So, I was messing around the other day, trying to get a handle on this whole ‘split film awards’ thing. Sounds pretty specific, right? Well, it started as a simple idea, as these things often do, and then, well, it took on a life of its own. I just wanted to make a neat list, but it turns out ‘awards’ aren’t always neat.
My Tangle with Those Award Lists
I figured, okay, how hard can it be? You’ve got the award, the movie that won, the year. Simple. So I started pulling together some information, just, you know, looking around, trying to get it all into one place. My goal was just a personal database, something I could easily look through.
But then the trouble started. You get these awards, right, and sometimes it’s not just one winner for one thing. Or a movie wins, like, five awards from the same body, but they’re all for different technical bits. My straightforward list was quickly becoming a disaster. It was like, ‘Best Picture’ was easy, but then what about ‘Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Vision’ or when three people share a ‘Best Screenplay’ award? It was a real headache, I tell ya.
That’s when I realized I had to properly split them. Not just by the overall award show, but dig deeper. Here’s kind of what I ended up doing:
- I started by trying to break down the big, vague award categories. If an award was for ‘Technical Excellence’, I tried to find out what specific excellence. Sound? Editing? Cinematography?
- Then, for movies that won multiple things, even small things, I gave each win its own line. So, ‘Movie X – Best Sound Mixing’, ‘Movie X – Best Original Song’, instead of just ‘Movie X – 2 awards’.
- I also had to make some judgment calls. Some awards are from tiny festivals, others are the big guns. I didn’t want to treat them all the same, so I tried to add some context for myself, like the importance of the award giver.
It was a lot of just staring at lists and names, trying to make sense of it all. Felt like I was an archaeologist, dusting off old relics, except these relics were digital and about movies. After a good chunk of time, more than I’d care to admit, I had a system. It wasn’t perfect, but it was my system. I could finally sort and filter things in a way that actually told me something interesting, beyond just who won the top prize.
And Why Was I Doing All This, You Ask?
It’s pretty funny when I think about it. I spent a whole weekend fiddling with this. My partner walked in on me, surrounded by notes and with about ten browser tabs open, and just raised an eyebrow. “Organizing the world’s film awards, are we?” they asked. And I was like, “Yep, pretty much!”
The truth is, I was supposed to be clearing out the garage. It’s been a disaster zone for months, maybe years. Boxes piled up to the ceiling, stuff I haven’t seen since we moved in. Every time I thought about tackling it, I’d just feel this wave of… ugh. So, this film award project? It was a distraction, sure. But it was also like, here was this messy data, and I could actually wrestle it into submission. I could create order from this specific chaos, even if the chaos in the garage remained untouched.
I guess we all find our own ways to feel a bit of control, eh? When the big tasks feel too much, sometimes sorting out something completely unrelated, something you can actually finish, feels pretty darn good. My film award list is now a thing of beauty, at least to me. The garage, well, that’s still on the to-do list. Maybe I’ll get to it next week. Or maybe I’ll find another wonderfully distracting data project first. Who knows!
