No Zoom for intimate 2021 Oscars, producers say

The Oscars ceremony inApril will be an intimate, in-person gathering, held withoutZoom and limited to nominees, presenters and their guests, theproducers said on Thursday.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the show to hand out thehighest honours in the movie industry will be held both at theUnion Station in Downtown Los Angeles and the traditional homeof the Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

Everyone will be tested, and there will be a COVID-19 safetyteam on site throughout the evening on April 25.

"There will not be an option to Zoom in for the show,"producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher saidin a note to the more than 200 nominees this year.

"We are going to great lengths to provide a safe andenjoyable evening for all of you in person, as well as for allthe millions of film fans around the world, and we feel thevirtual thing will diminish those efforts," the producers added.

They said nominees and their guests would gather at acourtyard in the Union rail station, while other show elementswould be held live inside the Dolby Theatre some 13km away.

Normally, hundreds of the world's top movie stars wouldgather in the 3,400-seat theater for a live show preceded by ared carpet packed with photographers and camera crews.

Other awards shows in recent months have replaced the usualgatherings at gala dinners and on stage with pre-recordedappearances or virtual events or a combination.

Television audiences have slumped, with the Golden Globesand the Grammys attracting the smallest numbers in decades.

Nominations for the Oscars were announced on Monday with 1930s Hollywood drama Mankleading the field with 10. Following was a six-way, six-nomination tie between Black Panther biopicJudas and the Black Messiah, modern itinerant taleNomadland, The Father,The Trial of the Chicago 7, family drama Minariand Amazon Studio's character study of a deaf musician inSound of Metal