Everyone sees the trailer, the red carpet, the envelope. What they don't see is the nine months of regulatory reading, fundraising, budget strategy, and relationship-building that tip the odds in an award competition. An Oscars campaign isn't a marketing push bolted onto a finished film — it's an organized team effort.
What is the job, exactly? It's to guide teams through a marathon some have never run, letting them know what's around the next curve, where people usually cramp, which shortcuts always backfire, and what helped people get closer to the finish line in the past. Each marathon and each runner is unique. Finding what works for each film specifically is, actually, the real job.
The first week of the campaign is all about how it works. I sit with the producer and director and go through how a campaign functions, what kind of team is needed, how voting works in that specific category, and, most importantly, what the rules of the competition are. Part of my job, from day one, is auditing every action against those rules, because a violation doesn't cost you points. It disqualifies the film outright.
Three phases. Three different logics.
It's important to know that the competition unfolds in three distinct phases, and each one has a different electorate and a different logic. The first phase runs from submission through the shortlist vote. This is the widest and least visible phase: hundreds of films competing for a handful of shortlist spots, most of the work invisible to anyone outside the industry. In this phase, only a defined subset of Academy members votes in each category — for International Feature and Live Action Short, for instance, voters have to opt in to serve on that category's committee. For Documentaries, the members who belong to what is called Documentary Branch are responsible for selecting the films that are going to move onto the next phase.
The second phase is the shortest, usually around a month. It opens with the shortlist announcement and closes when the nominations vote begins. Here, every Academy member can vote in every category — but only if they've seen every film of that category. The third and last phase begins with the nominations announcement and ends when final voting for the winner opens. Here, the rules tighten: there are many don'ts for this phase listed in the Oscars Rules and Regulations.
Understanding which phase you're in dictates almost everything else — what tools are available, what's even allowed, and where your budget should go.
Campaigning doesn't have to be
about winning.
I love working with teams that are in the campaign for the journey, not the trophy. The most beautiful campaign I worked on was from Aruac Filmes, by Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, who produced Morzaniel Ɨramari's "Mari Hi — A Tree of Life", qualified in the Short Documentary category after winning the It's All True Film Festival. Through the campaign, they were able to raise awareness of the Yanomami cause and meet with important institutions that would go on to support Yanomami Cinema.
Through campaigning, filmmakers have a chance to get their work seen by other filmmakers they admire, sometimes meet them in person, and expand a professional network that outlasts any single awards season. I've seen campaigns change the course of a career even when the film wasn't nominated. A campaign built only around winning tends to collapse the moment the numbers look unfavorable; a campaign built around the journey keeps paying off long after the ballots are counted.
Advertising: the FYC industry.
Trade outlets like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, IndieWire, Screen International and many others offer packages to films in consideration for an award — here are three letters you will learn quickly in the awards season: FYC, which stands for "For Your Consideration". One of my jobs is assisting the team to strategize where to spend money, deciding what's worth it, and when. Timing matters more than most people expect. Every other film, studio, and production company is booking these same slots, and by late October it becomes nearly impossible to secure space for first-phase advertising. This is a market with a genuine ceiling, and if you arrive late, the ceiling is someone else's.
Private screenings
& Q&As.
If advertising is one of the pillars, the second is the private screening — an exhibition of the film organized specifically for Academy voters, followed by a Q&A with the director, producer, and/or actors. This is most often where the filmmaker actually gets to meet voters in person. To count as official, a screening's invitations have to go through mailing houses approved by AMPAS — a service that can be quite expensive, and every message is checked against the regulations, because that's what keeps a low-budget documentary and a studio release playing, at least technically, by the same rules.
One thing I've found genuinely useful is helping the team prepare for these Q&As, since most are speaking in a language that isn't native to them. The goal isn't to sound polished, on the contrary. It's about helping the director, actor, and/or producer get comfortable answering what they already know by heart in a language that isn't their own. In the U.S., these Q&As almost never run longer than 20 minutes, so pacing matters when there is so much to convey.
Film reviews: the pillar that
moves everything else.
For a film to gain real traction, you must orchestrate a healthy, steady momentum throughout the entire season. This involves paving the way for consideration at high-visibility, televised ceremonies like the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, which act as springboards for popularity and keep the title in daily industry conversations. However, the glitz of these major broadcasts cannot be sustained without the solid foundation of the critics' circuit. It is the in-depth reviews and the progressive recognition from critics' associations that provide the necessary validation and prestige.
A successful campaign understands that these two fronts are interdependent: while the big televised awards bring the spotlight and broad awareness, it is the continuous endorsement of specialized critics that ultimately convinces Academy voters that the work has the true artistic weight to deserve their ballot.
There's a lot to balance, but it's not all that different from producing a film: having the right team and a good plan is essential. A great campaign doesn't guarantee a nomination, but not planning one can cost a great film its shot.
