don't think anyone has ever made the you have to go down. budget on the show, because there's a defect in 4 An Overview of Animation by Philip Chamberlin TIME OF THE VAMPI RE is a Yugoslav film d irected by Nikola Mctjdak. It is part of the International Animated Film Exhibition, to be held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in April. Animation is the oldest kind of film making, is the International Animated Film Association developing from the phenikistoscope, invented (ASIFA) formed some ten years ago by the lead­ in 1832 by the Belgian professor, Plateau, and ing animators of several countries as a mean of from a multitude of 19th century toys. Through keeping abreast of new developments. this same period photography was being in­ The Cannes Film Festival featured special ani­ vented and perfected-the first black-and-white mation programs in 1956 and 1958. Then, in photograph was produced in 1839, the first 1960, the Cannes programs were transferred to color photo in 1861 , the first roll-film camera in Annecy, and an international congress of film 1888-and when photographs were substituted makers was held there. Twenty-eight countries for drawings and technology supplied the nec­ were represented, ASIFA was organized, chan­ essary mechanism, then movies were born. nels of communication were set up, a quarterly Modern animation is defined as 'frame-by­ bulletin was founded, and plans for annual ani­ frame' filming, and is not limited to the drawn mated film festivals were laid out. figure. Through freeze-frame and stop-frame Why did all these things happen? Possibly the the human figure can be animated, and in mod­ main reason was changing conditions in theatri­ ern animation a mixture of the human and the cal exhibition, with short films increasingly drawn can often be seen . Cartoons are a sub­ forced out of the programs by lengthening fea­ division of animation, cited for Academy tures. But, whatever the economic reasons be­ Awards since 1931. The Award, finally extended hind it, there can be no doubt that this co­ this year to all animation, has provided an im­ operation has been enormously beneficial, ar­ portant encouragement to excellence in what is tistically. The formation of ASIFA gave an im­ probably the most sharply defined of film petus to the creation of good animated short genres. films. These developments have not as yet, un­ It is also true of animation that its creators, fortunately, been adequately reflected in the the only film makers whose work can truly be Academy Awards, perhaps because rule changes explained by the so-called auteur theory, are have not kept pace with changing conditions.