What are the direct and indirect costs involved with manufacturing Oscars?

The Academy Awards is an annual American awards ceremony honoring achievements in the film industry. Winners receive a statue officially named the “Academy Award of Merit.”  However, these statues are much better known by the nickname of “Oscars.” Each Oscar statue weighs 8.5 pounds and takes three to four weeks to manufacture.  The statues have been manufactured by R.S. Owens, a company in Chicago, for over 70 years.  R.S. Owens also makes the Emmy Award trophies and other awards.

Watch this CNN video to see how an Oscar statue is made.

Questions

1. What direct materials are used in the production of Oscars?
2. Is there any direct labor involved in the production of Oscars?  If so, what tasks are done by the workers classified as direct labor?
3. What indirect labor would be involved in the production of Oscars?
4. What other indirect manufacturing costs do you think would be incurred in the production of Oscars?  Use your imagination.

Instructor Resources

These resources are provided to give the instructor flexibility for use of Accounting in the Headlines articles in the classroom. The blog posting itself can be assigned via a link to this site OR by distributing the student handout below.  Alternatively, the PowerPoint file below contains a bullet point overview of the article and the discussion questions.  The YouTube video link below is a narration of the blog post article (no discussion questions are included in the YouTube video; those can be assigned separately.)

• Student handout (pdf) (word) (contains entire blog posting + discussion questions)
• PowerPoint file (brief article overview + discussion questions)
• CNN Video link

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