The Oscarma Initiative

Last February was a hectic time to throw an Oscar Party. Here’s why.

The biggest stars on the Red Carpet like to make an entrance, often passing up being the first limo in Hollywood traffic in favor of making a fashionably late entrance. Clara was no exception, decided to join the festivities some four days after her due date. When Katie and I had discussed continuing our Oscar Party tradition despite Clara arriving mere weeks before Ellen took the stage, we had not anticipated on the little one taking a long weekend in utero and compressing any last-minute plans regarding the annual tribute to friendly cinematic competition. Like Babel, the pregnancy was just a little longer than we would have liked.

With a new baby safely-in-arms, I glanced over my scratch sheet of “Things to Do Before the Oscar Party.” Some things were easily taken care of, others got scratched from the list as frivolous. Remember how we used to buy red poster board and create a red carpet into the main theatre? This year, gone. (After all, I’m pretty sure we were the only people ever to actually purchase red poster board, thus deflating the red poster board industry altogether.) In the end, I was confident that all of the core activities would be complete in time, and this was with operating on a newborn’s sleep schedule. Games? Check. Refreshments? Check. Overly complex scorekeeping spreadsheets? Check. Video?

Video?

Last year, Spud and I teamed to make the Oscar Sunday video that has graced YAB’s sidebar for well over a year. Now with over 38,000 views on YouTube, it may be my greatest contribution to the Interwebs, and that includes all 780 posts we’ve done here on this little site. Oscar Sunday was topical, funny, and had displayed editing skills I knew not existed in me; it was certainly something that was well-received and worth all the hard work. If another video were every to be produced in the name of Oscar, it would have to at least strive to be of comparable quality.

Babies make terrible camera operators.

With our new addition and Spud’s own planning for an upcoming secret engagement day for Julie, the script we had worked on for a month or so was inevitably shelved. It’s just too hard to do script rewrites whilst sleeping in a chair in a Neonatal recovery room. This decision, while hard, was probably for the best at the time. The ultimate product would have been rushed, unfinished, and nowhere near the quality Spud and I are known for. Hopefully, we’ll have the time this year to renew that creative relationship.

We have an old family adage: Condons (named Chris) never say die.

In the back of my head, I had a second idea as to how to creatively present the Best Picture winners in a topical, comedic, and videographic manner. Of course, with Oscar Sunday a mere 10 days away after a week of hardcore baby raising, chances were slim that it would be possible.

But I’ll tell you, kids, Jon Rogers stepped up to the plate.

It’s no secret ‘round these parts that Monrovia is obsessed with the best show on television: Lost. I had a two-part plan in mind. The first part could be filmed with relative solitary ease, assuming I got 1) a wife’s permission to rearrange some furniture, 2) a sleeping baby for a 45 minute window of filming, and 3) luck. The second part was written on the fly, with only a framework in place as to how it would play out. But Jon Rogers was prepared to bring the funny, film the funny, and set decorate the funny – all on a night when his wife and closest neighbor least expected it. (Coincidentally, it was a Wednesday – Lost is on Wednesdays.)

So if you are familiar with Lost, you’ll get a huge kick out of the video we now present. And if you’re not, we hope you enjoy nonetheless and insist you get caught up on the best show on television prior to January 2008.

Without further ado, I give you The Oscarma Initiative.