Nomination ballots for the 82nd Academy Awards® were mailed yesterday to the 5,777 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The ball is rolling for the Oscar awards in 2010 and the excitement is building not only for the Oscars but the entire awards season kicking off early 2010.

Completed ballots must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2010. Ballots received after the deadline will not be counted according to the rules. Nomination and final Awards ballots are tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure that all aspects of the balloting process are conducted with fairness and accuracy.

Prior to mailing, the PricewaterhouseCoopers staff administers a thorough verification process to ensure that there are no duplicate ballots and that none are missing. In addition to being counted and sorted, the ballots are numbered to guarantee that each one is addressed to the appropriate Academy voter. The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2009 will be presented on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

It does look like there will be a number of films nominated that have heavy reliance on computer animation and special effects. Think of movies like ‘UP’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Where the wild things are’ and localized sci-fi drama ‘District 9′ for instance.