Vanity Fair: The accidental envelope switch during the Oscars’ best-picture presentation Sunday might be the memory about the ceremony that lingers longest. But according to host Jimmy Kimmel, there was another mishap earlier in the day during rehearsal—one viewers never saw.
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I don't think the severity of this mistake was emphasized in this article or in any article, and I'm upset and curious about the lack of information on the incident. Reading Jimmy Kimmel's comments, you can get a sense of how scared he was after the 20 or 30 foot set pieces fell to the ground. He said that people thought a bomb was going off, and that Jimmy Kimmel's wife hid their daughter under a table. The rest of the article was written in a more matter-of-fact manner, but the first hand accounts make the event seem terrifying. I tried to look online for more info about this but I found next to nothing. I think it would be a great idea if they released some report on why it happened so the rest of the industry could learn from it- instead of sweeping it under the rug. Also, for a group of artists getting together to congratulate themselves on their art, I wish there was actually recognition of the set designer or lighting designer in these events.
When I clicked on this article, I thought it was going to discuss the fact that Janet Patterson, who is alive, was included in the “In Memoriam” montage. And, though it was mentioned at the end of the article, I think her story deserves the name of “Another Oscars Mishap” more than the set toppling incident does. I believe this because, though the set toppled, it did not occur during the Oscars itself and it did not cause any real harm except perhaps a destroyed piece of the set. The set toppling incident is also so poorly described – “…I was onstage. I stepped offstage…” so, was he on or off the stage when this happened? Did Jimmy stepping off stage cause the set to fall? There are so many unanswered details – and so concisely discussed that it almost seems as though Vanity Fair also believes the set falling is not important enough to dedicate a whole article to and simply exists to allow for a clickbait article.
I do want to mention that I am not trying to sound cold because I am very glad that no one was physically injured in the mishap, but I just feel as though the title is very misrepresentative of what the article is discussing.
Obviously, accidents happen, especially in such a fast load in, load out like the Oscars. But, I am shocked that this big of a problem occurred hours before the show opened. I guess this was the year for problems as far as the Oscars go. I am sure the production staff is kicking themselves, but with this many instances occurring in one production is going to show a lack of preparation and quality control from many people. Here at CMU, we had a problem where one of our stairs just gave out on the Ragtime set. Luckily the person that was standing on them had a hand on a railing, so the damage was limited. Still, it makes me wonder what other problem could have been overlooked in the build process. Especially, on a big build like this, I would have liked to see more quality control from faculty advisors and other shop supervisors. Even when things are notated on a drawing does not mean it will be executed. I guess the lesson to be learned from this is be more cautious about sending stuff to production.
What a crazy night the Oscars had wasn't it, that is more crazy than the usual awkward jokes. I agree with jimmy on this one, yes it night have sucked for the team of LaLa Land to find out that they didn't win best picture but someone could have died because of this collapse. I wonder if there are any more details surrounding this. Was the set just not finished? did they forget to use screws? I honestly have no idea what could have possibly been forgotten for a mistake this big to happen. I am very happy no one was hurt, but I am just really curious. What was going on over there that day? The author did a good job at getting the audience interested in this topic but gives us no details into the matter, leaving us confused and wanting answers. Hopefully these situations will help the team of the next Oscar award show better prepare for anything that could go wrong.
This just goes to show that no production is perfect, there will always be hiccups and bumps in the road, and the Oscars are no exception. I first heard about this at the end of my rigging stagecraft class on Thursday, and i was shocked to hear that such a professional production could make a mistake like that which could have cost someone their life, or at least badly hurt someone. Im definitely glad nobody was hurt in this instance, but i bet the production staff was pretty upset about it, and considering what happened later that night, they really didn't get off easy with this show. This is why it's so important to check and re-check all steps of your production or else you put people in danger, and that is not a position anyone wants to be in. i hope the team for the Oscars will learn from their mistakes this year so that they can be more prepared for the next show.
I wish this article had been written by someone other than Vanity Fair, because I'd love to read more about the accident and how this was fixed before the show went on. The article made it seem terrifying, but didn't go into any detail on the cause or results of the accident. I can't imagine an accident that major could have left everything unscathed. Most events have hiccups, sure, but this is next level. Towers bigger than what Ragtime used falling would certainly cause major damage and trauma, and had it been Ragtime, the show would have been delayed in a major way, so I'm surprised I hadn't seen more about this. In general, I'm surprised this wasn't a bigger deal--though I'm not surprise the production companies involved would avoid publicizing this. Overall, I hope I am able to read more about this in the next few events, as it would be interesting to see what went wrong.
I understand why no one had said anything about part of the set collapsing. It looks bad on the Oscars for not having a stable set. It’s the Oscars they should be able to afford the best that will not break. But it did. I wonder how long it took them to fix the broken set pieces and what went wrong for them to fall like that. The 2017 Oscars seemed to have been just a huge mess overall. Starting with the set breaking, to the wrong person being shown in the in memrioum section and ending with the wrong movie being named best picture. I am not sure who’s if anyone is at fault for some of these mistakes. But if mistakes like this keep happening the Oscars are going to become less credible as time goes on. Hopefully for next year’s broadcast they will fix all the mistakes from this year and the show will be the best one yet!
Okay well I definitely would call this more than a mishap considering two huge set pieces came crashing down. At least from my perspective this is a much bigger deal than the envelop switch up that happened when Best Picture was announced. During that incident the only thing that was hurt was people's feelings, but something much worse might have happened when the set fell down. I think that the Oscars need to issue an apology about this to Jimmy Kimmel and anyone else who was nearby onstage, because if they had been any closer there's a chance they could have been seriously injured or killed. You would think that a show that is at this high a level would be more cautious about this, but it seems like this wasn't the case. Maybe next year they'll take more care and double check everything, but as of right now I've lost a lot of respect for the Oscars on the whole.
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