OSCAR DREAMS

For many, winning an Oscar or any award that recognizes excellence of craft, is a dream. It starts young, maybe watching the dress-up glitz and glamour on the TV screen or perhaps less altruistically, dreaming of the additional bucks and power an Oscar win sometimes bring. Whatever the reason, there are those who dream of walking that red carpet one day. And there are those who actually get there.
This time of year is officially the beginning of what is known in Hollywood as "Award Season," the weeks of new releases, promotions and parties that result in an award nomination. Or not. Historically it's the time that studios and distributors roll out their Oscar hopefuls onto the big screen. It's also the time when more "thinking" films are premiered, or so it's said. Trade-to-trade publications, like the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety used to love this time of year because it translated into big dollars from all the ads those studios and other trade business' would place to promote their films and stars.

But in recent years  "Awards Season" and ad money have not walked hand-in-hand. The growth of the internet, the continuing bad economy, and the uncharted world of non-traditional media advertising have for the most part taken away the big ad dollars for the trade-to-trade  business', diminishing their own sales staff's "oscar dreams" of pricey cover ads and those I'm-going-to-Paris bonuses.

But back to those wide-eyed Oscar dreaming creatives. Over time, many of those dreamers own golden aspirations have been tarnished or squashed by the entertainment industry's "politics." Good actors who watch roles go to not the best audition,  but to the best in bed. Talented writer's who take dozens of meetings and are told over and over again they are brilliant only to never be produced. Directors who spend years as an AD wondering what they may have said or who they may have pissed off to keep them forever in the second position. No matter what the craft or what the dream, everyone reaches that crossroad, that threshold of obstacle or mini day of reckoning that requires one of those life-changing decisions: go forward, stay put or turn back.

And what happens from there is the stuff of an Oprah, Dr. Phil or Good Morning America segment . The dreamer either walks the red carpet, or not. The journey is either a rewarding one or not. A person's life is either made rich by the experience, the situations and the people, or not.

It takes true strength, courage, and more than a little craziness for anyone to aspire to creative heights. Red carpet dreams or not. Seriously, what other vocation is based on so subjective a success?

So here's a toast to those that do, those that dream to be the next Clooney, or Fuqua, or Spielberg or Apatow, Jolie, Hardwicke or Fey.