Oscars 2018: Here's The Plan To Prevent Another Epic Flub

HOLLYWOOD, CA — Nearly a year after perhaps the biggest Oscars flub in history dominate headlines and water coolers across the country, PwC has taken several steps to ensure the correct movie will be receive the award for the best picture category. The mistake happened when a PwC partner inadvertently handed an envelope for the best actress winner category —Emma Stone in "La La Land" — to Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who were presenting the best picture category. That resulted in "La La Land" briefly being named best picture, before one of that film's producers announced it had been done in error: "Moonlight" had actually won.

Tim Ryan of PwC took responsibility for the gaffe and got to work, interviewing the partners who made the mistake and then personally contacting the dozens of people affected by it, including the show's producers, presenters and stage managers, as well as the filmmakers behind "La La Land" and "Moonlight."

In the following months, PwC met with the academy many times to come up with new protocols and safeguards to prevent blunder from ever happening again.

"One of the most disappointing things to me was all the great work that had been done, not only last year but over the last 83 years, around accuracy, confidentiality integrity of that process," he said. "And where we got it wrong was on the handing over of the envelope."

Related: Oscars 2018 Predictions: Best Picture, Best Director And More

While Oscar voting procedures and the tabulation of nominees and winners will remain the same, envelope rituals have been changed.

1. Ryan will be personally involved with Oscar operations this year as PwC's U.S. chairman and senior partner.

2. A third balloting partner will be added and will sit with Oscar producers in the show's control room. Just like the balloting partners stationed on either side of the Dolby Theatre stage, this person will have a complete set of winners' envelopes and commit the winners to memory.

3. The two partners who worked on last year's Academy Awards were replaced, though both still work for PwC. The new stage-side partners overseeing the envelopes will include Rick Rosas, who previously worked in that post for 14 years, and colleague Kimberly Bourdon from the company's Los Angeles office.

4. A new formal procedure was implemented for when envelopes are handed over. Both the celebrity presenter and a stage manager will confirm that they've been given the correct envelope for the category they are about to present. (Last year's gaffe occurred when the PwC representative accidentally gave presenters the envelope for best actress rather than best picture.)

5. All three balloting partners will attend show rehearsals and practice what to do if something goes wrong. "Because, as you're well aware, it took a long time to respond last year when there was a mistake that we made," Ryan said. "So we're formally practicing the what-ifs."

6. PwC partners cannot use cellphones or social media during the show. The final change is one the academy immediately instituted last year:

"Our singular focus will be on the show and delivering the correct envelopes," Ryan said.

Besides tabulating votes for Oscar nominees and winners, PwC handles much of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' accounting, including audits and taxes.

Film academy chief Dawn Hudson said that after reviewing the relationship between the two organizations, and given that the voting and secrecy around the Academy Awards were never compromised, the academy chalked up the envelope mistake to simple human error.

"Still, it was a big human error, and it was a very public human error," Hudson said.

Ultimately, academy officials and board members decided not to "throw out 83 years of flawless partnership over this, while huge, one human error," she said, adding that PwC helped build the digital voting system the academy has been using for the Oscars in recent years.

"Let me tell you, I don't think this error will ever happen again or would happen again," said Hudson, who was watching from the audience as the flub seemed to occur in slow motion onstage. "We put in a lot of protocols to make sure it won't, but I don't think it will anyway. I think everyone will be very focused on getting that right."

Ryan is similarly confident.

"My nature, just as a person, is healthy paranoia. But I also know in my head that we haven't left any step undone. We owe that to the academy," he said. "While I feel very, very good about all the work that's been done and the attention to detail that's in place, our job doesn't end until that curtain closes."

Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced Tuesday. Winners will be revealed at the ceremony on March 4.

By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer

Photo credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP