Best Picture Award Mix-Up Was Most Talked About Oscar Moment

We know that we have to “fall down seven times, get up eight” in order to grab whatever scraps of success and opportunity that are offered to us.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Oscar accountants responsible for overseeing the voting results every year, have broken their silence on Sunday night’s Best Picture fiasco that saw “La La Land” mistakenly named the victor instead of “Moonlight”.

Meanwhile, Emma Stone’s win for her endearing turn in “La La Land” continued a trend of young actresses winning for their roles in Best Picture nominees. It was an embarrassing and nightmarish moment, handled with surprising dignity by all involved. And it happened in a big way in front of millions of viewers.

Here’s what you need to know: it was the end of a particularly tedious Oscar ceremony and things had gone mostly as expected.

The night’s true drama kicks in when La La Land filmmakers take the stage to accept best picture. So that card could not have made its way to Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who were announcing the Best Picture award. “Warren Beatty had the same “oh hell no” look”. His Twitter followers wanted him to know that he was right on 19 of his picks, not 20.

Beatty, who was obviously confused by what he read on the card, then interrupted the acceptance speech, awkwardly trying to explain Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight was the real victor. Cue the standing ovation.

After the “La La Land” cast and crew went on stage, a man wearing a headset approached producer Fred Berger, who then said into the mic: “We lost, by the way”. And they were good ones too – impassioned, full of calls for diversity and tribute to creativity. He’s the guy who announced Moonlight’s belated Best Picture triumph to the world with already-infamous words, “This is not a joke”. Cue the Moonlight team celebrating.

A mystifyng breakdown in the final stage of the process led Dunaway to make the announcement that will be forever etched in Oscars lore.

In a sweeping apology, PricewaterhouseCoopers explained Beatty and Dunaway were mistakenly given the envelope for Best Actress, which listed La La Land’s Emma Stone as the victor, prompting Dunaway to declare La La Land the big victor of the evening.

“Moonlight” bests “Hidden Figures”, “La La Land” (obviously), “Hacksaw Ridge”, “Manchester by the Sea”, “Lion”, “Hell or High Water”, “Arrival” and “Fences” to win the coveted award.

But even Kimmel couldn’t keep the show from approaching the four-hour mark thanks to special featurettes, Matt Damon jokes and song performances.

So how did this happen?

Auditors at the firm are responsible for tallying the ballots and handing out envelopes containing the winners to the Academy Award presenters. “I am the creator of these moments”.

But still doesn’t explain how this happened. He saw “Emma Stone – La La Land” and paused for a moment, not knowing what to do.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, PwC typically create two complete sets of winners’ envelopes. The envelopes are kept locked up in an undisclosed location.

But Warren Beatty quickly realised his mistake and admitted it to the star-studded audiences. The winners of the 2017 OscarsA blushing Beatty immediately explained how the mix-up occurred.

So there you go.