The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended membership invitations to 112 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves in the field of theatrical motion pictures. The group will be the only new voting members invited to join the organization in 2005.
“Our decision to slow the growth of the Academy, and to become even more selective in our membership process, is working,” said Academy President Frank Pierson in the press release. “The branch membership committees understand what the Academy is trying to do and have begun searching for the top exemplars in their respective areas, presenting to the board only their most impressive candidates.”
The membership procedures instituted last year allow the organization to grow — after filling vacancies resulting from deaths and members opting for retired (non-voting) status — by a maximum of thirty new members annually. Pierson said that even if all the 2005 invitees accept their invitations, the Academy’s number of voting members will actually shrink slightly compared to the roster of voting members at the same time period in 2004. “We’re in the early stages of a slow but deliberate refining process, ” he said.
Candidates for Academy membership are normally proposed by members and then considered by committees made up of prominent representatives of each of the organization’s fourteen branches — art directors, executives, film editors, etc. In addition, individuals nominated for Academy Awards, if not already members of the organization, are automatically considered by the appropriate committees, though not necessarily invited to membership.
Though the great majority of AMPAS members are based in the U.S., membership is open to qualified filmmakers around the world. The Academy roster currently includes theatrical motion picture makers from 36 countries.
New members will be welcomed into the organization at an invitation-only reception on Wednesday, September 21, at the Academy’s Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills.
Among the 2005 invitees is Apple and Pixar CEO Steven Jobs.
Full article here.
Where’s Billy Boy’s invite?
And Steve Ballmer, and Donut Boy from Real? I thought they were the REAL innovators…
MW: money – how ironic.
I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have someone like me as a member.
Is this Mac Daily News or Jobs Daily News?
What a non-item, guys.
I disagree that this is a non-item. You could argue that this shows Steve (and by association Apple and Pixar) have garnered some well deserved respect. With this sort of recognition, do you think the movie industry would pull something like what is going on in music right now with the copy-protected CD’s not working with iTunes?
I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have someone like me as a member.
Al
You must be a PC user stealing quotes like this. Please give credit where credit is due
Maybe Steve can turn around the movie industry too…
“You must be a PC user stealing quotes like this. Please give credit where credit is due”
You must be a Mac user, assuming that all PC users are thieves…
blanket stereotyping bad.
I wouldn’t want to join a club that would have someone like me as a member.
–Groucho Marx
With the recent news items that M$ and Apple and Sony etc. are battling for the living room, this actually speaks volumes about who’s winning that race.
I don’t want to poo-poo this but… oh, hell, yes I do. Look, the AMPAS is a joke. That’s why the Oscars are a joke. Siskel & Ebert used to explain this every year back when Siskel was still around. It’s a club of well-connected people, some of whom are only tangentially involved with movies, if at all, voting on the best movies of the year. Hell, often they haven’t even seen the films when they vote on them!
Yeah, but I don’t really think that’s the point. Being accepted into the academy paves an in-road for Apple Computer, Inc. as an entertainment oriented company. Gets them in good with the studios, allows them more room to set standards in the industy, and to spread their technologies to the production houses.
It’s good for Pixar, I would imagine, as they’ll likely be shopping for a distributor for films after Cars.