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Hollywood studios spend exorbitant sums of money promoting their Oscar-nominated films to voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But exactly how much is spent, and where all that money goes, is something of an industry secret.
好莱坞电影公司在向美国电影艺术与科学学院的投票人宣传自己的奥斯卡提名影片，要花很多钱。但究竟要花多少，花到了哪里，一直是行业秘密。
This lack of transparency is characteristic of Hollywood in general, says Stephen Follows, a London-based producer who teaches at the National Film and Television School in Britain and blogs frequently about the economics of movies.
伦敦制片人斯蒂芬·福洛斯(Stephen Follows)说，缺乏透明度是好莱坞的总体特征。福洛斯在英国国家电影电视学校(National Film and Television School)任教，经常发表关于电影经济学的博客文章。
“I have a friend who’s an astrophysicist and he laughs at me because he studies dark matter and has more data about his subject than I do of mine,” Mr. Follows said.
“我有个朋友是天体物理学家，他经常嘲笑我，因为他是研究暗物质的，但是连干他那行知道的数据都比干我这行知道的数据多，”福洛斯说。
In a recent blog post, Mr. Follows delved into the financing of Oscar campaigns. He obtained the Oscar-related promotional budgets for four films nominated for best picture between 2011 and 2014. The figures came from Hollywood consultants and were given to Mr. Follows on the condition that he keep the films’ titles and studios anonymous. While he notes that this sample is hardly representative, it does offer a glimpse into how a typical Oscar campaign might break down financially.
福洛斯在最近一篇博客文章中深入研究了奥斯卡宣传的资金情况。他得到了2011年至2014年获得奥斯卡最佳影片提名的四部影片的奥斯卡宣传成本。这些数据来自好莱坞的一些顾问，他们在要求不透露影片和电影公司名称的前提下，给福洛斯提供了这些数据。虽然他指出，这些样本很可能不具有代表性，但它们的确能让我们一窥奥斯卡宣传资金通常可能花在哪些方面。
Campaigns for the four films ranged in total cost between $5.3 million and $8.3 million. In all cases, the largest category was advertising — the studios spent on average $3.5 million placing ads targeting Academy voters in trade publications and union magazines. An average of $850,000 per film was spent sending DVD screeners to Academy voters (the screeners are typically individually watermarked, which discourages piracy but makes them much more expensive to produce than a regular DVD, Mr. Follows said).
这四部电影每部的总宣传费在530万美元至830万美元之间。所有四部电影都是在广告方面投资最多，平均费用为350万美元。这些广告发布在行业期刊和协会杂志上，针对的是奥斯卡投票人。每部电影花在给奥斯卡投票人寄送DVD scr版光盘（福洛斯说，这种格式的光盘通常有单独水印，可以防止盗版，但是制作成本比普通DVD高很多）上的平均费用为85万美元。
An additional $1 to $2 million goes to other costs — from publicist fees, to hosting screenings, to sending nominated actors and directors to award-season events.
另外还有100万至200万美元其他费用，包括宣传人员的费用、举办放映会的费用，以及供获得提名的演员和导演参加颁奖季活动的费用等。
Estimates on the total amount of money that Hollywood spends each year promoting its nominated films to academy voters have ranged from $100 million to $500 million. Certain winning films, which at first seemed like underdogs for best picture — such as “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) and “The Hurt Locker” (2008) — were reported later to have benefited from multimillion-dollar Oscar campaigns that rivaled their production budgets.
好莱坞每年花在向奥斯卡投票人宣传提名影片上的总费用估计在1亿至5亿美元之间。后来有报道称，某些最初似乎不被看好，但最终获得最佳影片奖的影片受益于堪比制作成本的数百万奥斯卡宣传费，比如《恋爱中的莎士比亚》(Shakespeare in Love, 1998)和《拆弹部队》(The Hurt Locker, 2008)。
But even if a nominated film wins an Oscar, does all this investment eventually pay off?
但是，即便一部提名影片获得了奥斯卡奖，所有这些投资最终能得到回报吗？
Only in terms of prestige, Mr. Follows said, because an Oscar gives Hollywood players the clout to secure new projects or demand higher prices. But the actual box office “bounce” from an Oscar win is quite limited.
福洛斯说，只有从声誉角度讲是得到了回报，因为奥斯卡让好莱坞玩家们获得了影响力，能保证开始新项目或抬高身价。但是获得奥斯卡奖对票房的“提升力”非常有限。
In 2013, the data analyst Edmund Helmer put the relative box-office value of an Academy Award win at $3 million — often less than half of what a studio spends in its Oscar promotion. A Golden Globe win, by contrast, was worth $14.2 million to a prospective film.
2013年，数据分析师埃德蒙·赫尔墨(Edmund Helmer)计算出奥斯卡获奖影片的相对票房价值为300万美元，这通常不到电影公司奥斯卡宣传费的一半。相比之下，金球奖获奖影片的相对票房价值为1420万美元。
That disparity mostly has to do with timing, Mr. Follows said. Oscar films must debut in American cinemas by the end of the year, but the awards ceremony does not take place until late February (this year on Feb. 22).
福洛斯说，这种差距主要与颁奖时机有关。奥斯卡参选影片必须在上一年年底之前在美国影院上映，但是颁奖典礼要到2月底才举行（今年是2月22日）。
“How many films are on the tip of people’s memories for two months? Very, very few,” he said. “Whereas the Globes are happening soon after those films have to be out. If a film wins a Globe, you can go see it the next day. With the Oscars, when something wins, everyone’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember that film from last year.”’
“有多少电影过了两个月还能让人一下子想起来？很少很少，”他说，“但是金球奖是在这些电影必须上映之后不久举办的。如果一部电影得了金球奖，你第二天就能去影院观看。但是一部电影得了奥斯卡奖，人们会说，‘哦，对，我记得去年看过那部电影。’”
