Let’s first get this out of the way. Episode 8 of “The Studio,” aptly named “The Golden Globes,” was not filmed during the real Golden Globes, nor did the Apple TV+ series strike a deal with the yearly awards ceremony to shoot the entire 31-minute episode on its set. Instead, they rented out the Beverly Hilton ballroom, where the Globes are hosted, and built their own awards ceremony from scratch.
“We were adamant that it had to be shot at the Beverly Hilton in the actual room where the Golden Globes were,” said series co-creator, co-director, and star Seth Rogen, when he was on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “I’d say rightfully, a lot of our producers and partners, and the studio, were like, ‘Why? Who will know the difference?’ And we were like, ’It just has to.’ I thought a cool part of the show is to really give people, whether they know it or not, what the experience of it is like.”
Each scene of “The Studio” is shot as a long continuous shot, or “oner,” and part of the reason Rogen and co-creator/co-director Evan Goldberg were adamant about using the real Beverly Hilton was that aspects of the location couldn’t be faked. Explained Rogen, “We had this idea in our heads, it’d be cool if you started in the limo when you walk through red carpet, and you walk through the lobby, and you walk into the ballroom, and just actually show people what that’s like on a very moment to moment basis.”
There were a number of factors as to why the decision to restage the Globes at the Beverly was “insane,” the word most commonly used by “The Studio” team in describing the endeavor. High on the list: Time.
“When the Golden Globes go there, with whatever longstanding deal they have with that hotel, they have weeks to prepare,” said location manager Stacey Brashear. “That’s because they buy out the whole hotel. They put up all the actors there, they put up the workers there, it’s a huge ordeal.”
Whereas the Globes have approximately two weeks to load in according to Rogen, “The Studio” had 12 hours, with only four days to shoot the entire episode at the hotel. Compounding the challenge, during the days of shooting, the Beverly Hilton was in the midst of major demolition, converting its parking garage and pool as part of a massive expansion and renovation project. During weekdays, the jack-hammering would cease at 4pm, which is when “The Studio” would start rehearsing and shooting.
“The hotel was really trying to discourage us from going there because they didn’t want to take our money and then us not be able to get our shots,” said Brashear.
To fulfill Rogen and Goldberg’s limo-to-ceremony vision, compromises would have to be made in how they filmed the beginning of the episode, when studio chief Matt Remick (Rogen) arrives. It would be impossible to reconstruct the Globes’ legendary and proprietary “Pink Carpet” (“The Studio” did not get permission to make theirs pink, and went with the standard red), which involves massive construction, a complicated valet system, and barriers that go on for nearly a half-mile. The combination of time, resources, and construction meant the red carpet would be shot in such a way the audience doesn’t see the expanse of the Globes’ exterior that “The Studio” couldn’t reconstruct. Confined to 24 hours, the crew literally worked around the clock, starting with building the red carpet set at midnight, and by midnight the next day, the entire Globes exterior would need to be shot and wrapped.
Things didn’t get easier when the episode moved inside the ballroom. Emmy-award-winning production designer Julie Berghoff has a vast resume that covers a variety of genres, but she was also smart enough to know what she didn’t know.
“I’ve never done an award show, which is a totally different game,” said Berghoff. “There is a philosophy and method to designing an award show, so I did contact the [Globes] production designer. He was very forthcoming and kind in sharing what they do, because Seth and Evan wanted everything authentic, while they were literally jackhammering the garage next to us.”
Berghoff’s tremendous amount of research, while helpful, wasn’t comforting. She had to accept that putting on the Globes “costs a fortune,” requiring time and resources she didn’t have. She knew going in that the Hilton’s ballroom didn’t come “Globes”-ready, but she’d discover virtually everything had to be sourced. Berghoff would even hire many of the Globes vendors, including the company that supplied smaller chairs, because the hotel’s enormous ballroom chairs are too big for the awards ceremony to pack all the Hollywood stars around its tables.
“[The Globes] team was very kind and took some meetings with us to talk about the process, and I think they considered renting us their set, but it is a very expensive set and they’re protective of it. I don’t blame them because we’re a film crew, and we can be [Berghoff simulating the speed and deliberate nature film and TV production] bam, bam,” said the production designer. “So I had to build it, and because I had limited time to load in, I had to come up with a set that we could almost just load in and shoot it.”
With only five days total, which includes the time to construct and strike the set before and after shooting, Berghoff designed her Globe stage around the concept of free-standing (imitation) alabaster triangles, which would significantly reduce construction time at the location.
Another complicating matter is how “The Studio” is shot. Not only do Rogen and Goldberg film each scene as a oner, the constantly moving camera weaves with the action and shoots on a wide 21mm lens. Therefore, the scope of the Globes was not something that could be confined simply to a handful of wide establishing shots. Berghoff had to dress or hide every corner of the ballroom for a 360-degree set on virtually every take. At the same time, costume designer Kameron Lennox would need to dress upwards of 500 background performers to look like the Hollywood elite attending the star-studded ceremony.
“The resets were insane,” said Rogen about working with hundreds of extras. “It took so long to get everyone back to their places [after every take].”
By the time it came to shoot Episode 8, late in the production of Season 1, Rogen and Goldberg, the principal cast, and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra had cracked the code of how to shoot every scene as a high-energy, stressful, comedic oner. As they told IndieWire, they settled into a pattern of spending the morning rehearsing, and then after lunch, shooting between 15 and 20 takes to get the blocking, performances, and camera movement in sync.
“We had our system that we were getting pretty good at, but then adding like 500 people, that was [the episode] we had to do four to six takes per sequence and just had to move on,” said Goldberg, when he appeared on the Toolkit podcast with Rogen.
Part of making the Globes as realistic as possible was the already cameo-heavy series upping its game. Beyond Zoe Kravitz, who has a recurring role as herself in the series, Rogen and Goldberg needed to call in many favors to fill the room with celebrities, playing themselves, presenting and accepting awards. This led to another challenge Rogen and Goldberg didn’t anticipate.
“The show is all shot on a 21mm lens, it’s pretty wide, so as soon as anything’s in the distance, it’s very small. And normally, if I’m sitting in the audience at the Golden Globes watching someone on stage, you would just cut from a closeup of me to a closeup of the person on stage, but we can’t do that [because of the conceit each scene is one continous shot],” said Rogen. “We realized very early in order to make the episode work [we had to] make sure all these famous people, who I’m in the story with, aren’t just an inch big on your screen.”
“The Studio” creators worked with Berghoff to solve the problem with the strategic placement of LED and pull-down screens broadcasting the ceremony.
“We spent a ton of time placing screens around that were live feeds of what was happening with closeups of the people on them,” said Rogen. “So I could be in the foreground and you’d see the screen behind me with a closeup of the person talking. That was a really logistically complicated, but necessary thing.”
Editor’s Note: Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media company. PMC is also IndieWire’s parent company.
“The Studio” is streaming on Apple TV+. To make sure you don’t miss Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s upcoming episode of Filmmaker Toolkit, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
