Nothing bogs down an event like a long and boring speech.
Oscars 2019: What award winner did with his jet ski
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 21, ARTSAKHPRESS: While a sharp and succinct speech can keep things moving along nicely, a monotonous and rambling speech will often prompt yawns in the audience - whether it's at a wedding, a birthday party... or the Oscars, BBC News reports.
The Academy Awards ceremony often runs to more than three-and-a-half hours, which can be a bit much even for the most fanatical film fan.
So, last year, presenter Jimmy Kimmel came up with an idea to keep things moving.
At the beginning of the 2018 ceremony, the chat show host announced he'd be offering a jet-ski to the winner who delivered the shortest speech of the night.
"I will be timing you. I have a stopwatch," he said.
"Why waste precious time thanking your mom when you could be taking her for the ride of her life on a brand-new jet-ski?"
The eventual winner was Mark Bridges, who went home with the prize for best costume design for Phantom Thread.
But his 30-second speech meant he was also the recipient of a jet ski worth $18,000 - which was presented to him by Dame Helen Mirren.
"I have the philosophy that nobody wants to hear the costume designer yammer on about who to thank," Bridges tells BBC News ahead of this year's Oscars.
"I want to make it short and sweet."
Despite his speech policy, Bridges says his jet ski win was accidental rather than deliberate - as his speech was shorter even than he had intended.
"Basically, I forgot one sentence I was going to say, which was thanking [director] Paul Thomas Anderson more for working with me all these years," he explains.
"So I guess that's why it ended up being the shortest speech, because I skipped that sentence... so winning [the jet ski] actually was coincidence."
Most other winners at last year's ceremony were unswayed by the prospect of prizes and delivered the long speeches they had planned.
