GMA’s Wilma Galvante to sit as judge in the Emmys

The 34th International Emmy Awards Gala will be held on Monday (Tuesday in Manila), Nov. 20 in New York City. This is a black-tie event to be attended by some of the world’s greatest TV practitioners. Among the chairpersons in the board of jurors (categories are divided into comedy, drama, documentary, breaking news, continuing news coverage, etc.) is no less than Oprah Winfrey and one of the judges in the comedy division is the Philippines’ own Wilma V. Galvante, Senior Vice President for Entertainment of GMA 7.

This is certainly not Galvante’s first time to take part in an international event. One of her previous projects that was global in scope was the millennium day broadcast – the one where we saw Regine Velasquez singing at the top of the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati and viewed by billions of people all over the world.

That GMA 7 presentation so impressed the international organizers that the TV executives fielded in Australia wanted to extend the Philippine exposure, except that it was decided in the home base in UK that each country had to stick to the original allotted time.

Wilma Galvante is proud of this project because it spoke well of the Filipino people’s technical excellence and creativity in the field of television. Her participation as judge in the International Emmys is another concrete proof that the Philippines is now being accepted and embraced by the international television community. The invitation for her to sit in the panel of judges came from the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which runs the annual International Emmys.

The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is the largest organization of broadcasters all over the world. It was established to "recognize excellence in television programming produced outside of the United States."

As judge, Ms. Galvante was given three weeks to screen entries in comedy (already whittled down to eight – to her relief) from different countries (those from non-English speaking nations have been provided with English subtitles). Watching eight shows may seem easy, but given her schedule, she had to put in extra time to carefully watch each entry and write down her comments.

Copies of the entries in DVD form were sent to her via FedEx and she would sit down to watch after everyone had left the GMA 7 executive offices – so that no one would bother her anymore with the usual multitude of problems and headaches that are always present in any major organization – especially one as big as GMA 7.

Watching the entries, she has to consider the concept of each show (its presentation – how it holds her interest and attention, etc.) – plus the execution: direction, writing, camerawork, lighting, editing, sound, costumes and even casting. (Hers is a trained eye.)

Of course, she’s not judging any of the entries from the Philippines (that’s not allowed – the organizers have already worked that out to avoid biases). So how different are the comedies from other countries compared to ours? "Our comedy shows are mostly situational," says Ms. Galvante. "The entries I saw cover different types of comedies – some even tackle racism, but in a funny way." That’s all she’s telling us.

Actually, she is also very curious to find out if her choices would jibe with those of the judges from other countries. She’ll only find out during the awards night on Nov. 20 – during the gala presentation where she will be wearing a Pepsi Herrera creation she had commissioned for this very prestigious occasion.

Wilma Galvante leaves on Thursday for New York because she wants to attend the International Emmy World Television Festival on Nov. 18 and 19 to which she is also invited in her capacity as judge of the international Emmys. In this two-day event, she will be in the company of Steven Spielberg, recipient of this year’s International Emmys Founders Award.

And what would she and Spielberg be talking about? According to Galvante, she’ll try to sell GMA Pinoy TV to this Hollywood legend.

Well, you can never tell because Galvante has accomplished a lot not only for GMA 7, but for Philippine television as well. With Spielberg looking into GMA Pinoy TV, who knows he may just be interested in Captain Barbell.

And if GMA 7’s lucky streak continues, believe me, Bakekang may just go Hollywood. Move over, E.T.