Netflix golden globes | 2019
The world we built
The Golden Globes studio after parties are some of the most well-designed events out there today. From HBO to Disney to Hulu, every year when the broadcast to the Golden Globes ends, it becomes a who’s who at the Beverly Hilton, with every major studio in attendance.
Joining the party for the first time in 2018, Netflix felt they had alot to prove in only their second year of Golden Globes contention.
With multi-year contracts awarded to all the longstanding studios at the Beverly Hilton, we activated Netflix in the one location that nobody ever wants. The folks at Best Events, who ran the production, call it “The Mud Pit”, and although it provides a difficult challenge, the reward is an event with virtually limitless possibilities.
Just outside of the Beverly Hilton, right on Merv Griffin Way, lies 150,000 square feet of vacant land. It requires a 12’H scaffold just to lay down the flooring, and the frequent January rains are guaranteed to bog down any cranes, boomlifts, or forklifts.
However, if you can brave the elements and find the diamond buried in the rough…you’ll find jewels of all colors in this endless pit of mud.
Concept and ideation
How does one sum up the thematic of a studio that’s been nominated for 15 different categories? Is it a matter of picking the most important movies and building around those?
For us, it started with color and with mud. During one of our early site visits, cold, raining, and muddy, we started to kick around the concept of drastically vibrant color slashed throughout darkness.
At the time, Netflix was close to launching their famous “tudum” intro for original programming. Up until that point, Netflix had a brand identity of black, white, and red, with very little secondary brand elements.
The team at Netflix was looking for a way to highlight this huge brand change at the Golden Globes event, so we went to work on compiling a jewel tone color palette, and various ways to bring to life the now iconic jeweled color display.
Following the theme, we began to integrate softer tones to surround the jewels, using brushed gold, rose gold, and ivory fabrics surrounding the exterior of the event.
Fabrication and scenic
Our three biggest question marks revolved around the entry moment, the photo moment, and the chandelier. We knew they would all be main characters in the nights’ story, with much of the jewel tone themes providing the world and setting for our characters.
We worked closely with Netflix to integrate the new branding using different textures and materials. One of those just happened to be with plants. After the client asked if we could use ‘birds of paradise’ in the floral, we took that a step further and used jungle greenery to create layered and natural scenic.
The entry moment was a mix of lemon leaf, rubber plant, ficas lyrata, palms, and monstera leaves. Everything was hand-applied.
The chandelier slowly morphed into a 12’W x 40’L behemoth of dripping gold. The chandeliers were custom ordered, hand-installed, mounted, and rigged over the course of 10 days.
The photo moment started as Kubrickian space-age airlock door, but slowly shifted into something more…esoteric. Ultimately, we created a mirrored galaxy of red and purple, with a forced perspective angle to create the effect of endless space behind you.
end result
Netflix’s 2nd trip to the Beverly Hilton went off without a hitch. in 2019, Netflix won 5 Golden Globes awards, beating out all of it’s streaming rivals that year. We obviously had nothing to do with these wins, but being in the tent with the clients as they won certainly made us feel a sense of pride.
Netflix’s after party was one of the most photographed of the night, with stars like Idris Elba, Pete Davidson, Machine Gun Kelly, Adam Driver, Kate Beckinsale, John David Washington, Charlize Theron, and Spike Lee all in attendance.
It’s not a night we will soon forget, and it taught us a valuable lesson - apprecaite the muck in life. It might be dirty, it might be rough, but more often than not, you’ll find jewels at the bottom. All you have to do is keep sifting through it.
Creative Design: Paladin Creative | Event Production: Best Events | Venue: A Tent in The Mud Pit
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