Oscars: What Does It Take to Become a Member of the Motion Picture Academy Anyway?

The Academy’s decision not to invite Oscar winner Kobe Bryant to join this year is shining additional light on exactly what it takes to become a member of the organization.

The decision was made, according to a report on the Cartoon Brew website, because the former NBA star did not have a sufficiently established career in the entertainment field; “Dear Basketball,” the animated short for which he and Glen Keane won the Oscar in March, was his first film.

And in fact, each of the Academy’s 17 branches has specific rules about how many film credits or how much experience a person must have to qualify for admission.

But each branch also builds two escape clauses into the bylaws.