Academy Opens Up Voting for Documentary Feature, Live Action and Animated Shorts

Yesterday, Howard Koch, the president of AMPAS announced that three categories usually reserved for those who went to special screenings are now open to all Academy members, and that screeners were being sent out soon. Those three categories are Documentary Feature, Live Action Short, and Animated Short. I am not sure why they haven't done the same for Documentary Short or Foreign Language film, but oh well. I think that in terms of the Doc category, this opens it up even more to the more populist choices. The voting in the last decade has either gone to popular choices or hard-hitting political docs. So most likely the voting won't change too dramatically. In terms of the shorts, I have no idea how this will affect their winners. I find it hard to believe Academy members watch all the full-length films, let alone ten short films. But at least this may cause some exposure to these filmmakers, which are usually up and coming, and more exposure to short filmmaking in the first place. Either way this is a big change for the Academy, and could signal even more changes, maybe involving the antiquated Foreign Language process.