Oscar speed-writing 101

It was an especially harried year for the crews pulling together the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast, but no team worked faster than the writers.

Longtime Oscar show veterans Hal Kanter, Buz Kohan, Jon Macks and Bruce Vilanch -- all of whom were hamstrung from working until the Writers Guild of America lifted its strike Feb. 13 -- hammered out the presenters' dialogue in about four days, instead of the usual four weeks. Now they're all in rewrite mode as the celebrities and their publicists tweak dialogue. Denzel Washington was in on Thursday. All the celebrities will be on hand Saturday for the rehearsal.

"This year, everything has to be speeded up," said Kanter.

While telecast host Jon Stewart has his own team of New York-based writers scripting his bits, the four-man team scripts everything else.

"On the plus side," said Kohan, "you don't have to deal with people having too much time to go over the stuff and complain about it."

The toughest part of the job is getting the scripts cleared by the A-listers' publicists. Years ago, writers would work directly with the talent to suss out the nuances of their dialogue. But these days, it's rare that the writers get face-to-face meetings with the celebrities.

"The show is never really written," said Kanter, who has scripted 37 Academy Awards shows. "It was always rewritten. And usually rewritten the last couple of days."

Not all celebrities are comfortable with live performance, particularly in front of the 4,000 people at the Kodak Theatre on Oscar night and the billion more tuning in at home, said Kohan, who has written for the Tonys, Grammys, Emmys and People's Choice award shows,

"The ones most comfortable are the stage actors," said Kohan. "They actually memorize their lines. They treat it as a part... For a number of them, though, it's their first time being themselves in front of an enormous audience."

Each writer usually works alone, crafting scripts for about seven or eight presenters. Vilanch and Macks often write for the comedians. This year, Kanter wrote for Nicole Kidman and Hilary Swank, while Kohan landed the show's most surprising guest: Miley Cyrus, the "Hannah Montana" sensation with a formidable teen following who is relatively unknown by childless adults and the over-12 crowd.

"I haven't heard back from her PR people," said Kohan. "I think she's coming in tomorrow. If she's not comfortable, we'll make changes. We'll put a few more 'Awesomes!' in there."