Get nominated for one Oscar award, in the film world it is quite an honor. Being one of the nominees for the award means that the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences recognized a film, performance, production or costume design as one of the best recent releases.

But, How do you choose the nominees? Even more important, how do you choose the winners? The Academy is responsible for making those tough decisions after seeing all the movies and shorts that have come out in the past year.

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The Academy is made up of thousands of members, all of whom are professionals in the film industry have been shown to have worked on at least one film in the last ten years. To be part of the Academy you must be sponsored by two members, or received an award nomination.

Anyone who is part of this group of expert filmmakers can vote for the nominations for the various categories that will be awarded, and then vote for the winner. This year they participated in the election 9,579 people65% more than those who did in 2014.

The Academy is divided into sections specializing in each category, so that the voters can apply their professional and objective criteria to the productions that deserve the nomination. There are 17 sections in total, such as screenwriters, artists, directors, and so on.

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To choose the best film, all members of the Academy vote. A system called Preference Voting is used where voters must rank the nominees from highest to lowest favourite, and if a nominee manages to take the first position with more than 50% of the vote, she automatically becomes the winner. Since that almost never happens, the votes are added to the favorite movies until that goal is reached.

The names of the winners in each category are then placed in sealed, tamper evident envelopes. The consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers is responsible for this and ensures that the suitcases with the envelopes arrive safely at the theater.

On Oscar night, the presenters of each category open the envelope and hear who the winner is who receives the famous gold statuette.