I worked on the VMAs Red Carpet Preshow this past weekend — for the uninitiated, that’s the Video Music Awards, presented by MTV. Yeah… I wasn’t cool enough to watch this show when I was in high school, so it’s nice that they let me work on it as an adult! As my friend / boss Adam said, “You’re more of a Tonys gal, huh?” All the way. That said, it ended up being a very fun place to work for three days.
The event was held at Madison Square Garden — can you believe this was my first time inside the building?!
My particular role on this show was nothing fancy — I was the script PA; I built the script binders and copied / distributed revision pages, schedules, and rundowns. Mostly it was fun to be reunited with my friends Adam & Sabrina again, and to be a tiny part of a huge operation that involved a 16 minute Beyoncé performance (alas, that was during the main show).
Our live Preshow aired on MTV from 8-9pm before the main telecast; the hosts were Lizzo, Charlamagne Tha God, and DJ Khaled (all of whom I had to Google because, as we’ve established, I have never been the target audience for this show). The hosts were great.
Here’s Charlamagne interviewing Ariana Grande (source):
And DJ Khaled interviewing Puff Daddy (source):
And Lizzo interviewing Desiigner (source):
We also had performances by Alessia Cara & Troye Sivan, Lukas Graham, and Jidenna (all of these people were new to me… *old person alert*).
Other highlight arrivals on the red carpet include: Beyoncé with daughter Blue Ivy, Alicia Keys, Nick Jonas, and Kim & Kanye.
Beyoncé walked the carpet with the mothers of four black men killed in racially charged police incidents — the moms of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Oscar Grant III. These women were also featured in Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade, holding photos of their deceased sons.
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And some recent Olympians showed up — Michael Phelps and the 2016 U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team:
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When the Preshow ended at 9pm, I was off the clock, and headed inside to check out the main show.
Even my musical theater loving heart could not resist the vibrant hip hop energy bouncing all over Madison Square Garden! What an exciting place to be.
Comedians Key and Peele were not technically the hosts of the main show, but they provided commentary / play-by-play (in character) from a correspondents’ desk:
Alicia Keys presented an award:
Michael Phelps presented hip hop artist Future to perform “Commas” (I had to look that up), admitting that he was listening to another track by the artist when making his stink face meme that went viral during the Olympics. That is such a great tie-in… kudos to whoever thought of that at MTV.
Future performed:
Then Kanye West took the stage for four minutes… to do whatever he wanted. Which involved rambling and applause interruption. Surely that wasn’t much fun for the TV viewing audience at home (or even for those of us in the room) but he does know how to create hype, so MTV allowed it.
And then Rihanna performed again — in total she graced the stage four times, showcasing a medley of her greatest hits, as she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.
This whole performance happened way upstage so it was hard to even see Rihanna in person — but when I watched it on-line later, it played really well for the viewing audience at home.
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VMA selfie during a commercial break:
AND THEN BEYONCÉ PERFORMED FOR 16 MINUTES. A medley of like 5 songs from Lemonade. Impressive costumes, staging, lighting, and camera work. It was a theatrical spectacle and I loved it. Here’s Serena Williams introducing Queen B:
A tighter shot so you can see Beyoncé walking towards the camera as they round the side of the audience; so much of this performance was a dance between her at the camera ops:
Here’s a professional shot of the reverse angle — but even at a distance, this was such a cool visual:
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Literal mic drop at the end:
So you should just watch the whole 16 minutes. My favorite part is just after the 6:00 mark when Beyoncé swings a bat at the camera and it “cracks.” These Steadicam ops are the best in the biz.
The girl group Fifth Harmony won an award:
Kim Kardashian presented the next performer: Britney Spears, returning to the VMA stage after nine years away:
Her number involved a cool shadow puppet effect. Which in retrospect was likely a distraction to disguise her lip-syncing.
She performed with the rapper G-Eazy.
And then I ducked out to catch a train at Grand Central. So I missed Beyoncé accepting her award for Lemonade — but at least I got to see her perform! That was such an unexpected bonus, and something I will remember for a very long time. The VMAs might have made a fan of this Tonys gal! Who would’ve thought?
