By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer
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LOS ANGELES — I was the man in the box at the Oscars for The Associated Press.

I would stand in an opera-style balcony near the stage at the Dolby Theatre that provides a great view of the show but an even better view of the audience. I’d peer down with binoculars to provide what journalists call “color,” sprinkled into our stories as we seek to give readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse.

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Hours before the telecast, an academy official with a black-belt-level credential would take me on a labyrinthine walk down hallways, through black curtains and over velvet ropes, past the Foot Locker and Sephora that make parts of the complex indistinguishable from a suburban mall, and into the box that I shared with the show’s technical crew members.

This year, the ceremony’s logistical layout will force me to work outside the box: in the media room, with the rest of the Oscars press corps. The food will be better than the nothing I normally get, but I’ll miss the box — where else could I have seen the following moments?

A DISASTROUS DEBUT

The fiasco came in my first year.

It was 2017, my first time inside the Academy Awards. I was gazing down on the audience. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway had just announced “La La Land” as best picture.

The alleged winners’ celebration soon turned to murmurs of confusion. I’m not sure anyone had ever seen as many stunned famous faces as I was suddenly looking down on after the true victory of “ Moonlight ” was revealed. The mouths of Meryl Streep, Matt Damon and Michelle Williams were all varying degrees of agape. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson had on a crooked expression that, in his wrestling days, he called “the people’s eyebrow.”

“I will never see anything this crazy again if I do this for 20 years,” I thought to myself. Turned out it only took five.

BIG LITTLE DETAILS

Big moments are not generally my job. I deal in details.

From the box, I got to see who the first famous folks seated are: generally, older actors with either no need or no desire to be part of the red carpet scrum. One year it was Jane Fonda, amid a sea of empty seats. I saw an 88-year-old Christopher Plummer, the oldest-ever nominee at that point in 2018, take his spot over an hour before the last-minute scramble that accompanies the telecast’s start.

I got to see how truly long the walk from the theater’s back is for the non-famous. One year, I could hear the shouts of glee from the proud mother of a victorious sound editor, though I could barely see her even through binoculars.

Trips to the bathroom, which require the accompaniment of a show staffer and a climb past a guy who runs a big crane camera, are their own adventure, with hopes — sometimes realized — that I might end up standing silently next to the likes of Denzel Washington.

In 2017, I saw Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel passing a flask to the people in their row, clearly having the best time in the room. When Timberlake gave his show-opening performance of “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” Javier Bardem was the only one wholeheartedly dancing the entire time.

A SPIKE STORM

The crowd at the Oscars does an excellent job of playing the role of “audience.” They hit every unspoken applause cue. They rise in surprising synchrony for standing ovations. They know to stay quiet. They get back to their seats before the cameras roll.

The best audience member to watch, from my perspective, is Spike Lee. For one, he always dresses distinctively, making him easy to spot in a sea of black tuxedos.