Oscars 2016: Academy announces written ‘thank you’ cards to cut down length of winners’ speeches

It’s a tricky line to tread for Oscar-nominees – do you prepare a full speech and look overly-confident, or wing it if you win and risk rambling on?

For the 2016 ceremony, the Academy have introduced a new idea to help cut down on lengthy award acceptances, aiming to keep them down to 45 seconds.

Nominees will be asked to write a list of names of people they would like to thank if they win in advance of the ceremony.

If they do win, the card will then be displayed on screens in the venue – meaning that winners won’t have to try and pull as many names as possible off the top of their head once they get a hold of their gold statue.

“As you probably are aware, and we don't want to embarrass anybody, but there is a long list of winners who have totally forgotten their directors, their husbands, their wives, their children and their animals,” said producer David Hill.

“It's a permanent record which could be kept, even framed and kept in the family forever. How cool is that!”

The Oscars 2016 will take place on February 28.