Phillip Pollard has a question…
Your recent Fred Astaire video was a treat, but its focus on music and dance made me curious. I think you've written in the past how there are safeties to make sure that no one knows the winner until the envelope is read. And that there are procedures to handle if the wrong person is announced.
So what about those pit musicians there? Do they have a copy of every nominee's theme music on their stands, and do a frantic page-turn as the winner is announced? Did they have to have all those extra arrangements made, parts copied, and tunes rehearsed? That a lot of paper to keep on the stand and not get out of order. I wonder how that was handled.
Yes, they have tunes prepared for every nominee. It's not as many songs as it may seem because if a film gets eight nominations, that one piece of music can serve for all eight possible trips to the stage. And some films (like many documentaries) don't have identifiable music so those winners can take their walks of triumph to one of a few generic tunes the conductor has at his disposal.
Now, if you asked me this a few years ago, here's what the rest of my answer would have been…
The musicians don't have all the sheet music for the evening in front of them. During commercials or clip packages, someone distributes packets covering the next few awards and takes away the old ones. But it still takes a bit of fancy juggling. Not only do they have that music to deal with but you also have musical numbers, music to go in and out of commercials, music to play for the live audience during commercials, play-on music for presenters, play-off music for winners, etc.
But now I'm wondering. I heard a few years ago that was someone was trying to configure a system whereby the musicians would be looking at computer screens instead of music on paper. Has that ever been tried? Does anyone know?