I had been involved in the Globes for a handful of years before the Hollywood Foreign Press was culturally “canceled” weeks before the 2021 broadcast.
The HFP was under contract with Dick Clark Productions as the producing company and in an exclusive broadcast agreement with NBC. In the heat of the ongoing accusations, NBC decided not to broadcast the award show. But the Globes were also not allowed to broadcast with anyone else either.
It was decided that the nomination announcement which was usually a huge, live press conference as well as a precursor to the Oscar nominations, would be livestreamed. Who would attend? Who would watch? Who would care? Those were the least of their worries because no one wanted to host the iconic press conference. No one.
It was decided that the newly seated president of the Golden Globes, who would lead the charge in overhauling the membership base as well as voter guidelines, would be the face of the broadcast.
Helen Hoehne was tall, white, blond-haired, and German. Perhaps not the BEST choice but certainly wouldn’t look like pandering either. Helen was nervous, very nice and allowed me to coach her alongside their crisis management advisor. Members from Dick Clark Productions were skulking about but completely hands-off. Seemingly just there to show face and make sure no one else tried to poach the HFP even though they did not want guilt by association either.
It was mid-day before the early morning live stream when we realized there was another problem. The nominee names needed to be displayed via graphics as they are announced verbally.
ME:
When will I receive the names so they can be entered into the graphics bey by the engineer?
GG EXEC:
NO ONE sees names before the envelopes are opened on-air.
ME:
Then how do you expect me to get the names typed out in the chyrons?
I have no idea how this was done in the past. But obviously, someone from Dick Clark handled this historically and the Globes people never bothered to ask how.
I asked, “What time will the envelopes be delivered to the property?” “Do you want myself and the graphics op to sign some NDA?”
Moments later after numerous frantic phone calls, it was decided that the firm of Ernst and Young would deliver the Golden Globe nominations only to me before the broadcast. (You could have kidnapped me for ransom if anyone really cared).
But about four hours after signing my life away, someone snapped out of it and put the kibosh on the whole thing, leaving time for me to replace the lead engineer who quit at 9pm, and finish music clearance.
I went to my hotel room to get some sleep before a 4am call time. But at 12:15am I get a call from another GG exec.
GG EXEC:
Great news! We got Snoop Dogg to announce the nominations. He is flying into LAX at 4am from DJing in Vegas. What do you think?
ME:
Well, I think Snoop isn’t in television OR film so it probably looks like he is the only one that was willing to do it.
GG EXEC:
More importantly, you need to bring everyone in to rehearse with him before we go on.
ME:
There is no way he is going to rehearse. He is going to walk in, read the names, collect his money and leave.
GG EXEC:
Well, what if he mispronounces some of the names?!
ME:
Everyone will just think he is high, which he probably will be, and it’ll be a standard Snoop move everyone will love and talk about.
By the way, it is at least 45 minutes from LAX to the property. I’m not convinced he’ll even make it on time. Let Helen know she should still plan on doing it. Night!
Snoop made it moments before the livestream. He walked out, talked about all the white people in the room, BRILLIANTLY mispronounced Ben Affleck, Christine Baranski, Kenneth Branagh, and Denis Villeneuve, and left. SOOOO good.
I did throw my hat into the ring to assist in a new show format that would support a new diversity initiative in the hopes of directing the next inception if it ever came back from the scandal.
But when they clearly were not listening to anyone and even the crisis manager peaced-out, I made my exit as well.
I DID get a piece of swag … a GG Covid mask … it was black. Ironic.