Planning the Drafting Party

Designing the Fantasy Film League game, the planning spreadsheets, and the drafting mechanisms was only phase one. After all, we wanted to have people over for a live draft and a party. Luckily, this is something that Ann is very, very good at.

The Planning
We wanted to put together a party to kick off Awards Season and to launch the draft. We knew that only the most committed and serious movie lovers would participate in the draft (for they were the only ones invited to play), so it made the event more elite. Not to knock our Academy Awards party, believe you me we put a LOT of time and effort into that party. That gathering, however, is for the masses. We pack 'em in. We fill our house to bursting for the Academy Awards party. For this we could scale back and enjoy ourselves a little more.

We chose a date before the holidays and, more importantly, before the Independent Spirit Award nominees are announced in early December. This put some pressure to get folks together before the holidays and before they spent a lot of time with friends and family partying. They would soon have a lot to compare this party to, so we needed it to be a good time.

The Food
For the Academy Awards party we tend to get a little carried away with food. We come up with dozens of possible appetizer ideas and we theme them to the nominees. We put a silly name and a framed menu card with each dish to make the event more whimsical. For the Fantasy League, food was fuel. Tonight we needed good, hot food and plenty of it in order to propel our picking and provoke our passion for movies.

Ann chose several different dishes that we knew would be crowd pleasers. She made:

• Hot Spinach Dip
• Meatballs
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
• Key Lime Dip
• Pigs in a Blanket
• Fried Ravioli
• Veggie Tray

We served this food with beer, soda, and water. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy. But it was all really good and it went. Ann made enough food to feed about 15 people, but the nine who showed up put it almost all down. It was good and it did the trick. I think people left satisfied and happy.

The Technicals
We used Excel to create a League Participant list. I then used the Random Number generating feature in Excel to come up with our drafting order. After that, I created a separate spreadsheet with the names of the League Participants down the vertical axis and the numbers of the rounds across the top. There were twelve rounds (one for each category in the Studios), and we ran it as a serpentine draft. For those of you, like me, who have never participated in a fantasy draft allow me to explain. This means that the person who recieved the first draft pick (in this case Ann) would also get to pick the 20th and the 21st picks. This allowed for a lively, fast-paced draft and for everyone to have a shot at some great picks.

I connected my brother-in-law's laptop up to my TV using a HDMI cable and projected the spreadsheet onto the screen. This allowed for everyone in the room to easily keep track of the picks and where their studio was relative to the different categories. Since everyone needed one each of the twelve categories, it was helpful to have everyone's picks up there as a reference.

Also, since I did not allow a pick to be used more than once, it was important to know what was taken and what was still out there.

Things moved fast! Ann was the first to go and wasted no time in choosing Precious as her Best Picture. This got things off to a good start and people jumped right in. I'll include a link to the Fantasy Film League site and the drafting sheet will be included. This will allow you to see who chose what and in which round of the event.

Best Moment of the Night
The best laugh of the night goes to Scott and James as they made their picks in a later round. James, after exhuasting his picks and the research he had done chose Robert Duvall for Best Supporting Actor. He could not remember the movie for which he was nominated, but he ran with it. The very next pick was Scott who chose Robert Duvall for Best Actor. This really put James in a tough spot as it was clear he had chosen Duvall for the wrong category. Scott just watched it happen and then took advantage of it. The same thing happened last year when my brother chose Heath Ledger for Best Actor instead of Best Supporting Actor. A small mistake, but it cost him a great many points throughout the season.

In the End...
I hope each of our guests had a good time at the party. I hope everyone feels good about their picks and their Studios. More importantly, I hope everyone gets a kick out of watching their Studios throughout the season and is more engaged in the Awards Season. That is, in the end, the goal!

The Fantasy Film League

Tonight marks the beginning of the 2010 Movie Awards Season, at least as far as the Sarnowskis are concerned. In addition to the Academy Awards party that we will be hosting on March 7th (and no, it is not too soon to start planning), we have put together a Fantasy Film Studio League. The idea was to engage our friends in a Movie Awards Season-long process to get them ramped up for the Academy Awards and to heighten their awareness and appreciation of the great films being made this year.

The Fantasy Film League: A How To
The general idea of the League is very similar to a fantasy football or basketball pool. Each player is assigned a studio which is made up of twelve categories. The categories are:

1. Best Picture
2. Best Director
3. Best Actor
4. Best Actress
5. Best Supporting Actor
6. Best Supporting Actress
7. Best Original Screenplay
8. Best Adapted Screenplay
9. Best Original Score
10. Best Song
11. Best Make Up Effects
12. Best Special Effects

At the end of the draft, each Studio Head will have one full roster of possible award winners. Throughout the "Season" as different groups announce their nominees and winners for the various awards, points are awarded. Each nomination earns a Studio two points. A win nets the Studio three points. At the end of the Season, as the last award is announced, the winner of the League is declared. The last award, by the way, just so happens to be the Academy Award for Best Picture. That way we can announce who has just won the Academy Awards pool that we create as well as the Film Studio League.

I ran the League last year with a select group of brave souls who were willing to give this a try and who provided invaluable feedback to the process. Thanks to their thoughts and suggestions, I already feel better about this year.

Improvements: Year One to Year Two
So far, the game is off to a much stronger start. For starters, I gave people about six weeks head start this year. I announced the game in early October and booked a date for the draft party. This gave most people enough time to move their calendars around and/or to find child care (we are, after all, at the age now where that is a real concern).

I also provided League Participants with detailed rules, a sample studio draft form, and some templates to complete while doing their research. The game, as you can imagine, is actually quite challenging. Many of the "awards bait" movies have not even been released theatrically so it is a real challenge to pick from that group of movies. Also, by including smaller, less documented races like Best Original Score and Best Song, I limited the amount of productive research that people could do to prepare.

Each League Participant was sent a spreadsheet to use to document their first seven picks for each category. After a player had exhuasted his or her picks from that list it was time to just guess. Start shouting out random movies and random performers. Even with weeks of prep time, things devolved to that level tonight.

Actually, I was very impressed with the players and how seriously people took the game. Many folks had clearly done copious amounts of research. They had read movie magazines, visited movie-themed websites, and even checked out a few more movies. It was great to see everyone so invested and so excited about good movies.

And We're Off...

This blog is designed to document and capture the excitement of the 2010 Movie Awards Season. Each year, Ann and I put together an Academy Awards pool and party. We are always looking for ways to get more and more of our friends as excited about Awards Season as us. This blog will be our place to capture our thoughts and plans as we scope out this year's party. We will also capture our brainstorming ideas, recipes, and other party tips that may be useful to others who share our particular brand of mental sickness.