The 2005 Scientific and Technical Oscars

Do you know who won the Scientific and Technical Oscars this year? Well, this spoddy sidebar took place a few weeks back, hosted by Rachel McAdams, and is set to be excerpted very briefly on Sunday night's big broadcast. The tech awards see the people who really, honestly make moviemaking possible - but don't come with all the glitz and glamour - get their moment in the spotlight, however fleeting, and however downplayed it sadly always is. This is where a genius like Garrett Brown gets a little pat on the back and reserved nod of the head - sadly in lieu of the standing ovations they so richly deserve.

I'm always disappointed how little respect the tech winners are given. The poor souls don't even have a shot at a real Oscar statuette, with the best they can hope for being a second-tier trophy, a plaque that, I'd imagine, you wouldn't recognise as an Oscar if it fell on your foot.

It's good that disciplines such as Cinematography and Editing are deemed suitable for the central awards section, but it is probably because popular misconceptions prevail about just what those particular roles entail, and that these fictional versions are somehow seen as "on a par" with Acting and Directing. Nobody has any illusions about the man dreaming up emulsions down at the film stock plant

All filmmaking is craftsmanship. It is a science. And yes, it is an art. But it is also a very technical process guided by rules and governed by laws. Many films come around each year that show a less-than-perfect understanding of these arts and sciences, yet still get nominated for any number of Oscars. Take Munich for example. Or Crash. And to a lesser extent, Brokeback Mountain.

On each of those films, the best work, the greatest achievements, were those of the backroom boys, the people who greased the wheels and made sure that the very machinery of filmmaking was ticking over at the level of the smallest cogs. These are the people recognised only in these ostracised, geek ghetto awards while the egoists up front, the Paul Haggises and the Spielbergs and the Keira Knightleys, are feted again and again and again.