LOS ANGELES — Breathing new life into a controversy that dogged the motion picture academy in the run-up to this year's Oscars, American Cinema Editors released a video statement on Monday blasting the organization for leaving editing and other vital filmmaking crafts "on the cutting-room floor" at this year's ceremony.
"We feel cheated, insulted and angry by the way our art was deemed superfluous in favor of bloated performances and spectacle," said the 1,000-plus member organization in its statement, criticizing the academy's handling of eight crafts and short-film awards that were handed out off-air in the hour before the telecast began.
Nearly a month after the Oscars, emotions are still running high among many academy members over the academy's much-maligned decision to hand out eight less starry awards — film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design, and sound, as well as the three short-film categories — before the live show began. The winners' speeches were later edited into the broadcast in truncated form in an effort to trim the often bloated telecast to under three hours.
