The Oscars Award Ceremony
24th of March 2003
I was not able to get myself one of the black background with gold text Oscar ceremony invitations, but I went to the E! Entertainment channel Post show instead. How that came about I will talk about below.
Around 4pm I drove from the Santa Monica/Malibu area to Hollywood boulevard for some movie star gazing. As I got closer I noticed multiple helicopters and a red blimp (luftballong) overhead circling the area around the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars Award Ceremony was going to be held.
I drove around in the area not too far away and found myself a parking space that was actually legal. There are so many parking signs around with times when to park and not that I am careful when and where I park. It was getting close to 5pm and I knew that most of the “guests” would arrive around that time, so I walked quickly over to the Kodak Theatre. Two blocks in each direction had been blocked off, so that anyone who did not have an access card to show the police officers standing in groups here and there were not able to get passed the guards. There was a thin line opening for people to stand across the Kodak Theatre and watch from behind a 8 foot tall metal fence containing a black plastic cover. But to get to this space everyone had to go through a security point that contained a metal detector. When I finally got to the “viewing” spot it was already 5.30 and most had gone inside, as the show had already started. So I stood around for 10 minutes before I began my trip back to the car.
E! Entertainment Post Oscars Show
I did not go too far, for as I passed the Roosevelt hotel one block away two guys went inside and I figured that I might as well go in and see if anything went on there. In the main area a bigscreen TV stood and people sat in various chairs watching the Oscar ceremony. I sat down on the marble rock surrounding a small fountain and some scrub (others might call it flowers) to watch the show. I got a better seat later on, and I noticed a woman with a headset come over to the two women who sat beside me in their separate chairs and ask them something. I was curious so I asked what was going on. She told me I could come along if I wanted with the two women to the Post E! Entertainment show that was going to be held live upstairs on the second floor 40 minutes later when the Oscar ceremony had finished.
I went upstairs and became a part of an audience of 15 for the Post Oscar entertainment show. It was interesting to have a view of Hollywood boulevard toward the entrance to Kodak Theatre while being part of the after show. It was also fascinating to see how little rehearsal time was done by the reporters on the show. It seemed like most of it was routine, a few things they read on the teleprompter, which is bascially a huge tv camera with a good size screen where they read what they needed to say. At one point right before commercial I saw that one of the camera guys point the camera toward me, and at that moment the red light on top of the camera was alight, so I might have been on TV for a moment.
The live show was over and I went back to the “viewing” area across from Kodak Theatre for a quick look before going back to my Misubishi white Lancer (when I first picked up the car a month ago having a car white car called a Lancer, made me think of myself as a white Lance going forward). I stood outside behind the metal fence and tried to see who was entering the limos. The limo drivers handed over numbers to the attends standing outside, and the attends through bullhorns (if I remember the term right) announced the number so that whomever came with that limo would know that their ride had now arrived. Btw there was a gangway over the street used by TV so that the reporters were able to look down at the limos and talk about who arrived and left. The mood among the people standing behind the fence was one of thrill just waiting for someone famous to arrive, and they would yell out people’s names when they saw someone they recognized. Cuba Gooding Jr. came out and the people yelled to him, and he waved back. He entered into his limo and stuck his upper body out of the window of the limo as it drove away while waving to the people standing behind the fence. Sean Connery was another who entered into his limo. Someone beside me was filming in the crack of the black cover with his small video camera. He could zoom in so it was easier to see who it was that was standing across the street, so it was this way I could see it was Sean Connery entering into a limo.
It was a different way to experience the Oscar ceremony, than sitting at home far away watching the Oscars. It is as close I can be without having an invitation. Perhaps next year….