75th Academy Awards Ceremony Proceeds Discretely

First of all, we all are continuing to work diligently to put the75th Academy Awards on the air at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time this comingSunday, March 23rd.

That said, we all understand that the country is on the brink of warand may be sending American men and women into harm's way almost as wespeak. We must prepare for the show to be produced under thosecircumstances.

We are continuing our efforts to bring the show together on Sunday,but we do understand that ABC may adjust to war coverage if it isrequired and that ABC news will cover news as it happens. Any suchdecisions in regard to broadcasting the show will be made later in theweek, and will be made jointly by the Academy and ABC.

Keeping in mind the world situation, the Academy has elected toprepare a more sober pre-show and a scaled-back arrivals sequence. Thetraditional splashy red carpet arrivals line will be truncated, theportions of the arrivals press line that existed last year on HollywoodBoulevard will be eliminated and guests arriving by limousine will exittheir cars on Hollywood Boulevard and enter the Kodak Theatre directlythrough the arrivals arch. Nevertheless, we wish to be able to continueto celebrate the magnificent achievements of our filmmakers last yearand to present them with the Academy Awards that they have earned.

The Academy is mindful that many of its celebrity guests would feeluncomfortable arriving at this year's Awards at the beginning of amajor war to face a business-as-usual phalanx of interviewers andphotographers. The Academy's decision is meant to address the concernsof these celebrities, and to reflect the circumstances under which weare now producing this show.

Therefore arriving guests will not stop for interviews orphotographs.

Arrangements will be made to provide some television pool coverageof arriving celebrities, and room will be sought for as many otherpress as possible, but those arrangements have not yet been made. Itwill be at least 24 hours before these plans will be discussed.

We hope that everyone involved will understand that this change isbeing made in response to the critical situation in the middle east,and will help us to make these changes work.