Man behind Oscars announcement cards reveal they cost up to $500 (2024)

By Sadie Whitelocks

Published: 16:33, 3 March 2014 | Updated: 12:38, 4 March 2014

The man behind the iconic Oscars announcement cards has revealed that they cost up to $500 to produce by hand and weigh more than an iPhone at 4oz.

Marc Friedland, 54, disclosed the cards' elaborate production process at his Hollywood studios last week in the run-up to this Sunday's 86th Academy Awards.

Speaking about the stationery's luxurious design, he told Reuters: 'We wanted something that was going to be timeless yet very chic and relevant.'

Mr Friedland has been providing the ceremonial announcement envelopes and cards since 2011 and Tom Hanks previously exclaimed that they are 'works of art in themselves.'

This year, his team worked 110 hours to create 363 cards and 72 envelopes for all of the Academy Award nominees.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the company that has been overseeing the Oscars voting process since 1934, then secretly stuffed the envelopes with the correct cards on the day of the event.

Three sets of envelopes were produced for the candidates - one for each of the co-announcers on stage and another in case of emergency.

In 2013, four sets were made because one set secretly went to the White House for President Obama's inclusion in the live show.

The envelopes are crafted out of gold paper with red lining stamped with a gold Oscar statuette pattern.

They are then stuffed with thick white cards bearing the tagline: 'And the Oscar goes to ...' along with the winner's name and film and sealed with a shiny red sticker and matching ribbon.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has used sealed envelopes to reveal the winners since 1941.

Before then, the coveted list was released to newspapers for next-day publication, but when the Los Angeles Times leaked the names prior to the 1940 ceremony a new system of secrecy was adopted.

Today, not even Mr Friedland or any of his employees knows the victors in advance.

The announcement cards featuring the names of nominees who didn't win are later destroyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The envelopes and cards are so substantial - too big to fold in a clutch bag - because they are seen as much as a token of winning as the Oscars statuette itself.

In total the winners - who this year included Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club and
Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine - end up carting home one 8.5lbs statuette and a 4oz envelope.

'The joke is that the 10 pounds that actors or actresses lose before the Academy Awards, if they win, they go home 10 pounds heavier between the envelope and the statuette,' Mr Friedland told the Hollywood Reporter.

The stationery guru emphasizes the importance of the printed envelopes, even as new technologies and social media continue to digitally transform the Oscars.

He concluded: 'In this age of technology and tweeting and texting, this is the most low-tech thing possible but the amount of emotion, spirit, heart and soul contained in that envelope will last a lifetime for that winner and will bring them back to that moment when their name was announced.

'America once was known for making things, and I feel so honored we are prolonging a craft of decorative and communicative arts.'

He estimates that each card and envelope set costs between $200 and $500.