On February 26, the 89th annual Oscars were held in Los Angeles, California. Drawing almost 33 million viewers, the Oscars show to be one of the most watched award shows year after year. Junior Paul Novosel is a filmmaker himself, posting short films on a Youtube channel called PJ Films along with his friend, junior Jake Ledford. While making films for his channel, he also is co-director of this years’ Olio Road Productions film, Cut for Time. An avid movie fanatic, Novosel said that most of his predictions for the night came true.

“I did want La La Land to win best picture, and I was surprised when they announced them winning as a mistake,” Novosel said. “Although Moonlight did deserve that award, as it was an amazing piece of work.”

With his more developed background in film than the normal person, Novosel says he viewed the Oscars and their films in different ways than any other average viewer would have.

“I view [award shows] differently in a couple of different ways, one being that I have a pretty good understanding and knowledge about the awards that are going out, who each nominee is and what they did to deserve that nomination,” Novosel said. “Also, I can understand how much winning an award of that degree can mean to directors and producers because of all of the time that goes into creating such movies.”

The Oscars held many high moments, but there were also several low points as well. Novosel said he enjoyed the jokes cracked by Jimmy Kimmel throughout the night, but disliked the Best Picture mix up.

“The jokes were about Matt Damon, and they were pretty entertaining to watch,” Novosel said. “The worst part about [the Oscars] was the award for Best Picture, when they called out the wrong film because they had really thought [La La Land] had won, and they had to get that award taken away from them.”

Novosel’s favorite part about filmmaking is seeing his work come to life.

“You get to envision the movie when you have the ideas in your head,” Novosel said. “But when you are actually filming it and watching what you had in your head come on screen, that is what makes all the hard work and effort worth while.”

You can find PJ Films on Youtube, as well as on Instagram @pj_films. Photo courtesy of ORPD Publicity.