Draft Strategy 101 – Introduction

by Paulo Bautista, Host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast

Hello and welcome to this short series for the 2023-2024 Red Carpet Rosters Blog presented by me, Paulo of the Oscars Death Race Podcast! 

Just who am I? While my impostor syndrome may cause me to downplay my own expertise in the field, I’m a podcaster who has a show about trying to complete the Oscars Death Race – a challenge to watch every single film nominated for the Oscars before the ceremony each year. This includes all of the short films, all the technical categories, and international and documentary films – not just Best Picture or “Above the Line” films. As such, while most people pay attention to the film awards season starting in January or so, I do my best to stay tuned in to the race all throughout the year, particularly paying attention to which films are getting the most buzz.

In my professional life, I also like to think I’m a bit of a data guy – I love looking at spreadsheets and historical trends.  I couldn’t help but do some historical analyses of past Oscar nominees to try and figure out what guidelines exist in order to help predict early on which films will get nominated for the Oscars – anything to help me know what movies to prioritize each year to try and get a head start on my Death Race. 

After hosting a private league of Red Carpet Rosters last year, I offered to help Admin John do some write ups to help guide new players on how you might approach drafting. Think of it like my attempt at FantasyPros, but for RCR. Of course I don’t have as many resources yet to go as in-depth as those guys do for Fantasy Football, but I’d like to think I can at least point you in the right direction, providing top-20 lists for each category, and helping you prioritize key positions during your draft. 

Each day of this series will cover two different categories

1. (This Post) – Introduction / Methodology / Mock Drafts
2. Picture + Animated/International/Documentary
3. Director/Screenplay + Editing/Cinematography
4. Actor + Actress
5. Production/Costume/MakeupHair + Score/Song/VFX/Sound

In addition, John says he’s also going to do a podcast episode to kick off the season, and I’ll probably join him there to break down some of these numbers a bit more in depth. I also did an episode with John over on my podcast feed talking about prepping for the Oscars Death Race this year at large where we have a few nuggets throughout. 

Without further ado, let’s dive into the second half of this post!

Methodology

So while I said I would be doing a series on here, I have to admit I actually have a bit of help. Last year, the winner of my league (plus another public league) was a guy named Nico. I asked him to come up with his own rankings for each category, to compare them to mine. In addition, John has his pre-draft rankings already loaded onto the website, which I’ll take as his rankings for each category. Overall then there are three main methodologies we can go with.

• My methodology tends to focus on being nominated and winning at the Oscars as the final end game. You’re giving up some equity matchup to matchup by deprioritizing players that get critics love but not Oscars love, but assuming you can nab Oscar buzzworthy key players in early draft rounds, you can hopefully coast on those players to the playoffs and do respectably with a bit of luck with your later round picks. This is a bit of a better approach if you want to be a bit less hands on, and a great strategy for beginners. I’m also incorporating relative value of different positions based on historical numbers (more on this below).
• Nico’s methodology is a bit less focused on the end goal of getting an Oscars nomination, and he gives priority to films that are perhaps likely to get points at critics and industry awards earlier on in the season even if they are not necessarily going to be the final big winner on Oscars night. This approach can help put you into a dominant position going into the playoffs. This does require a bit more fine tuning matchup to matchup to pull off – what would do well one week may not do well the other and like Nico, you’re going to have to play the waiver wire extensively and respond quickly to what is and isn’t hitting. 
• John’s methodology is based on his years of experience tweaking Red Carpet Rosters as a format, more than anyone else. Although he tries to remain as objective as possible, his opinion does figure into his pre-draft rankings. He looks at many different pundits, sees if there’s a little bit of a consensus, tweaks the rankings based on points gained in categories not present at the Oscars (breakthrough/debut points are HUGE), trusts his gut, and produces an amalgamated draft ranking in a somewhat holistic approach. Out of 11,000 players in the player pool, he handpicks a ranking of around a thousand players.
  

Now I can only really speak about my methodology in detail but in general I work from historical precedent, which let’s me algorithmically figure out my nominee predictions for Oscars day.

1. The Oscars generally nominate about 40 feature films total each year. 
2. Obviously here you have 10 feature films for Best Picture, 8 films that will likely get an Above the Line (ATL) nomination but miss on Best Picture( with may of these being 11th-12th place Best Picture contenders), 5 animated, 5 documentary, 5 international, and then that leaves the remaining 7 films out of 40 to be films that get miscellaneous Below the Line (BTL) technical nominations.
   • Of course if there are films that do dual duty – for example an international film that gets a Best Picture nomination, or an animated documentary, a few more potential contenders open up. Remember All Quiet on the Western Front last year?
3. From there, when looking at the films that will probably get Best Picture, there are a couple of guidelines
   • 8/10 of Best Picture films have 2 ATL nominations; 1-2/10 have fewer than 2 ATL, but at least 3 BTL; And 0-1/10 have fewer than 2 ATL and fewer than 3 BTL. 
   • No major studio (combining streamers as a major studio and indie distributors as another “studio”) generally has more than 2 films nominated for Best Picture each year – and most usually only have one. 
   • Generally films that are at more film festivals, and those that win certain key awards or recognitions are fast tracked to Best Picture performance, though there are a number with zero festival attendance each year.

With these guidelines in mind, I usually build out my own predictive list of the 40-50 films I think will be real contenders in which categories. Right now for example, my Best Picture lineup would be the following with their “path” to Best Picture, studio, and any notable film festival attendance. I would prioritize the categories I think these films are competitive in higher in my rankings.

1. Oppenheimer – 5 likely ATL noms – Universal 
2. Killers of the Flower Moon – 5 likely ATL noms – Paramount
3. Poor Things – 4-5 likely ATL noms – Disney – 3 film festivals, won Venice
4. Barbie – 1-3 ATL possible noms / multiple BTL noms – WB
5. Maestro – 2-3 ATL possible noms – Netflix
6. The Holdovers – 2-3 likely ATL noms – Universal – TIFF Peoples Choice runner up
7. American Fiction – 1 likely ATL nom – MGM – TIFF Peoples Choice winner
8. The Color Purple – 2-3 likely ATL noms / multiple BTL noms – WB
9. The Zone of Interest – 2-3 likely ATL noms – Neon – 4 festivals, won Golden Palm at Cannes
10. Anatomy of a Fall – 1-2 likely ATL noms / UK International submission – A24 – 4 festivals, won Grand Prix at Cannes

The other thing I prioritize in my overall drafting order is going to be relative category importance. 

Points Available Per Category & Multi-hyphenates

Not all positions are created equal. While most critics groups will honor Best Picture and Best Director, not everyone honors say Best Score or Best Costume Design. To help figure out what positions you should prioritize, I asked John to pull for me the number of points each category scored last year. Then, based on some rules changes this year, I’ve adjusted up the number of points available for certain categories, and rounded to the nearest 50 points to keep things easier. 

• PIC – 1300 points total
  • Picture – 800
  • Genre Films – 550
  • Ensemble – 400
  • Stunts – 100
• DIR/SCRN – 1650 points total
  • Screenplay – 1000
  • Director – 650
• ACTING – 1050 points total for each for ACTR and ACTRS
  • Lead Acting – 1100 points total (roughly 50/50 Actor / Actress)
    • Lead ACTR – 550
    • Lead ACTRS – 550
  • Supporting Acting – 1000 points total (roughly 50/50 Actor / Actress)
    • Supporting ACTR – 500
    • Supporting ACTRS – 500
• ANI/INT/DOC – 1350 points total
  • Documentary – 500 (last year 900 points,but rules changes will bring this number down)
  • International – 450
  • Animated – 400
• EDIT/CIN – 800
  • Editing – 400
  • Cinematography – 400
• PD/CD/MUAH – 850
  • Prodution Design – 400
  • Costume Design – 250
  • Makeup And Hair – 200
• SCORE/SONG/SOUND/VFX – 1500
  • Score – 550
  • Sound – 400 (last year closer to 800 points, but that many points were awarded just because there were a lot of songs with multiple recipients for the same song – the total number of actual awards is lower)
  • Visual Effects – 300 (last year closer to 250 but will be increased due to rules changes)
  • Sound – 250 
• MISCELLANEOUS CATEGORIES
  • Debut/Breakthrough/Youth (could be Director or Acting) – 500
  • Body of Work – 50
  • Voice Acting – 100

If you look at a standard league setup, you end up with the following share of total points available in a season

• Picture – 17%
• Director/Screenplay – 15%
• Actor – 10%
• Actress – 10%
• Animation/International/Documentary – 12.5%
• Editing/Cinematography – 7.5%
• Production/Costume/Makeup – 8%
• Sound/Score/Song/VFX – 14%
• Debut/Breakthrough – 4.5%
• Body of Work – 0.5%
• Voice Acting – 1%

If you break it down by sub category you’re looking at 

1. 1000 – Screenplay
2. 800 – Best Picture
3. 650 – Director
4. 550 – Lead Actor / Actress, Genre Film, Score
5. 500 – Supporting Actor / Actress, Documentary, Debut Filmmaker/Breakout
6. 450 – International
7. 400 – Animation / Editing / Cinematography / Production Design / Song / Ensemble
8. 300 – VFX
9. 250 – Costume Design / Sound
10. 200 – Makeup and Hairstyling
11. 100 – Stunt / Voice Acting
12. 50 – Body of Work

So in general when I’m drafting, I’m going to want to lock down a strong Screenwriter first before I pick up what I think is a strong Actor. Of course, things can get interesting when you’re comparing say the 5th best Screenplay versus the 1st best Actor. 

The other thing that comes into play for my rankings is that I highly prioritize players who do double duty. This is most common with Directors also being Screenwriters, though there are a few other multi-hyphenates. These players are valuable because they let you get more points out of each film award, and also free up spots on your roster to diversify your chances. Last year, for example, the Daniels from Everything Everywhere All At Once were Directors and Screenwriters and technically Songwriters as well. Even if their song didn’t get them much points, that eligibility let them hang out in your song starting lineup spot. Maybe you gave up points there, but you were able to still get their director and screenwriting points, which they double dipped in most awards shows. Essentially, you didn’t need to spend a draft pick on, say, a Score Composer because either Daniel Kwan or Daniel Scheinert can shoulder that load further allowing you to now run another Screenwriter/Director in that dedicated slot to soak up even more points. Of course there are relatively few multi-position players with a real shot at nomination this year, but even just looking at Director and Screenwriter, if you played a DIR/SCRN in the slot over a DIR, you are setting yourself up to get potentially 2x as many points as just playing the DIR-only player. Also as a tie breaker, I’ll generally prioritize players who have worked on multiple (contender) films versus those that only had one major project this year.

Mock Drafts

To wrap up this post for today, here are three mock drafts, based on the 3 methodologies that myself, Nico and John have come up with. I use each individual’s pre-draft rankings, which you’ll see in the future posts in this series. I prioritize high value categories first (Pictures, Directors, Actors / Actresses), moving to the next highest categories when the win-competitive players in higher priority categories are taken (so for example taking the top Actors and Actresses over the 4th best Pictures). This is a fundamental of “tier-based” rankings. I go through until I have a complete core-roster of 8 players before I start repeating categories (i.e. if I have an actor, I won’t draft another till I have my main 8 positions filled). Note the settings for these drafts are standard 10 player snake drafts (i.e. the draft order reverses in even rounds). I present these without too much comment, though if you study these you can probably see trends as to which players are going to go by a certain round. 

Paulo’s Draft

Nico’s Draft

John’s Draft

I encourage you if you have the time to do your own mock draft! That way you can see how early you want to target certain players, depending on what your draft order is, and also so you know if a great player has fallen into your lap unexpectedly. 

Next time we’ll do a bit of a deeper dive into the Best Picture films, as well as the Animated, International and Documentary contenders. Until then, best of luck with your research! 

~Paulo