{"id":53452,"date":"2020-02-07T17:12:14","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T23:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=53452"},"modified":"2020-02-07T17:12:14","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T23:12:14","slug":"this-jewish-data-whiz-predicts-the-oscar-winners-with-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/this-jewish-data-whiz-predicts-the-oscar-winners-with-math\/","title":{"rendered":"This Jewish data whiz predicts the Oscar winners with math"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Spoiler alert! See Ben Zauzmer\u2019s Oscar predictions at the bottom of this article.<\/em><br \/>\n(JTA) \u2014 In 2012, the first year that Ben Zauzmer made Oscar predictions based on mathematical modeling, he received an email from a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body that chooses the winners.<\/p>\n<p>Zauzmer was wrong to predict that the silent French film \u201cThe Artist\u201d would win best picture, the member said \u2014 he and some of his friends in the Academy had heard that \u201cHugo,\u201d Martin Scorsese\u2019s steampunk adventure flick, had a better chance.<\/p>\n<p>Zauzmer \u201cpolitely thanked him for his comments,\u201d and was proven right \u2014 \u201cThe Artist\u201d took home five Oscars that year, including best picture.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53453\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53453\" class=\"wp-image-53453 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-1024x768.jpeg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/225;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53453\" class=\"wp-image-53453 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2-6-20-zauzmer-1024x768.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-53453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Zauzmer works during the day as a baseball analyst for the Los Angeles Dodgers. (Courtesy of Zauzmer)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Since 2011, his freshman year at Harvard, Zauzmer has put his data skills to work predicting which films have the best chances of winning just about all of the Academy Award categories. Think of him as the Nate Silver of Oscars night.<\/p>\n<p>Zauzmer, 26, works during the day as a baseball analyst for the Los Angeles Dodgers, using math to identify strong players that the team could potentially acquire.<\/p>\n<p>In his Hollywood predictions, he continues a long trend of Jews who have been successful at forecasting \u2014 see Silver, Nate Cohn and Harry Enten in the political realm. He\u2019s also far from the first Jewish baseball analyst \u2014 the Dodgers\u2019 president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, and the new \u201cchief baseball officer\u201d for the Boston Red Sox, Chaim Bloom, are two other prominent examples known for heavily using analytics to make baseball decisions. (Gabe Kapler, the manager of the San Francisco Giants and a former player, is also known as an analytics guru.)<\/p>\n<p>Zauzmer, who hails from a suburb of Philadelphia and says his Reform synagogue was his family\u2019s \u201chome away from home,\u201d doesn\u2019t see Jews\u2019 love for statistics as too coincidental.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne thing I love about the Reform Judaism that I grew up with, and of Judaism in general, is that we\u2019re always taught to ask why \u2026 to try to understand things for ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that same spirit with which we approach religion is also I think a very useful one to approach statistics with: to not just accept anything, but to actually dive into the data and prove it or disprove it for yourself.\u201d<br \/>\nAs Zauzmer explains it, his dataset includes anything about movies that he can put a concrete number on. The best predictors usually turn out to be previous award shows \u2014 if a director wins the Director\u2019s Guild award earlier in the season, for instance, he or she has a good chance of winning the Oscar for best director \u2014 but it also includes critic ratings or \u201cscores\u201d on aggregation sites like Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n<p>The success of his formulas \u2014 in 2018, he correctly predicted 20 out of the 21 categories that he put into his models \u2014 has earned him an annual column in The Hollywood Reporter, in addition to other freelance pieces for the likes of The New York Times and elsewhere. He documented his approach in a 2019 book, \u201cOscarmetics: The Math Behind the Biggest Night in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, each year brings surprises, and Zauzmer\u2019s predictions are never perfect \u2014 they just represent the nominees with the best statistical chances of winning. There is always room for surprise.<\/p>\n<p>For example, even Zauzmer was surprised when \u201cMoonlight\u201d won best picture over \u201cLa La Land\u201d in 2017, and not because of the infamous envelope mix-up. \u201cLa La Land\u201d had dominated awards season before then and was therefore a heavy favorite in Zauzmer\u2019s model.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s why my math doesn\u2019t present 100% or 0% for any nominee,\u201d he said. \u201cProbability is only probability, and not a guarantee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Stop reading if you don&#8217;t want to be spoiled!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here are Zauzmer\u2019s predictions for this year:<br \/>\nBest Picture \u2013 \u201c1917\u201d<br \/>\nBest Director \u2013 Sam Mendes, for \u201c1917\u201d<br \/>\nBest Actor \u2013 Joaquin Phoenix, for \u201cJoker\u201d<br \/>\nBest Actress \u2013 Renee Zellweger, for \u201cJudy\u201d<br \/>\nBest Supporting Actor \u2013 Brad Pitt, for \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood\u201d<br \/>\nBest Supporting Actress \u2013 Laura Dern, for \u201cMarriage Story\u201d<br \/>\nBest Original Screenplay \u2013 Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin-won, for \u201cParasite\u201d<br \/>\nBest Adapted Screenplay \u2013 Taika Waititi, for \u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d<br \/>\nBest Animated Feature \u2013 \u201cToy Story 4\u201d<br \/>\nBest Documentary Feature \u2013 \u201cAmerican Factory\u201d<br \/>\nBest International Feature \u2013 \u201cParasite\u201d<br \/>\nBest Production Design \u2013 \u201cOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood\u201d<br \/>\nBest Cinematography \u2013 \u201c1917\u201d<br \/>\nBest Original Score \u2013 \u201cJoker\u201d<br \/>\nBest Original Song \u2013 \u201c(I\u2019m Gonna) Love Me Again,\u201d from \u201cRocket Man\u201d<br \/>\nBest Film Editing \u2013 \u201cFord v Ferrari\u201d<br \/>\nBest Visual Effects \u2013 \u201cAvengers: Endgame\u201d<br \/>\nBest Costume Design \u2013 \u201cLittle Women\u201d<br \/>\nBest Makeup and Hairstyling \u2013 \u201cBombshell\u201d<br \/>\nBest Sound Editing \u2013 \u201cFord v Ferrari\u201d<br \/>\nBest Sound Mixing \u2013 \u201cFord v Ferrari\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"This%20Jewish%20data%20whiz%20predicts%20the%20Oscar%20winners%20with%20math\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7139],"tags":[1574,8790,8795,8788,749],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53454,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53452\/revisions\/53454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}