The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is putting new protocols in place to prevent a mistake like last month's best picture flub from ever happening at the Oscars again.
"La La Land" was mistakenly announced as the best picture winner at the 89th annual Academy Awards after the presenters for the award,Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, were given the wrong envelope by one of the two accountants backstage. The mistake was eventually corrected and "Moonlight" was declared the real winner.
To avoid mistakes, the academy announced in an email to members this morning, a third accountant will be seated in the control room during shows to ensure a more rapid response to any possible flubs, and the accountants will not be permitted to have electronic devices backstage.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that tallies the Oscar votes, took responsibility for the gaffe the day after the show.
"At the end of the day, we made a human error," Tim Ryan, the U.S. chairman and senior partner of PwC, told USA Today last month. "We made a mistake. What happened was, our partner on the left side of the stage, Brian Cullinan, he handed the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty. And then the second we realized that, we notified the appropriate parties and corrected the mistake."
The academy will continue to work with PwC for awards shows; however, the two accountants involved in this year's confusion, Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, will not work the Oscars again, PwC announcedearlier this month.