Eight months ago, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley began proposing new ideas for the 2026 Academy Awards stage. Three months ago, contracted companies started building sets for the show. Three weeks ago, the Oscars production team loaded its equipment into the Dolby Theatre: more than 800 lighting fixtures, a custom PA system and massive fiber optic cables that run underground. Now, with less than 72 hours until the ceremony, Oscars co-executive producer Rob Paine said their “circus” is finally camera-ready.
Paine, who will be working his 31st Oscars on Sunday, is part of the production team that returns to the telecast each year. For Paine, the camaraderie between the awards show veterans feels like a “family.”
“It’s a very small group of people,” Paine said. “We move from one show to another, and a lot of us have worked together for a long time. … They’re all the best at what they do, and it just makes producing these shows a lot easier because it’s really complicated. You have a lot to do in a very short window, so to tell somebody, ‘This is what we need. This is the schedule,’ and then have them go off and do it successfully, it’s really important.”
The Dolby Theatre, formerly known as the Kodak Theater, opened in 2001 with the explicit purpose 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.
“The Oscars is the granddaddy of all award shows, so people expect something from the show that you have to honor,” Paine said. “You’re honoring films, you’re 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.”
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.
However, Paine believes that even with the hard work and multiple projects the team juggles, the grandeur of the Oscars makes it “special to be part of.”
“It’s been around the longest, and I think it’s the show that everybody wants to be a part of that works in this little world,” Paine said. “We have the luxury of time to be able to rehearse it promptly and put it together.”
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.
“Sometimes you look at the schedule, and you look at the design and the budget and everything else together, it’s like, ‘Man, it’s gonna be a challenge this year,’ but it always gets done. It’s really about the people that come together and make it happen for us,” Paine said. “This is the best part of the show, once we’re in the theater, actually producing what we’ve been talking about for eight months.”
The 2026 Oscars will air live Sunday on ABC, with streaming available on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.
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