For us mere mortals, part of the joy of televised awards ceremonies are the intriguing and sometimes awkward insights they provide into the rarefied world of A-list interactions.
For every GIF-able shot of stars dancing in their seats or engaged in deep, meaningful tête-à-têtes, there’s also the possibility that the camera will catch a barely stifled yawn, a poorly-timed eye roll or the dying moments of an difficult conversation.
But how do the awards organisers create the former and avoid the latter (or, conversely, stir up some drama by embracing the latter…)? If Cosmopolitan.com’s interview with Gina Esposito, MTV’s vice president for music and talent, is anything to go by, it’s all down to some serious forward planning and social engineering. Spoiler alert: many of those ‘spontaneous’ candid moments that you’ll see on screen are anything but…
Esposito tells Cosmopolitan that the VMA seating chart takes months to plan, with work beginning when the nominations are released and continuing right up until the guests have arrived.
Unlike your friend’s wedding dinner, this seating plan is open to suggestions, meaning that stars often will send in nominations for their preferred seat mates, with MTV doing their best to accommodate their requests. After all, it’s in the network’s interests to seat friends with friends, as it creates a more natural, fun atmosphere.
As the proud ringleader of the biggest celebrity squad on planet Earth, it should surprise precisely no one that Taylor Swift is one of the most in-demand stars.
‘She has so many good friends, and it was hard to figure out the 'Taylor' of it all,’ Esposito says, ‘because so many people were requesting to sit by her and sit with her. She's often really requested.’ While there’s no denying that Taylor is a popular girl, the cynic in us reckons the fact that the camera pans to her ‘reaction face’ every couple of minutes might have something to do with this, too…
Those camera angles, though, are actually something of a logistical nightmare for the MTV crew. As Esposito reveals, ‘You’re looking at it for camera angles and whose reactions we might capture throughout the night. And the logistics that go into that are so insane. You have to be thinking about how long it’s going to take somebody, should they win, to get from the stage back to the dressing room if they’re performing.’
There’s also the possibility that a celebrity might choose to ditch their allocated seat and move to sit with their pals regardless. ‘You’ll have artists who rearrange seats in real time so they sit together,’ Esposito says. ‘As long as you’ve got eyes on that, to say, “Selena Gomez moved so she’s by Taylor, we’re good,” then it’s alright. If we don’t seat them together, they find their way to each other anyway.’ Lesson learned: no seating plan can tear the squad apart…
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