What are the rules for eligibility for film people to show up in the "In Memoriam" tribute during the Oscars' ceremony? Who then narrows that list?
I presume there's some specific criteria, otherwise of the many thousands that have worked on Hollywood production over the decades that pass every year, there wouldn't be enough time for that, and nobody would know most of them. The public generally only knows on-screen talent, some directors, maybe some writers.
Your main question seems to be "how and who decides the names that are listed" rather than identifying the people who do appear...so I'll answer that.
From EW.com (from 2014)
So who decides? That would be a committee made up from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who sift through a list of about 300 submissions and decide yea or nay on who makes the cut, depending on their contribution to filmmaking. Roughly 40 end up being included in the film, which is created weeks in advance of the Oscars.
The producers [of the Oscar show] are given the list, and then commission the film. And almost every year, the names of those left out tend to cause an uproar.
The film can be re-edited at the last minute, and that is very likely going to be the case with [Harold] Ramis — a decades-long presence in the TV and film business, responsible for some of the most memorable and thoughtful comedies of the past 30 years. But if he does make the cut, it is those achievements that are being commemorated — not just his demise. And his last-minute addition will come at the behest of the Academy, not the producers.
From The Hollywood Reporter re 2017
Editor Chuck Workman, who has compiled the montage in previous years, says it can be longer than other parts of the show "because there's so many people you want to get in," adding that audiences "are tuning in because they want to know all these people, but I don't think they want to sit for 10 minutes."
