Awards-night jitters

Click here to read Part I

(Second of two parts)

It’s so easy for a lot of people to put down awards night presentations. Among the most criticisms hurled against these programs is that they are boring, disorganized and lackluster.

Unfortunately, few people realize that these awards ceremonies are so difficult to put together and that you absolutely have no control over some circumstances related to these programs. In fact, even if you plan several months ahead, things may still go wrong at the last minute.

Last Thursday, I already pointed out some of the problems that occur during the mounting of awards presentations. Here is the rest of the list of headaches experienced by the members of the award-giving bodies and their respective TV producers during the awards season.

Limited venues. There’s really nothing more elegant than having your awards night at the main theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The stage has depth (very important if you want to stage big production numbers) and all the facilities are excellent. Too bad, it’s so difficult to book and the whole of CCP is closed for maintenance the whole month of May, which is still part of the awards season.

Another alternative is the CCP Little Theater (perfect for small but elegant programs), except that it only seats 700 and, yes, it’s also closed for maintenance all throughout May.

For a while everyone was using the Manila Film Center – until it got condemned (I think it was because of the July 16, 1990 earthquake).

Of course, there was the Manila Metropolitan Theater, which saw many FAMAS nights and Star Awards for Movie and Television. Sadly, it needs rehabilitation and is not suitable for anything in its current state.

At the moment, the UP Theater is the "seat" of awards night presentations. Actually, it was "discovered" by the Manunuri members who teach in UP in 1994. I remember the first time we used it. We had to insert maps in the invitation cards because no one knew where it was. Today, movie fans who love to ogle at film personalities during awards night presentations can find their way there blindfolded.

But even if the UP Theater is perfect for awards programs (its stage has depth and the theater is big enough to accommodate all your guests – even the guests of your guests), its "look" can get tiring because everyone else uses it nowadays. An alternative would be the Araneta Coliseum, except that it’s too big and quite expensive. The AFP Theater is quite small and the new RCBC Plaza in Makati is even smaller.

And while it’s nice to hold an awards night dinner-theater style, preferably at the posh Manila Hotel, the organizers end up getting chased by the waiters after the presentation due to unpaid bills from guests who charge everything to the producer and the members of the awards body.

Actually, the perfect venue for awards night presentations is the Meralco Theater. It’s just unfortunate that its management is so snooty, it would never agree to rent it out to anything that involves the so-called bakya crowd in local movies.

Near-bankruptcy of ideas. If you are putting up an awards show year after year after year, you are really bound to run out of ideas on what production numbers to put up and what motif to use as the overall theme of the show. Even the set design becomes a problem especially in the Gawad Urian because it always has to be Filipiniana or something related to cinema or any of the seven arts. So far, we’ve tried using for backdrop the lobby of a movie theater, an art gallery, a music room, an all-bamboo set, a garden, the interior of a house and, the next year, the exterior of the house.

A word of caution to the production staff of all the award-giving bodies: Never copy from the Oscars because you’ll end up looking like a stupid copycat. A few years ago, for instance, the Oscar Awards came up with a sparkling tribute to sound engineering by way of a production number that used no musical instrument – only the thumping of the dancers’ feet and buckets and mop sticks. It was really a rousing number – so spectacular that one of our local choreographers suggested we use it for the Urian. Over my dead body. Look, it’s not as if local viewers here won’t notice considering that everyone tunes in to the Oscar telecast beamed from Hollywood every year.

A month later, during another awards night, what do I see, but that Oscar production number that pays tribute to sound. They tried to copy it, but failed to approximate the brilliance of the original number and it looked pathetic.

Lack of performers. Anyone who says that the entertainment industry is brimming with singers should try looking for one during the awards season. In fact, for the last 12 years, I’ve been trying to get Gary Valenciano to perform for the Gawad Urian, but he’d either be abroad or doing a concert somewhere during the time of our awards night.

Sure there are a lot of other singers. But then, we’re not about to get just anybody from some karaoke joint in Malate. In the past, we’ve tried using little-known but talented singers, but with little success. Somehow they don’t click well with the audience of awards night presentations. Movie fans really ask for mainstream talents.

One way you can go around this is to combine a popular singer with a couple of emerging talents in a production number. Unfortunately, some established singers won’t perform with up-and-coming talents and you have to go back to mainstream just to put together this one production number.

Talents backing out at the last minute. To this day, I’ve never quite forgiven Piolo Pascual for backing out of his commitment to host the Gawad Urian in 2001 at the very last minute. To think that he was the first one to confirm his attendance – only to abandon us when a more lucrative offer to go to Japan came his way all of a sudden.

Even more horrible was what his fellow Hunk, Carlos Agassi, did to us. He backed out less than 24 hours before the show. Agassi was supposed to be part of the opening number. He had already recorded and rehearsed – until he got a better-paying offer at the last minute to perform in one of the lounges in Makati. So, goodbye.

Those long boring acceptance speeches. When I consulted this paper’s much-read columnist on etiquette, Ms. Mayenne Carmona, regarding this matter, she said that the only way to solve this problem is to tell the winners beforehand to shorten their speeches. This has never been done before because, well, you know how onion-skinned Pinoys can be. But I guess it has to be done starting this awards season.

Those long interminable commercial gaps. When the first Academy Awards was staged in Hollywood in 1928, the whole process of handing out trophies was over in five minutes.

Here in the Philippines, during the time of the Citizens’ Award for Television (CAT), the whole ceremony – usually held at the Philamlife Auditorium – would be over in one hour. Today, however, local presentations take a minimum of four hours to finish. Well, blame it on those commercials, which, unfortunately, we all have to live with because these are the lifelines of all the awards presentations.

Actually, those production numbers featured in awards programs are really just sidelights – icing on the cake. No, we shouldn’t really be critical of the roster of hosts and singers and the budget of the production. For what really matters in the end is the credibility of an award-giving body. An awards night with a credible list of winners to me is what makes an awards presentation successful.