Draft Strategy 103 – DIR/SCRN and CIN/EDIT

by Paulo Bautista, Host of the Oscars Death Race Podcast

Introduction and Review

Welcome to PART 3 of my series on draft advice for the 2023-2024 Red Carpet Rosters season!

In case you missed parts 1 and 2, be sure to check them out here and here

A quick recap on what we covered in previous entries that is relevant to this installment:

• The DIR/SCRN slot in your lineup is worth up to 1650 points across all players – this is the most valuable slot of your entire lineup.
  • Between Director and Screenwriter, Screenwriters are worth the most of any individual position  – 1000 points total, while Directors are at a still respectable 650 points (behind only Best Picture and the various Acting categories). This is because of two reasons: 1) Screenplay categories often break into Original and Adapted, and 2) There are a few films that have multiple screenwriters.
  • There are also about 500 points up for Debut awards – these are sometimes given to debut directors, though some of these are also allocated to breakthrough actors, especially youth actors.
• The CIN/EDIT slot is worth about 800 points total – each worth about 400 each.
  • Even if the total points for this category are lower than other technicals (PD/CD/MUAH worth 850, and SCOR/SONG/SOUND/VFX worth 1500), because these two roles of Editor and Cinematographer are valued equally as opposed to the more skewed 400 PD / 250 CD / 200 MUAH, I would value these slightly higher outside of, say, the consensus number #1 PD and consensus #1 Score. 
• In this series I’m looking at 3 different methodologies on how to value players
  • My method is to prioritize players that I think will win Oscar night first and foremost. This gives up some win percentage during the matchups leading into the playoffs, but assuming that the contenders at the Oscars will do well with the various awards, you hopefully coast through.
  • Nico (the winner of two separate leagues last year) is a bit less focused on films that will win at the Oscars and goes for players likely to get points at critics and industry awards. This let’s you get a bye going into the playoff assuming you are in a commanding lead throughout the season, but will require more active involvement on the waiver wire week to week.
  • John (the admin of RCR) has the official RCR pre-draft rankings based on a mix of his own gut based over years of running RCR as a format, Oscars pundits, categories not present at the Oscars, and goes for a more holistic approach. 

In this installment, as you can guess we are talking about the DIR/SCRN slot, as well CIN/EDIT and who you should be prioritizing in your drafts. 

Director / Screenwriter

As with last time for Best Picture, I took the rankings myself, Nico and John had for the top 20 players in this field and ranked them. Notably we are including anyone who might be eligible in another role. I also took an average of the rankings and ordered those to give an average rank, with any tie breaks broken by having a smaller standard deviation between our rankings (I know standard deviation for this small a sample size is not great, but it’s all I had so bear with me). For films that some of us rated but not others, I gave the film a rank of “21” for the individual who didn’t rate it. 

Also for me personally (and I’m sure the others did this as well) we tended to highly value anyone who is a combination Director / Screenwriter, as well as individuals with Debut potential – the logic being that a DIR/SCRN player will have two shots in a single award ceremony to get nominated and potentially win, whereas a player with only a DIR or SCRN designation has only one shot at points. 

In the chart below I’ve also noted what each player is responsible – either director or screenwriter or both, for which film, and in the case of screenwriters whether it’s currently seen as an original or adapted screenplay.

Before we get into the breakdown let’s look at the top players for each category

First looking at Adapted Screenplay, these are pretty much the same films everyone is predicting for that category – not necessarily in that order, but All of Us Strangers is the sixth slot looking in. 

For Original Screenplay, the top 5 are the ones Gold Derby has currently predicted, though in a slightly different order. Of the other 3, Emerald Fennell with Saltburn is the only one in the top 10 while Hayao Miyazaki with The Boy and the Heron is ranked due to Nico having it ranked really highly. Then Nico and I both had Wes Anderson somewhat high due to him having a rare song eligibility increasing his draft value for being a DIR-SCRN-SONG player because he co-wrote “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)”.

For Director, It looks somewhat different – Bradley Cooper for Maestro, Celine Song for Past Lives, Cord Jefferson for American Fiction, and Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall are NOT in Gold Derby’s predictions. However there are good explanations for these:

• Bradley Cooper is high in these rankings for awards purposes due to him being a triple threat as ACTR-DIR-SCRN.
• Celine Song for Past Lives and Cord Jefferson for American Fiction are both debut films trying to vie for those debut points, which gives them triple threat potential if they can also get into the overall directing and/or screenwriting categories, much like what Charlotte Wells did last year for her debut Aftersun.
• Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall is a top 7 film at the moment, and Nico is oddly low on Jonathan Glazer for The Zone of Interest. 

Aside from these 14 films, some other films represented outside the top 20 were

• Ava DuVernay for Origin – (only nominated by John)
• Joaquin Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers for Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse – (only nominated by Nico)
• A.V. Rockwell for A Thousand and One – (only nominated by me, and is also a debut threat)
• Kristoffer Borgli for Dream Scenario – (only nominated by John, and has EDIT eligibility)
• Jeff Nichols for The Bikeriders – (only nominated by John)

Breaking down the overall top 20. 

• Christopher Nolan is the overall number one – I personally have him in number two but Nico and John outvoted me. I’ll explain my rationale in a second, but there is no denying he is one of the favorites to actually win Best Director and Adapted Screenplay on Oscar night. Expect him to be gone by pick 2 at the latest. Can you imagine ANY awards body leaving him off the list outside of indie-centric awards?
• Bradley Cooper is the overall number two – I had him at number one and Nico and John both had him at 3. Now even though I normally prioritize Oscar likelihood to win, for the purposes of drafting for RCR, I think his flexibility as the only real competitive Actor / Director of the bunch cannot be understated.
  • If you look at the mock draft where I put Bradley first overall, whereas most players will usually spend their first three picks locking up their Director/Screenwriter, Picture, and the best available actor, because Bradley can flex into either your Actor or Director slot, you can start moving into more technical categories earlier on, taking the most competitive SCORE (Ludwig Goransson), and the most competitive PD (Sarah Greenwood. In short, Cooper opens up more lanes for you later in your draft because of his ability to play three different roles. And it’s not as though he’ll be shut out in acting or directing or screenwriting either at other awards. Sure, wins might be scarce, but given my added flexibility, I’m more likely to draft winners in other categories.
  • Regardless if you have him pick one or not though, he will probably be gone by pick 3 based on the three mock drafts provided.
• Martin Scorsese comes in at number 3 overall – a top 4 pick for all of us, he’s pretty much the person going head to head with Christopher Nolan, and frankly they could easily split Directing and Adapted Screenplay come Oscar night.
• Celine Song is overall top 4 DIR/SCRN because she is a contender to at least get nominated for Original Screenplay at the Oscars. However her real strength comes from Past Lives being her debut film. Last year Charlotte Wells was able to carry John to the playoffs due to her taking all the debut awards that year, and the secret to that stat is out. Of course she has some competition from Cord Jefferson this time around, but she does have the head start with literally one of the best reviewed films this year. Expect her to get a lot of independent awards at the least, and to go no later than the start of Round 2 in draft – just after the best Pictures and Best Actors / Actresses.
• Great Gerwig is number 5 overall, a top 7 pick for all three of us. As an arthouse favorite for a long time and the head of the highest grossing solo female directed film of all time (and highest grossing film of the year) a lot of eyes are on her. She would also be the only Original Screenplay director in Best Director and is the most likely shot the Academy has to avoid an all male directing lineup. 
• Cord Jefferson we already mentioned but is our number 6 overall – though Nico for some reason has him as low as 12. He has a bit of catching up to do to Celine Song, but American Fiction winning the Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award majorly boosts his stock, all but guaranteeing a Best Picture nomination for American Fiction and a potential Adapted Screenplay nomination for Jefferson, hence his high ranking here.

Everyone in the top 6 are dual Director/Screenplay combos, which as I mentioned above is a way to double dip on points in matchups. In my list I had two more DIR / SCRNs prioritized above all solo nominees – Justine Triet (who is at 10 overall, due to Nico having her down at 13) and Jonathan Glazer (who is number 12 overall, due to Nico having him down at 19). I would say you can expect the top 5 directors/screenwriters to be picked up by the middle of round 2, so plan your picks accordingly. 

Going through the rest of the top directors

• 7 goes to Tony McNamara, who is the solo Screenwriter for Poor Things, which is up for Adapted Screenplay. We all had him in our top 10. The reason he is a higher rank than Poor Things solo Director is because as we noted above, Screenplays are worth more than Directors and films like Poor Things favor the writing.
• Likewise, Eric Roth at number 8 is the Screenwriter who worked with Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon, which is a powerhouse. In fact, both Tony and Eric were ranked 8th, 9th and 10th by one of us, so for all intents and purposes they are tied. 
• Number 9 goes to the aforementioned Yorgos Lanthimos, director of Poor Things – a former Oscar nominee who is one of the favorites to be nominated for the Oscar in that category. 
• Justine Triet comes in at number 10 – even if her film Anatomy of a Fall did not get selected for France’s submission to Best International Feature, it is well received and should get points on the circuit, especially from any euro-centric awards. In addition competing in the somewhat more open Original Screenplay category is to her favor, and she is also a likely candidate after Gerwig to be a non-male director nominated for the Oscars.
• Noah Baumcah at number 11 is riding on Great Gerwig’s coattails as her co-writer for Barbie. Basically if you are left with Baumbach as your best SCRN available, you hopefully got really good Actors/Actresses or Pictures instead.
  • Likewise, Arthur Harari, the cowriter for Anatomy of a Fall at number 14 is a poor man’s Justine Triet. Nico doesn’t have him ranked at all.
  • Josh Singer at 15 is also the same relative to Bradley Cooper for Maestro. 
• Jonathan Glazer at number 12 is much like Justine Triet – in some cases he may be more favored for Director and Original Screenplay. However there is a growing sentiment that its not as crowdpleasing of a film and is at danger of being left out of Best Picture entirely, so he’s a bit more high risk high reward. 
• David Hemingson (13) and Alexander Payne (16) both worked on the Holdovers (Screenwriter and Director respectively, hence Screenwriter having the higher rating). It is the second film that is mentioned here that’s a Best Picture nominee that has a totally separate Director from Screenwriter (the other being Poor Things), but is generally seen as being a weaker film for the chance to win in any of its categories, hence the rankings outside of the top 10. In fact, John didn’t have Alexander Payne ranked at all.

Outside the top 15, no contender had all 3 of us ranking them.

• Nico and I both ranked Wes Anderson below top 15 – this is mostly due to him being a mini-Daniels from last year who had a song credit. If you’re unable to nab a strong song or score or vfx contender, he could be a late round flyer to live in that spot picking up random Director and Screenwriter points for Asteroid City.
• Andrew Haigh is the Director / Screenwriter for All of Us Strangers. John and I both had him around the 18 mark. In my mind All of Us Strangers has potential to break into the Best Picture race and to do so would require it to get an Adapted Screenplay nom (which is not easy). Regardless though it should do well with critics and indie awards based on early responses from film festivals. 
• John and I also bet on Emerald Fennell, also around 18. While her only real shot I think is an Original Screenplay at the Oscars, she does have an Acting credit in the Barbie movie letting her sit in there for points. Of course if Emerald Fennell is the best Director you have available to you, you better have a better Actress than her as she’s not getting any points for that category. 

And then for solo noms

• Nico really believes in Hayao Miyazaki, having him as high as 11. I can see the potential there for random critics to go for it, especially as a dual director/screenwriter, but he’s also not likely to campaign much to stay in the public eye in my opinion. 
• Nico also ranked the three co-directors for the other top Animated film this year in Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse: Joaquin Dos Santos, Justin Thompson, and Kemp Powers. In particular, the first two are debut directors and could maybe get some directing debut noms, or noms at Animated centric awards. 
• My solo nominee was A.V. Rockwell, who was the debut director of A Thousand and One, a favorite out of Sundance that released earlier this year. I think Cord Jefferson and Celine Song will sop up most of the debut points, but this could be a late round pick to sit in your flex spot as a high floor, low ceiling pick. 
• John’s solo picks were Ava DuVernay for Origin, which he is relatively high on for Best Picture. He also picked Kristoffer Borgli as Director / Screenwriter and Editor for Dream Scenario, and Jeff Nichols as Director and Screenwriter for the The Bikeriders

Outside everyone above, here are a few more notable contenders worth mentioning, mostly 

• Ari Aster – DIR / SCRN for Beau is Afraid
• Ryusuke Hamaguchi – DIR / SCRN for Evil Does Not Exist (though eligibility concerns may limit his value)
• Michael Mann – DIR / SCRN for Ferrari
• Wim Wenders – DIR / SCRN for Pefect Days
• Sophia Coppola – DIR / SCRN for Priscilla 
• Sean Durkin – DIR / SCRN for The Iron Claw
• Samy Burch – SCRN for May December 
• Molly Gordon / Nick Lieberman – DIR / SCRN for Theater Camp (Debut)
• Chloe Domont – DIR / SCRN for Fair Play (Debut)
• Dave Callaham / Phil Lord / Chris Miller – SCRN for Spider-Verse
• Ben Affleck – ACTR/DIR for Air 
• Taika Waititi – ACTR/DIR/SCRN – Next Goal Wins
• Peter Sohn – ACTR/DIR/SCRN for Elemental
• Hirokazu Kore-eda – DIR/EDIT for Monster 

Speaking of Hirokazu Kore-eda being an Editor…

Cinematographer / Editor

Again, let’s look at the predraft rankings that Nico, John and I came up with and the overall composite average, with the film and role of each player noted. In the overall column I’m color coding the cinematographers orange, and the editors blue. There is also a column for whether that player has been nominated or won their respective category in the past.

Before we break down the individual nominees, here’s how this would translate to how we predict the Oscars race to go based off these rankings. Here I am including only films that at least two of the three of us ranked.

Hoyte Van Hoytema for Oppenheimer sits on top ahead of Rodrigo Prieto for Killers of the Flower Moon and Robbie Ryan for Poor Things in second and third (and technically Barbie in Cinematography though that’s due to Prieto doing double duty there for shooting TWO Oscar buzzworthy films). I think Van Hoytema (Oppenheimer) has the edge at the moment as the safer pick because more people have seen the film at this point and have their first hand experience with those technical elements, while most of us have yet to see Killers and Poor Things to judge ourselves.

You’ll also notice if you look at the average ratings of the top 20 Cinematographers vs the top editors, in general CIN is rated higher than EDIT – about 9.3 vs 11.7. The reason for this I think is that when it comes to films we haven’t seen yet, it’s somewhat easier to forecast whether a film will be a contender based on the trailers that we have so far, whereas editing is a much more holistic artform while also being a proxy of quality of the overall film itself – for example it has close ties to the Sound category, which is why I think Ferrari is higher for Editing than Cinematography, and also why there are more films in contention.

Finally, an Editing Oscar nom has a strong correlation with a Best Picture win. While 8 out of 10 Best Picture films I currently have are represented in Editing, the top 3 are the ones I feel most likely to actually win. 

Moving to look at individuals – You can see that the three of us have the same top 7 contenders, though in a slightly different order. 

• First overall is Hoyte van Hoytema – Myself and John have him at number 1 while Nico has him at number 3. After missing a nom last year for Nope, he’s the current favorite to win Cinematography off of Oppenheimer, to the point where even having only one film he’s working on he beats out the next cinematographer with two. 
• Second goes to Rodrigo Prieto, who worked on two powerhouse films. I had him at 3, Nico at 1, and John at 2. There is an argument that him having two films gives him more chances to do well at the various awards, but if you go with a “likely to win the Oscar” approach, he falls a bit behind, especially when the cinematography is a defining element of Nolan’s films. At the end of the season, two nominations everywhere is the same as one nom and one win most everywhere.
• Third goes to Jennifer Lame, notably the only non-nominee in the top 10 and frequent collaborator with Noah Baumbach and Christopher Nolan. As the front runner of the category, she is in the top 3l, since Editing is a bit more crowded. Nico and I both had her at 2 and John at 3. 

These three are the far and away top CIN/EDIT players. Since most drafters will want a strong core of PIC, DIR/SCRN and ACTR and ACTRS, these will probably start going around early round 5, or even mid round 4. They probably go behind the top SCORE players (who are worth slightly more overall) and behind the top International / Animated films.

Moving to the rest of the top 7 

• Thelma Schoonmaker is the number 2 editor, behind Lame, but she is also a former winner, which is a big deal. I had her at 5 while Nico and John had her at 4. Being attached to a massive 3 hour film will really test her ability to keep a good pace for that film which could reward her chances here. 
• Yogos Mavropsaridis is the editor for Poor Things, which I had at 4, but the others had at 7. I think I had it higher due to the Best Picture Win / Editing Nom connection, and I have Poor Things as my number 3 film to win. As a former nominee for working with the other Yorgos, this should be a layup for him. 
• Robbie Ryan comes in 6th – he was ranked 6th by me and John and 7th by Nico. As the cinematographer from the Poor Things, based on the trailer it has a very distinct and off putting look which I’ve heard really sells the film. Another former nominee, he’s a safe bet. 
• Rounding out the top 7 is former nominee Matthew Libatique – the Cinematographer for Maestro. Nico and I had him at 7, while John had him at 5. He definitely has the chops to get a nomination, especially with Maestro being black and white which the Academy is a sucker for, but also has missed in the past with recent Oscar bait films. He actually had the same average rank as Ryan, but with a bit more variance. 

After this there’s a steep drop off – Libatique had an average rating of  6.33 while the next contender drops down to 9.67. I had these bottom 4 going by the end of round 6, though Nico let Libatique drop to mid round 7, and John to mid round 8. 

Briefly summarizing the rest of the contenders with at least two rankings:

• Lukasz Zal – CIN Zone of Interest / former nom – Paulo 9 / Nico 11 / John 9 – Overall 8
  • I saw him as someone that the European contingent could coalesce around, hence him being my 5th CIN
• Kevin Tent – EDIT The Holdovers / former nom – Paulo 8 / Nico 9 / John 13 – Overall 9 
• Dan Lausten – CIN The Color Purple / John Wick 4 / former nom – Paulo 11 / Nico 16 / John 10 – Overall 10
  • I think this would be a chance for John Wick 4 to get nominated (almost moreso for the whole franchise), and some of the footage we’ve seen in The Color Puprle Trailers has me intrigued, though again a bit of a riskier pick 
• Pietro Scalia – EDIT Ferrari / former winner – Paulo 13 / Nioc 14 / John 12 – Overall 11
  • So my logic here was that Sound and Editing go hand in hand. Given that the film about Ferrari will have some element of cars going vroom vroom, I could see Editing sneaking a sly pick here. Being a former winner doesn’t hurt either.
• Linus Sandgren – CIN Saltburn / former winner – Paulo 12 / Nico 13 / John 16 – Overall 12
  • I was so sad he didn’t get a nom for Babylon last year so maybe I’m trying to will this one, but also from the trailers and reviews, if there is one thing that stands out it’s the cinematography, so I could see him getting a nom here as a former winner
• Nick Houy – EDIT Barbie – Paulo 14 / Nico 19 / John 8 – Overall 13
  • John really believes in this one – Houy actually has the same score as Sandgren, but more variance in ratings.. I think him not being a former winner kind of hurts just his projected chances (though not impossible). 
• Robert D. Yeoman – CIN Asteroid City / Former nominee – Paulo 16 / Nico 8 / John NA – Overall 14
  • I know Yeoman hasn’t been nominated since Grand Budapest but with the resurgence of the Wes Anderson memes, I mean why not? 
• Erik Messerschmidt – CIN Ferrari / The Killer / former winner – Paulo 15 / Nico 18 / John 15 – Overall 15
  • Having two films is definitely to his credit, especially with top name directors. That said neither are major contenders for the Oscars, but still could get some awards circuit love
• Laurent Senchal – EDIT Anatomy of a Fall- Paulo 10 / Nico Unranked / John 19 – Overall 16
  • Again for me I had this as high as I did as a potential film that the European crowd could coalesce around. 
• Michelle Tesoro – EDIT Maestro – Paulo 17 / Nico Unranked / John 14 – Overall 17 

Outside of the top 20 you also have the following getting 2 rankings

• William Goldenberg, a former winner who was Editor for Air (which I’m not convinced of) and Transformers, 
• John Poll, who is editing The Color Purple
• Kirk Baxter – Editor for The Killer and Dumb Money, and former winner

Outside of these are mostly films that only one of us were rooting for

• Paulo – I think Napoleon could be a sneaky Best Picture nominee and that would be through multiple technical BTL nominees. Former winner Claire Simpson is editing, and Former nominee Dariusz Wolski is Cinematographer, so those were my longshot picks
  • Some other random ones not yet mentioned I had just outside my top 20 – Claudio Miranda as CIN for Nyad (to make up for missing for Top Gun last year), Barney Piling as EDIT for Asteroid City, and Hirokazu Kore-eda as DIR/EDIT for Monster
• Nico – He believed a lot in Past Lives,giving Editor Keith Fraase and Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner some love, probably for Independent Film awards
• John – he has Kristoffer Borgli again as Director / Screenplay / Editor of Dream Scenario, and Hihlda Rasula as editor for American Fiction

I would say you probably want in your initial draft to pick up one cinematographer or editor – no real need to have a second one in your flex spot, and if you do you probably want to get the one that is secondary to your “main” one for the position. That said, if someone you are passionate about goes late, it may be worth stashing on your bench, or at least keeping an eye on them throughout the season to see if they are gaining steam to pick up off the waivers – for example, films coming out later in the season may have their editors rise in stock, like Napoleon or The Color Purple

In any case, that’s long enough for this entry. We’ll follow up next time looking at our top actors and actresses! 

Till next time

~Paulo