The Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony has been dubbed the nerd Oscars before – but after Saturday night's show at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, you could also call it the anti-Oscars.
After all, the show began with something that the big show has decided to do away with this year: the live performance of an Oscar-nominated song, in this case the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly" from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
It included far more smart guys than movie stars. Not one of the winners had his speech interrupted by music, even if he pulled out a piece a paper and read a list of thank-yous.
(The choice of pronoun is not sexist: Not one of the 30 winners was female.)
And near the end, it featured a very lengthy and literate speech that took to task all those who think the Academy Awards need updating or freshening.
You won't find any of those things at the big show in two weeks, but they were all on display at the Sci-Tech Awards, an annual tribute to the people who put the Sciences in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The Sci-Tech Awards are a night when an actress (this year, Milla Jovovich) gets to use phrases like "mico-voxels" and "active servos" and "inner actuators" and "motion vector fields" and "high-efficiency anti-halation layer."
"I won't be taking questions," said Jovovich after donning a pair of glasses but before tackling the lengthy and technical descriptions of the eight achievements that were awarded with Sci-Tech Awards by the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards Committee.
In a way, the Sci-Tech Awards honor the folks who give the tools to the ones who'll be getting higher-profile Oscars two weeks from now.
It's easy to say that if it weren't for these guys, Harry Potter wouldn't have his magic and the Transformers wouldn't be able to transform – but it goes beyond that, because the technological advancements also make it possible for cinematographers to shift focus quickly, and directors to position cameras on moving vehicles, and for films to be preserved for generations to come.
They help the big-budget CGI flicks and the smaller art movies; they can help Martin Scorsese make "Hugo," and help preserve the old films that are celebrated in "Hugo."
So while the Sci-Tech Awards are occasionally the subject of a punchline or two on the Oscar show, they're also a necessary part of what the Academy does.
And they drew a full house to the Beverly Wilshire's ballroom – including Oscar show producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer, who sat near the front but were powerless to stop even the lengthiest of the night's speeches.
And as one winner, Pictorvision's Michael Vellekoop, said, "It's really exciting to climb out into the linelight for us backroom boys."
As usual, the evening began with the Sci-Tech Committee chair Richard Edlund welcoming the guest and adding, "Just as in part years, we'd like to … begin the evening's festivities with some great entertainment."
