October 11, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Leslie Unger - (310) 247-3090
                          lunger@oscars.org

Academy Board Votes to
Establish Makeup Branch

Beverly Hills, CA – Makeup artists and hairstylists who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have been granted branch status by the Academy’s Board of Governors, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today.

Branch status will permit the roughly 120 makeup artists and hairstylists who are currently members-at-large to elect one individual from among their ranks to represent them on the board. This will increase the size of the board to 43. Information about the change and election materials will be sent to members of the new branch in time for them to select the new governor before the December meeting of the board.

The single-governor branch will be unique, but the representation of a craft area on the Academy board by a single governor is relatively common. Costume designers, production designers, set decorators, sound editors, sound mixers and live-action short-film makers all have a single representative on the board.

“There is a very strong sentiment among the governors not to increase the size of the board to the point that it becomes unwieldy,” said Ganis, “so the idea of even this slight expansion was not approached casually. But in view of their numbers within the organization, and the fact that every year we award the highest honor in filmmaking – our statuette – to an achievement in makeup, it seemed only fair to give these artists a voice on our board.”

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