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''And the award goes to...the movie with the best website.''
They'll probably never be that influential, but studio websites targeted solely to industry awards voters are beginning to play a role in lobbying for votes. Universal is touting Out of Sight and One True Thing to decision makers in the Oscar, Golden Globe, and other awards races at awards. universalpictures.com. Sony's Columbia TriStar is similarly pushing Godzilla and Stepmom at a subsection of its official site, www.sony.com, and New Line's arty Fine Line division is promoting Hurlyburly at www.flf.com/awards. Then there's scrappy independent Trimark, which celebrates Slam and the James Woods-Melanie Griffith picture Another Day in Paradise at perhaps the most nakedly ambitious URL of all: 4yourconsideration.com.
'''Foryourconsideration' was already taken,'' concedes David Elzer, vice president of worldwide marketing for Trimark. Whatever the name, this new wrinkle springs from necessity: In addition to lavish ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, studios had until recently been sending out pricey gifts and elaborate video presentations to promote their films' award potential. About five years ago, though, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started clamping down on such mailings to its members. Studios are even prohibited from including stars' biographies and positive reviews in their mailed materials. The possible penalty is stiff: loss of coveted tickets to the Academy Awards ceremony. So studios went looking for a new way to court influential voters -- and what better place than the Web, where you can post video clips, star biographies, positive reviews, and industry screening schedules?
Of course, Academy voters are notoriously -- shall we say -- of a certain age. Still, Nevin Shalit, director of new-media projects for Fine Line (which discovered the power of the Net as far back as 1994, with a consumer e-mail campaign for the documentary Hoop Dreams), thinks the effort is well worth it. ''I think a lot of the older Academy voters do use the Web, even if it's through things like WebTV,'' he says. ''But even if we're only reaching the younger segment of voters, so much the better. If we can get a little more interest, it gives us more of a shot.''
Michael Battaglia, awards consultant to Columbia TriStar, cites another reason Web promotion is increasingly popular: ''It's cheaper than buying a trade ad,'' he laughs. Like Fine Line's, Columbia TriStar's site is an adjunct to its consumer website, but you have to know the full address to get to it. ''This site is only for a select group of people,'' says Ira Rubenstein, vice president of marketing for Columbia TriStar Interactive. ''We only want them looking at it.''
The studio gets the word out to the industry through mailings and trade ads, which include the site address. So far, these online efforts seem to meet with the Academy's approval, though it's keeping a close eye on the situation. ''Every time we think we've handled a particular issue, another question comes up,'' sighs Ric Robertson, executive administrator at the Academy. ''The big concern [among the studios] is that they don't want someone else getting away with something when they're obeying the rules.''
