More awards night etiquette

Awards ceremonies are part of the film industry. Unfortunately, attending these awards nights can sometimes be a tricky exercise because some movie stars end up getting nasty write-ups due to some faux pas committed by them during the awards program. Below are some more pieces of advice to movie stars on how to conduct themselves best during these awards ceremonies.

Keep your acceptance speech short. The audience is always all ears to acceptance speeches – especially when tearful and emotional. But if you keep winging on and on, you will end up boring everyone with your acceptance speech.

Also, pity the awards producer for television. In the Gawad Urian one time, a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award spent about 20 minutes thanking everyone who was responsible for her career. Those 20 minutes cost the producer an additional P80,000 in overtime.

Don’t include your personal sponsors in your acceptance speech. You may thank your family and especially your co-workers: director, co-stars and technical crew – but please, not your hairdresser or the one who made your clothes for that evening because this will trivialize your victory.

Try not to make political speeches. I respect everyone’s political beliefs and convictions and as an awards night organizer I’ve never stopped anyone from making political speeches in the Gawad Urian. This was tested in the Urian 2001 at the height of the brouhaha over the controversial film Live Show. The day before the awards ceremony, our producer for television was already getting edgy over reports that some members of the movie industry would turn the Gawad Urian into a political forum against the administration, which was trying to ban the Jose Javier Reyes movie.

Advertisers surely would not like this and may pull out their support. But there was nothing I could do, I told the producer.

On Urian night, film industry people – and the Manunuri members – showed up wearing black armbands in protest against such blatant censorship. On two occasions that night, two winners gave fiery speeches against the Arroyo government. The earlier speech was short, concise and hit the target – bull’s eye. But the other one was overstretched and bored the audience. When the proceedings were aired on TV via delayed telecast, however, those two speeches peppered with political statements were no longer heard. I really don’t know what happened there.

The only reason why I’m discouraging political speeches in awards presentations is that there’s a chance these would be edited out anyway since the only stations that air awards night presentations are both sequestered networks. Ironically, those two winners that night of the Urian who spoke against censorship were censored themselves.

Send a representative who will accept your trophy if you can’t make it to the awards night. You may look a bit too presumptuous if you do this, but this is something you can do very discreetly. If for some reason you can’t make it to the awards ceremony, talk to one of your co-stars in the movie who has confirmed his or her attendance to accept your award. It’s usually very embarrassing especially to the organizer every time the name of the winner is announced and there is no one around to accept it.

Be a gracious loser if you don’t get the award. Of course, this would hurt, but you’re an actor – prove that you are a better actor than the one who got the award by acting your way through defeat. Go to the winner and congratulate him or her.

If you feel that you’ve been robbed of an award, just keep quiet. People from the press would speak on your behalf anyway – especially if the cheating was blatant. Of course, there’s a slim chance that there will be a recount. But just think – you may not have won the award, but in the end, you’ll win the respect of the public.