Of the many movie related awards that start to add to the ‘buzz’ a movie receives from around the Thanksgiving weekend through and up to the Oscars®, there’s three primary awards that garner the most attention.  The award with the highest profile and considered by many to be an indicator of Oscar® winners are the Golden Globes.  And yes, I beg to differ!

Rising to the forefront in recent years is the People’s Choice Awards.  The general public votes winners for these awards.  For the past 37 years, many of Hollywood's most popular actors, musicians, television shows and movies have been named People's Choice Award winners by their fans. The event began in 1975 with 14 categories; winners included Mary Tyler Moore, Barbra Streisand and The Sting.  In 2010, there were over 40 categories.  All though these awards have no influence on the Oscars®, they do have influence for box office grosses.

Next are the various press awards which includes critics’ societies throughout the world who make their selections with many of the categories’ mirroring the Academy Awards®.  I’m a member of the Phoenix Film Critics Society, which is the official association that represents the movie reviewing press for the state of Arizona.  And yes, we also casted our ballots and presented our awards in 26 categories, mirroring most of the categories presented by the Academy.

Just recently the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards were presented by representatives from more than 180 countries and are members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) to recognize excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign. The annual formal ceremony and dinner at which the awards are presented is a major part of the film industry's awards season, which culminates each year with the Academy Awards®.

The 1st Golden Globe Awards were held in January 1944 at the 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles. The 68th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television for 2010, were presented on January 16, 2011, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where they have been held annually since 1961.

I’ve worked in the motion picture industry for 22 years before retiring in 2008.  The awards that I became aware of early on are the various Craft Awards.  These awards are voted on by the members of the various unions and guilds that represent the personnel of various working departments on production projects within the industry. Their primary function is providing the benefits, the working conditions, health & welfare plans, salary, and retirement plans.  The unions and guilds also hold their own awards recognizing creative expertise within the various working disciplines.  The awards cover a wide range of various working disciplines within their respective unions/guilds, everything from cinematography, costume designers, visual effects, well, you get the idea.

These craft awards are the ones that I follow very closely and use as an indicator on who is more likely to be an Oscar® winner, and not the Golden Globes which have virtually no direct input for Oscar® nominations or winners.  The Golden Globe voters are not members of the Academy so how can they be an influence on the Oscars.  The Motion Picture Industry honors, which I commonly refer to as the ‘craft awards’ gives a more accurate indicator to who may receive an Oscar because many members of the various unions and guilds belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences®, whose members cast votes for the nominations and Oscar® winners.  So, the Golden Globes have no direct influence on who may receive an Oscar® while the individual craft awards has a better statistical record for an indication on who will more than likely receive an Oscar®.

What indications, you may ask, am I basing this bold statement?  Lets take a look at the six primary categories for the Oscars® for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor/Supporting Actor and Best Actress/Supporting Actress.  We’ll start with the acting category.  The union/guild that represents actors for the normal day-to-day aspects of working is the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).  Each year the SAG Awards are held, before the Oscars®, as well as the other ‘craft awards’. The Screen Actors Guild awards (SAG) very often provide a strong indicator in four major categories, Best/Supporting Actor/Actress eventual Oscar® winners.  In 2009, all four guild award winners won the same honors at the Oscars® – Best Actor & Best Actress Sandra Bullock for ‘The Blind Side’ and Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart" and Best Supporting Awards Oscars® to Mo'Nique for ‘Precious’ and Christoph Waltz for ‘Inglourious Basterds.’

The next category is Best Director.  The union/guild that represents the directors working in the industry as well as assistant directors, production managers, and technical coordinators is the Directors Guild of America (DGA). This guild I’m most familiar with while working in the industry since a lot of my work came under their jurisdiction. The Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film has been one of the industry's most accurate indicators for who will win the Best Director Academy Award.  56 out of the last 62 times since the DGA Award's began in 1949; the DGA Award winner has received the Best Director Academy Award!

And now, Best Picture. This category is what I call the ‘wild card’ category since the nominations and winners come from the total Academy® membership for voting. The Producers Guild of America award (PGA) widely considered a key indicator of which film will win the Academy Award for Best Picture, has a good, though not infallible, record for indicating Oscar winners.  Over the past ten years, the PGA winner went on to win the best picture Oscar 60% of the time. 

So, when I hear statements like, the Golden Globes is favoring a certain film or person as a ‘shoe-in’ for an Oscar®, I just smile…