explicit purpose<\/a> of housing the Academy Awards. Every year, the production team looks for a way to reimagine the stage to keep viewers at home captivated, while still paying tribute to the traditions of the nearly century-old ceremony. <\/p>\n\u201cThe Oscars is the granddaddy of all award shows, so people expect something from the show that you have to honor,\u201d Paine said. \u201cYou\u2019re honoring films, you\u2019re honoring the people that work in film, but at the same time, you have to continue to evolve and be interesting and keep it interesting for viewers at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523936_350_.jpeg\")
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Electricians place lighting strips along the orchestra seats to illuminate the faces of Oscar nominees.<\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n
Conceptualizing and building out a new stage each year is a massive undertaking. Paine estimated that in the three weeks leading up to the ceremony, they had upward of 100 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees on set every day. These workers control everything from individually steaming each stage curtain to rigging massive pieces of audio equipment. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523936_593_.jpeg\")
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The Dolby Theatre was built with the needs of the Oscars in mind. <\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n
However, Paine believes that even with the hard work and multiple projects the team juggles, the grandeur of the Oscars makes it \u201cspecial to be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been around the longest, and I think it\u2019s the show that everybody wants to be a part of that works in this little world,\u201d Paine said. \u201cWe have the luxury of time to be able to rehearse it promptly and put it together.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523936_874_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The Oscars will air Sunday at 4 p.m. Pacific. <\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n
![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523937_959_.jpeg\")
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\u201cIt\u2019s nice having Oscar be there for us year after year,\u201d Paine said.<\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n
As Oscars Sunday draws near, the work Paine and the production team have put in over the last eight months is finally beginning to pay off, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you look at the schedule, and you look at the design and the budget and everything else together, it\u2019s like, \u2018Man, it\u2019s gonna be a challenge this year,\u2019 but it always gets done. It\u2019s really about the people that come together and make it happen for us,\u201d Paine said. \u201cThis is the best part of the show, once we\u2019re in the theater, actually producing what we\u2019ve been talking about for eight months.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523937_428_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The ceremony requires several audio mixers to control broadcast and in-house audio.<\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n
The 2026 Oscars will air live Sunday on ABC, with streaming available on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773523937_829_.jpeg\")
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More than 100 stagehands help build out the Oscars stage in the three weeks leading to the ceremony. <\/p>\n
(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eight months ago, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley began proposing new ideas for the 2026 Academy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[100699,6758,28647,82611,14300,48,52,51,47,50,49,3906,48049,100698,100697,1459,592,6196,1860,776,72],"class_list":["post-219974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-academy-awards-stage","tag-award","tag-ceremony","tag-dolby-theatre","tag-equipment","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-month","tag-oscars","tag-oscars-production-team","tag-paine","tag-part","tag-people","tag-set","tag-show","tag-sunday","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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