They’re back at it. The stars doing the old one-two (walking) on the step-and-repeat. In spite of the virus, small screen Brits are dressing up in the name of promoting one’s projects and accepting one’s awards. Well, sort of. Richard Ayoade hosted the BAFTA TV Awards in a closed studio on Friday; the production staff socially distanced; and the “red carpet” appeared to be a single banner in the studio before which a few stars posed. Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones of Normal People, which isn’t even up for any BAFTA TV awards yet, headed to the studio for a couple of photos and an interview. They brought—or someone gave them—a tape measure so they could demonstrate for the viewers back home they were six feet apart. Or 1.82 meters? Please don’t yell at me if I got the conversion wrong. I only Googled it once.
Red carpets are the things that can make awards shows feel like an event. They create the active, preening momentum, all of Hollywood on a carousel before the stars head into some great theater and sit down. And they provide a long tail of content the next day, as casual observers pick apart the presentations. But much of it can’t exist in this new reality—the hordes of fans cheering from bleachers, of course, but also, the photographers screaming stars’ names so they can get the shot, the television interviews, the air kisses, strange pairings, cute pairings, new pairings, all of it.
Is this what the red carpet will look like? One or two stars at a time filing into a closed studio for a photo and a quick interview? BAFTA also organized photo shoots in or around the actors’ homes, as many magazines have done, including this one. The photography is much more interesting but I found myself missing the usually awful-looking branded backdrops and the literal red carpets. Am I just pining for normalcy? Perhaps. But I missed the prom-y nature of a true red carpet, the ability to see the full looks as if its not an awards show but a fashion one.
Thank goodness for whatever and wherever Mescal and Edgar-Jones were. Because from their stills alone, it looks an awful lot like the red carpet used to look like, just a little dinkier. Of course, the BAFTA TV Awards’ infrastructure is small potatoes compared to the BAFTAs, like the Emmys compared to the Oscars, but still. It could be a nice work-around for the time being.
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