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# How They Make the Oscar

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ECaWDVAI.m3u8" -->
## Video: How They Make the Oscar

[Watch (HLS stream): How They Make the Oscar](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ECaWDVAI.m3u8) (1:54)

![How They Make the Oscar](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ECaWDVAI/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2012-02-23. The Oscars start in Chicago where they make the coveted, gold plated trophy_


---

Jul 27, 2023 3:22 PM UTC

---

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### Fox Searchlight Takes Home The Most Gold From Oscars

---


## Transcript

The Academy Awards may be held in Hollywood, but the Oscar's humble beginnings are in this Chicago factory. The golden statuettes given out since 1929, has been made at R S Owens for nearly 30 years. We are at number 3, 621. for, that'll be the first number for the new batch of Oscars that we make. That means that they've been 3620 that have been produced. Some are in at the motion picture academy but most of those have been given out. The handmade figurine depicts a knight holding a sword standing on top of a film reel. It's made out of molten lava, a combination of different metals, and weighs eight and a half pounds.

The meticulous provess takes about 10 days to complete. We start with the hang testing, the hand pouring. The next step is the cutting the gate, sanding all the way around on the imperfections The third step is polishing, makes it real bright, golden perfection. Stage four is the electroplating, hand- dipping the mold into copper, nickel, silver, and finally, in 24 karat gold. The base is built separately and plated with black nickel, inspected from head to toe. Each Oscar must be perfect in every detail. It is a special award. First of all there's so few of them made approximately 50 of them given out per year.

So I think that, in itself is important because the Motion Picture Academy has really maintained the exclusivity of the award. After the assembly the awards are packed and shipped off. Before the winners take them home, each is also engraved with the recipients name. But we won't find out who this trophy belongs to until the next Oscar night.

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