Awards Season

Beverly Hills - On December 14th, the Awards Season officially began at 5:15 a.m. That was when the Golden Globe nominations were announced at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The Awards Season extends the Holiday Season a couple of extra months for those in Hollywood. Its the time of gift bags, lavish parties and acknowledgements for the nominees. Nominations by themselves are victories. A recent ad on television for "DreamGirls" stated that it had "won" five Golden Globe nominations. Coming in second, third, fourth or fifth, is still a win.

Covering a nominations ceremony require either pulling an all-nighter or going to bed at 6 p.m. I've done both, neither is good. The reason for the early start is that fact that they announce them on the West Coast, which is three hours earlier than the East Coast, and they want the publicity of a live broadcast on the morning TV shows and the whole day's news cycle. Maximum coverage.

The Grammy's, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy Awards all have the early start time. They also bring in some talent to announce the awards and do a round of press interviews afterwards. The Globes brought in a trio of actors, Matthew Perry, Jessica Biel, and Rosario Dawson. It's over and done with pretty quickly and then there is a mad flurry of activity afterwards as reporters pound out their stories, TV does their live shots and publicists call their clients to tell the good or bad news.

A nomination can make someone's career. Hilary Swank started her Oscar run with a surprising Golden Globe nomination and win for "Boy's Don't Cry". The nominations that stirred the pot this year were Sasha Baron Cohen for "Borat" and Mel Gibson for "Apocalypto", which he directed, written and produced. The media loves a good storyline and with those two along with some high profile stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyonce Knowles, Johnny Depp, and Brad Pitt, this should be a decent Awards Season.