Want to predict some Oscar winners?

Hey everyone!

I work for a company that does a lot of predictions and forecasts and stuff. We try to always get groups of people together to do predictions of stuff, especially major events. Major events like The Oscars, for instance.

We got a group together earlier today (Tuesday) to predict the Oscars in 16 categories. It went great. We’ll call this group the Average Joes. Some of them like movies. Some like the idea of movies. I can’t vouch for any of them being anything but really super casual fans who may know the names of a director if they were to hear it.

So that’s cool. We’ve got that. But we always like to get another group on big events like this, a group I’ll call (for lack of a better word) “Experts”. We like to compare to see how each does on the same question set. Although we do a lot of sports and pop culture, this is the science-y part.

Our group of “experts” tonight kind of didn’t happen they way we’d hoped. Only a few showed up because of some crossed wires. It happens.

So now I’m trying to recruit some smart folks who know a little something about movies. Don’t be scared by the “Experts” thing. We don’t think that anyone but serious movie buffs and bloggers has seen more than a handful of nominated films. That’s not the important part, really. The important part is being somewhat culturally aware enough to post in a movie forum like this one, for instance, and maybe curious enough to spend a few minutes googling some critics or whatnot to see what they’re saying about some of the categories.

I’m reaching out here and to friends of mine and friends of their friends to try to put this together for Thursday night at 9pm. If we can get at least 20 folks across all those vectors, we’re a go.

It involves doing a quick survey where you pick the Oscar winners as an individual, and then joining with everyone at the same time LIVE at 9pm on our site. It’s really fun to use, and we have a blast doing it. But there’s more. If we can get 20 or more on, we’ll be giving the highest survey winner $50 as a token of appreciation, and as a salute to doing a tiny bit of research.

And there’s more than that, too. Since we’re all gamers, I’m going to give away with a random draw only to QT3’ers copies of Total War: Warhammer, Warhammer - Vermintide with DLC, Project CARS, Big Pharma, Mordheim City of the Damned, and Dungeons 2. I’ll give those away even if we can’t get to 20 people, just for making the effort.

The whole thing will take about 25 minutes or so, maybe a half hour. It’s pretty fun to participate. Let me know if you’re interested! If you have any friends who might have the time on Thursday and are into cinema, feel free to let them know as well.

One other cool thing while I’m thinking on it: we’re getting some press on our picks and have more lined up. It’s always kind of neat to see something you did online get mentioned on Newsweek.

I am there!

This sounds cool, and I’d definitely jump in except for two things: 1) you’re doing it during my weekly boardgaming night, and 2) I honestly have no idea what goes on in the mind of the Academy voters. That said, $50. Hmmm.

-Tom

I’m definitely cannot overstate how big the quotes are on “expert” here, and how loosely we’re defining it.

For a little more disclosure, one of our first peer-reviewed studies of swarm intelligence on our platform was done with the Oscars in…2015? Maybe last year. Anyway, we had a group who had seen on average, 1.5 films of all those nominated in any category…

…and we scored higher than all but two national critics and beat a panel of people who had seen more movies on average almost two to one.

Is this 9PM PST or EST?

I’m in.

I’ll bite.

9pm ET? CST?

oops.
@telefrog beat me to it.

9pm ET, but I’m open to moving the time around to accommodate the most users.

Sadly, a couple of press outlets we’re working with moved up their deadlines and I’m going to have to call this off.

I definitely appreciate the interest. I’ll try to get something fun with some $ prizes and games set up soon!

Anyway, La La Land is my guess.

I’ll try to make 6pm PST!

Emphasizing this for latecomers.

A shame, as every time Trig has done one of these it’s been fun to do. The RPG one where we all got to ask questions at the end in particular was enjoyable.

So much fun. It actually felt a little more like meeting you guys/hanging out than just typing on the forum.

Yeah, I’m sorry about the false alarm. We had a big press contact want us to go on record, but they needed us to do so by COB today on the east coast.

I still have games to give away, so maybe I’ll set up something for March gaming, since I’ve seen some of y’all chattering on twitter about how the month is going to blow everyone’s gaming budget.

funkiness with the URL - but here’s a “Voter’s Perspective”

Someone that articulate should probably stick to Cinemascore ballots.

-Tom

Yeah, here’s a second “ballot” (link was in the first article).

Both have the same comment about Fences - and I think the criticism is fairly valid (‘a film of the play he starred in’).

It looks like the real contest is going to be best Actress.

From our perspective, the biggest toss-up of the night is going to be Best Actor: Denzel Washington vs Casey Affleck.

Actress could be close, with the Academy maybe feeling like Portman is due…and never count out Streep.

Best Costume Design and Best Original Screenplay also look like tough picks.