Oscar preparations: Strategies for sleeping and social media participation
I’m probably the only blogger around who hasn’t written an Oscar prediction post and it seems a bit late to change that at this point. Frankly, I’ve had an overdose of it. I’m not into betting so I don’t give a crap about other people’s guesses.
But even if I’m not into the prediction business, I plan to follow the ceremony, and I need to prepare accordingly, making some decisions.
Sleeping strategy
Living in a different timezone means that you must come up with a sleeping strategy. Since it’s scheduled to start at 2.30 am, the night between Sunday and Monday, it’s a bit rough on anyone who as a daytime work and hasn’t been able to take the next day off. So what to do?
One way to go is to turn the day and night around, staying up later and later the nights before the Oscars until you can remain awake throughout the ceremony and then go to work, using your best acting skills to hide the fact that you’re a wreck.
You can also go the opposite way, getting to bed about the same time as your six years old child (real or imagined) and set the alarm for a very early morning. Or alternatively you’ll skip the sleep and rely on coffee. We all know how difficult it is to fall asleep at different tme than we’re used to, so why even bother trying?
I’ve decided to have a go at the sleep-before-the-show strategy this year. I’ve heard so many pre-Oscar discussions on podcasts recently that I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything if I skip the pre-show talk. I can as well try to get a nap.
Social media
The next thing you need is a social media strategy. Where should I hang out during the show? Physically there’s no question about it; I will be half sitting, half lying on my coach in the living room in front of the TV with the labtop in my knee. But I’m speaking of the mental room. My attention span is limited. I can only follow that many sources of information at the same time, so where do I look and what people will I listen to?
The show will be broadcasted in an obscure Swedish channel with commentary by two Swedish hosts. Obviously I’ll be following this. Then there’s the Twitter feed in my phone that will explode as it always does on those occasions. A blogger I know will be live blogging and last year a lot of the Swedish film bloggers gathered at her place, chatting with each other. And then there’s the chat room over at the Filmspotting forum, I’m pretty sure I’ll meet many good friends if I pop in there tonight.
And so on. To summarize it, there will be more ideas and views flying around in the air than my poor brain can handle, at least at that time in the morning. I can feel my brain melting already, and the show hasn’t even started.
One way to go could be to take a timeout from social media this night and just watch the Oscar ceremony vanilla. But then again I’ll miss out a great part of what made this event fun to me last year: to meet up with film fans you know from all over the world at this ungodly hour, experiencing the same thing as they do at the same time.
Time will show where I’ll end up. Maybe we’ll meet tonight in a chat room or a Twitter feed during the commercial breaks (that’s what they are for.) A if not, we’ll share our thoughts the following days, in blog posts and comments.
Either you choose to sleep or not to sleep, either you decide to participate or to stay away from social media, I wish you a happy Oscar watching night!
See you on the other side!
The Velvet Café 
I’m lucky not to have the sleep problem, but still do need to decide on a social media strategy. Last time I tried to do too many things and ended up feeling like I’d missed the show. So this year I think I’m going to skip the live blogging aspect and just focus on twitter.
nevertooearlymp
February 24, 2013 at 6:37 pm
I agree on the social media. I will try to cut down on it too. As it stands now I think I’ll throw a glance at Twitter in the breaks or during boring stretches.
Jessica
February 24, 2013 at 7:12 pm
I’ve not done any Oscar predictions either, purely because I haven’t seen everything so I don’t feel how I can make a proper judgement. I wish I could stay up and watch but I have work in the morning and I’ll just be a zombie. Twitter would definitely be my online location of choice if I were watching it though.
Terry Malloy's Pigeon Coop
February 24, 2013 at 6:40 pm
As I get it you can make predictions regardless if you’ve seen the film in question or not. It’s more about understanding the politics. Which I have absolutely no idea about. I have owrk in the morning too, but I’ll go for the zombie option still. Hope to get a couple of hours of sleep though.
Jessica
February 24, 2013 at 7:14 pm
I’d love see to it but I don’t have cable tv that’s showing. I’m really hoping I get a live link somewhere on the Internet. That’s a good idea about using twitter, I think I’ll do that as well. Cheers Jessica.
Mark Walker
February 24, 2013 at 7:07 pm
Hopefully you’ll find something. If I wasn’t following it on TV I would probably check out NY Times. They’ll have some kind of live commentary as far as I understand it. I’d love to follow that if I wasn’t so busy already.
Jessica
February 24, 2013 at 7:16 pm
I wish you luck in your viewing endeavor. We Americans don’t realize how spoiled we are sometimes with things like this I suppose.
As far as Oscar predictions go, I really wish more predictors would get crazy and have fun with it and make insane guesses. That’s what I try to do. Really, do we need 8 million making the exact same picks?
Nick
February 24, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Well, once all the nominations are official, it’s a little hard to go super crazy, isn’t it? Not that much to choose from. 🙂 But yeah, I guess all people going for Lincoln or Argo as their predicted best movie has to do with the longing to actually be right. Personally I’d rather read about people’s own favorites, how they’d vote if they were in the Oscar jury, than about their predictions, which I don’t give a crap about.
Jessica
February 24, 2013 at 7:26 pm
Happy Oscar night, Jessica! Hope you have fun and don’t feel like hell tomorrow at work. Don’t know what my strategy would be if I was in a different time zone. I’d still watch of course, but I’d have to work out a plan like you.
fernandorafael
February 24, 2013 at 8:48 pm
Thanks Fernando! I’m in the middle of it now. Though I failed a little Overslept, missing out the first 1,5 hrs. Oh well.
Jessica
February 25, 2013 at 5:49 am
I’m glad to be busy during the Oscar presentations. I’ll read the summary after the fact, because the ceremony itself is unbelievably dull for me. And I don’t really care who wins, because it seems to make no sense. The Filmspots are the more important awards for me 🙂
stevekimes
February 24, 2013 at 8:53 pm
Of course they are! This year I’ve watched far more of the nominees than last year, so I’m really looking forwad to it. I wonder if the winners ever will know they won…
Jessica
February 25, 2013 at 5:55 am
So far extremely satisfied with my strategy. Woke up in time and the live blogging/chat made the whole night very enjoyable indeed. But we missed you there 😉 And how did your daughter like the dancing JGL?
Sofia
February 25, 2013 at 8:31 am
After oversleeping it took me some time to get on the train. Watching the TV and checking Twitter once in a while was all I could manage in the shape I was. Dancing JGL? I must have been sleeping. Anyway she was sound asleep througout the night. I guess I can always catch up on Youtube.
Jessica
February 25, 2013 at 8:38 am