With this handy Oscar guide, you won't have to own a pair of black-framed hipster glasses to fake your way through the Academy's many not-so-exciting technical categories on the big night.
Why is Cinematography not the same thing as Directing? What's the difference between the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories? Whatâs the secret to predicting the Best Costume category?
We've got your answers in this convenient Oscar breakdown.
Cinematography
Most people are generally aware of what a director does. He or she is the boss, telling everyone what to do and how to do it to make the movie happen.
The cinematographer is the camera-only version of a director. Cinematographers are in charge of capturing the visuals in a film, meaning everything from camera angles and lighting to colour, movement and makeup. A good cinematographer can make a film really pop off the screen by painting a visual portrait for the audience.
This yearâs nominees include some visually stunning films, including the breathtaking âBlade Runner 2049,â by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve.
In the following scene from the film, Ryan Goslingâs character confronts Harrison Fordâs Rick Deckard in an abandoned Las Vegas casino lounge, where malfunctioning celebrity holograms blink in and out of existence. The flashes of colour and light make it hard to determine whatâs real and whatâs not â a central theme in the film.
âDarkest Hour,â âDunkirk,â âThe Shape of Waterâ and âMudboundâ are also nominated in this category.
Visual Effects
Space, apes and superheroes. The visual effects category typically includes a rundown of blockbuster films from the year that was, and this year's nominees are no exception.
âBlade Runner 2049,â âStar Wars: The Last Jediâ and âGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2â brought sci-fi space fantasies to life, while âKong: Skull Islandâ and âWar for the Planet of the Apesâ used computer-generated images (CGI) and motion-capture technology to turn humans into life-like apes that audiences could connect with and feel sympathy for.
There are plenty of scenes from these movies that demonstrate this yearâs stellar visual effects, but perhaps the most enjoyable one is the opening credit sequence from âGuardians.â
Watch as Baby Groot â brought to life by director James Gunn in a motion-capture suit â dances around a space platform while his friends fight a gigantic tentacle monster in the background.
Film Editing
On a basic level, film editing refers to how a movie stitches together individual camera shots to make it look like something is happening in sequence.
In an action movie, for example, a film editor is in charge of making it look like one character has shot another. The editor will take footage of one character pointing a gun, then cut it with a close-up of the gun, then quickly show the shooting victim stumbling back. Maybe the editor shows a close-up of the victim's surprised face, or of the bullet wound in his stomach.
One actor didn't really shoot the other to create the scene, but it appears that way based on how the sequence unfolds.
This strategy is clearly on display during the aerial dogfights in Christopher Nolanâs âDunkirk.â The film uses quick cuts between the aircraft, the pilots in the cockpit and the aircraftâs mirrors to convey the white-knuckle tension of aerial combat.
Other nominees for this category include âBaby Driver,â âI, Tonya,â âThe Shape of Waterâ and âThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.â
Costume Design
This one's pretty straightforward. The Oscar for Best Costume Design typically goes to period films with extravagant outfits. If it includes princesses or petticoats, it's likely to get a nomination.
Past winners include visually spectacular throwbacks such as âThe Great Gatsby,â âThe Young Victoria,â âMemoirs of a Geishaâ and âThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.â
Among this yearâs nominees is âPhantom Thread,â a 1950s piece focused on a renowned dressmaker who worked for celebrities and royalty in Britain. The film is essentially all about costume design, so itâs no wonder it earned a nomination.
Also nominated in this category are âBeauty and the Beast,â âDarkest Hour,â âThe Shape of Waterâ and âVictoria & Abdul.â
Makeup and Hairstyling
Another self-explanatory category, Best Makeup and Hairstyling only has three nominees this year.
The makeup crew behind âDarkest Hourâ transformed Gary Oldman into heavy-set Second World War icon Winston Churchill, while âWonderâ brought young Augieâs facial differences to life and âVictoria & Abdulâ resurrected the elaborate looks and hairstyles of the British court under Queen Victoria.
Production Design
Production Design is the physical or digitally-created environment of the film, both big and small. Itâs everything from the look of a building, to the style of chairs in a room, to the posters on the wall that a person might walk past. Every little piece helps build the illusion of a world that doesnât actually exist.
Production design plays a particularly central role in âBeauty and the Beast,â as many of the characters in the film are inanimate objects come to life. The musical number âBe Our Guest,â for instance, showcases many of the inanimate-turned-animate objects in the house. Production designers would have planned out everything in the scene, from the intricate edges of Lumiere the candelabraâs body, to the text on the menu Belle holds for a brief second during the musical number.
Other nominees include âBlade Runner 2049,â âDarkest Hour,â âDunkirkâ and âThe Shape of Water.â
Sound Mixing
Here's a spoiler: most of the sounds you hear in a movie don't actually happen while the actors are performing their lines. Whether it be an explosion, a spaceship engine, a passing car or background conversation at a café, those sounds are added in post-production and then layered together at just the right volume to make them all sound natural.
Take a city street, for example. What individual sounds come together to make that street sound busy? A sound mixer is in charge of putting in all the tiny sounds you might take for granted while standing on a city street. That means everything from car engines and truck horns to footsteps and conversations on the other side of the road.
Watch this clip from âBaby Driverâ and listen to the sounds of the city that punctuate Babyâs stroll to the coffee shop. Heâs listening to music on his iPod and thatâs definitely the dominant sound in the scene, but there are plenty of little noises that add breadth and depth to the world around him. You can hear people shouting, car wheels screeching and a jackhammer just before he enters a construction site. However, those sounds abruptly fade away as the camera follows Baby into the quiet atmosphere of the coffee shop, to be replaced by the whoosh of espresso machines. The sounds of the city then return after he steps out the door.
âBlade Runner 2049,â âDunkirk,â âThe Shape of Waterâ and âStar Wars: The Last Jediâ are also nominated.
Sound Editing
A sound editor is in charge of accumulating all the sounds used in a movie. That may sound like a simple task, but it's far more complicated than sticking microphones all over the film set.
For instance, what does a laser rifle sound like? Or a sea monster?
For fantasy films such as âThe Shape of Water,â sound editors need to invent effects for creatures and places that don't exist â and they have to do it using objects from the real world.
Watch the following clip from âThe Shape of Waterâ and listen to all the sounds used to create the secret government lab where scientists are preparing to examine the sea creature. The scene never offers a good look at the creature, but viewers know itâs in the tank from all the sounds they hear. Those sounds include:
- bubbling water;
- some sort of air respirator;
- whale-like noises coming from the creature; and
- the thudding sound of an underwater hand hitting the glass of the tank.
Other nominees in this category include âBaby Driver,â âBlade Runner 2049,â âDunkirkâ and âStar Wars: The Last Jedi.â