And the sexiest job in accounting goes to . . .

This is the 72nd consecutive year that PricewaterhouseCoopers has counted the Oscar ballots, writes Laura Slattery

As A-listers shimmy down the red carpet outside Hollywood's Kodak Theatre this Sunday and nervous nominees pass on the names of their dress designers to the waiting press, two tuxedoed accountants will slip quietly into the building and take their positions offstage.

They are PricewaterhouseCoopers' Rick Rosas and Brad Oltmanns and they know the secrets of the movie industry's biggest night: who has won an Oscar and who should start practising their gracious loser faces now.

This is the 78th annual Academy Awards and the 72nd consecutive year that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has counted the Oscar ballots on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

"It's a neat thrill," Rosas, tax partner and movie lover, tells The Irish Times.

Rosas and Oltmanns will finish their hand count of the final Oscar ballots late this afternoon Pacific Standard Time (PST), by which point they will know if frontrunners Brokeback Mountain, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon will actually take home the golden statuettes for best film, actor and actress respectively, or whether second favourites Crash, Joaquin Phoenix and Felicity Huffman have snuck past the Oscar-winning post.

Once the final ballots are received from about 6,000 eligible academy members - the strict deadline was 5pm PST last Tuesday - they are locked in a safe.

Counting the ballots takes place over three days in an unassuming, windowless conference room.

"It's not very glamorous," says Rosas. "We never disclose the location and you have to get through four locked doors to get into the room."

Four other PwC staff assist them but only count portions of the vote and are instructed not to talk to each other. Rosas and Oltmanns are the only two people who know - in advance of the "and the Oscar goes to . . ." moment - the results that studio executives would kill their campaign managers for.

Discretion has been the key to PwC's long history with the academy: only 12 partners have ever led the balloting process.

Counting the votes by hand is part of the legacy and heritage of the Academy Awards, according to Rosas. "The topic of computers has come up, but there has never been a push to use them. All of our security and accuracy procedures are built around counting the ballots by hand."

A leak, and there has never been one, would be disastrous: the Oscars are the second biggest non-sporting betting event in the US after the presidential elections.

The ceremony itself, watched by more than 40 million people in the US alone, usually manages to produce one upset to keep things interesting - especially for those on this side of the Atlantic who fight off drowsiness to watch it live.

And, if some categories seem like a one-horse race, it is only because the Oscars is the final date in the industry's awards calendar and voting patterns have been sussed. Academy members themselves have in the past proved to be loose-tongued and are now requested not to reveal their own choices.

Oscar balloting in fact started months ago, with preliminary nominations in some categories made last October.

Chasing both prestige and box office takings, major studios and independent production companies alike hold off releasing their worthiest contenders until the winter, so that the end credits are still fresh in academy members' minds when they receive their main nomination ballots just after Christmas.

Thousands of DVDs are mailed and, as a helpful reminder, full-page "for your consideration" adverts costing millions of dollars are placed in the influential trade magazines Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Screen International.

For its part, PwC has agreements in place with the US Postal Service and the Royal Mail to ensure each member receives their ballot, on which they list their preferences, one to five.

"Luckily, academy members tend to have good handwriting," laughs Rosas.

After seven days of counting, the PwC partners hand the results into the academy's headquarters in Beverly Hills the night before they are announced, escaping quickly before the building is locked down.

A carefully vetted group of academy staff, with their phones confiscated, spend the night preparing statistics, biographies and other information for the televised nominations announcement at 5.30am.

Rosas and Oltmanns won't be kept in seclusion this weekend, but they will keep a low profile, says Rosas, and dodge attempts at eliciting hints. "I tend to be around my family and friends in the days before the show and they understand how big a deal it is, so they don't ask. Sometimes there are people who do, but we've had good practice keeping stonefaced."

On Saturday, Rosas and Oltmanns will prepare two complete sets of envelopes with the winners' names inside. On Sunday, they will each bring a set of envelopes to the ceremony, travelling by separate, secret routes.

Rosas and Oltmanns remain backstage during the ceremony and hand the envelopes to the award presenters immediately before they walk onstage.

They also memorise the names of the award winners in the 24 categories in case they need to come to the aid of the actor presenting the award.

Rosas says this has only happened once in Oscar history, when Sharon Stone, presenting two awards, mislaid an envelope.

The ceremony, which runs at over three and a half hours and is televised live, is usually "extremely controlled".

On the night, Rosas will be positioned stage left, the side where the ceremony's host, this year satirist Jon Stewart, stands. "Our hope is that we don't have to spring into action at any point," he says.

This is the fifth time that Rosas has led the balloting process for PwC. His fond memories of his first Oscars in 2002 include standing a few feet away from Paul McCartney as he performed his nominated song.

That year, nominee Russell Crowe, who only weeks previously had pinned a Bafta producer against a wall, was presenting an award.

"It was my first year and it's fair to say that I was nervous," Rosas recalls. "I knew the day before that I was going to have to deal with him."

As it turned out, Crowe was on his best behaviour. "He was the single nicest person I dealt with that year."

Julie Andrews also gets a special mention - "I was just overwhelmed by how charming she was" - while Robin Williams, there one year to support his friend and host Billy Crystal, put everything in perspective by cracking jokes backstage for an hour straight. "He cannot not be funny," notes Rosas.

"At the end of the day, myself and Brad, we're accountants. It's just a surreal experience being around people like Robin Williams."

Rosas and Oltmanns have the sexiest job in accounting and they know it. "For Brad and I, the Governor's Ball after the show is probably the best part," says Rosas, "We have the chance to go to the biggest party of the year with our wives. It's a neat experience."

Who will take home this year's Oscars? The Ticket.