SAG Awards EP Predicts First Netflix Live Stream Will ‘Really Change’ How Future Shows Are Produced

As Netflix shakes up awards season with a live stream of this weekend’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, the streamer’s history-making decision is bound to influence the future of awards ceremonies, according to EP Baz Halpin.

“We’re excited to bring [the awards] to a global audience on Netflix,” Halpin told TheWrap for this week’s Office With a View. “Netflix is the consummate innovator — pushing now into the live award space is huge, and I think it’ll really change the way that these shows are produced.”

Halpin is founder and CEO of Silent House Group, the global production and design agency responsible for some of the most memorable and large-scale live events of the last year, including Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and Usher’s Super Bowl LVIII halftime performance.

Next for Silent House is the first-of-its-kind awards ceremony live stream with the 30th SAG Awards on Netflix.

The acting awards, which take place on Saturday in Los Angeles, build upon Netflix’s expansion into live events after its first live stream of “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage” just under a year ago, and marks the first time a streaming platform has ever live-streamed an awards ceremony.

As the actors’ guild celebrates the best work of a turbulent, strike-filled year, Halpin anticipates the live stream component will foster more candid moments between attendees with no commercial breaks.

“With every award you see when there’s a commercial break and people get up or move around and talk and then quickly run back to their seats when it comes back on air,” Halpin said of being at the Golden Globes, which were broadcast on CBS. “This is different. This will have no commercial breaks.”

Halpin predicted the ceremony’s atmosphere might mirror that of “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love,” which his team also produced, as the lack of breaks during the variety show spotlighted the “camaraderie, respect and admiration that was in the room live.”

“What ended up happening was, all the things that people wanted to say to each other and the moment they want to have almost got transmitted [into the broadcast],” Halpin said. “That that positivity was bottled up, and then they started to let it out. There was this amazing feeling of love and joy in the room.”

Below, Halpin shares his “chameleon-like” methodology to working with artists across a wide variety of genres, including transforming Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour into a film experience and helping Usher’s recent Vegas residency shine through in his Super Bowl performance.

How do you tailor your production expertise to clients’ different needs and desires?
We’re constantly looking to push the boundaries, but we’re always making sure that every experience is unique. Oftentimes, you’ll find directors or producers that have a particular style, and that’s something that we are very conscious of — we want to be chameleon-like so we can adapt and change and work in a variety of different spaces. In the case of working with an artist directly, it’s finding a way to really tap into what the artist is thinking. A lot of our clients, we’ve worked with for many years, so we have a very deep understanding of who they are, how they like to be presented, how they perform.

Congrats on the success of “The Eras Tour” movie. How did you go about capturing the essence of the live experience for theatrical release?
The success of that film is down to the work that she’s done over the course of her career, and still she goes out and puts on a three-and-a-half-hour show every night and has the same energy.

We’ve worked on a lot of concert films and documentaries over the years, and in 2024, fans have so many different ways to connect with artists. It’s not like it was 20 years ago — social media has facilitated a level of access that was never even considered. It will never replace the humanity of the live experience — being there and wanting to be a part of it. If you weren’t fortunate enough to be able to be a part of it, these captures — when they’re captured in a way that can get as close to what the live experience was — offer a very positive alternative.

How did you curate the Super Bowl halftime performance that honored Usher’s legacy with throwbacks while keeping the performance fresh and engaging for viewers?
Everybody knows Usher, but not everybody saw his Las Vegas residency. He brought everything to that show, and it was transformative. He became so ingrained in the culture of Las Vegas and opened up a form of entertainment that almost didn’t exist. My goal was, we’ve got to bring that to the Super Bowl stage. We’ve got to bring the breadth of your career. We’ve got to bring the energy, we’ve got to bring all of the incredible elements, including and especially the rollerskating, but we’ve got to do it in 12-and-a-half-minutes. He deserved that opportunity, and he deserves the phenomenally positive response.

What is something you’ve learned from the industry that you would like to pass on as knowledge to your peers and people who are growing their career?
Be open to everything — you never know where a path is going to lead you, and you never know where the seed of an idea is going to grow.

We produced and created a show in Las Vegas called “Awakening,” which is a huge production with acrobatics, magic, dance, performance — everything. That started 10 years ago, as the germ of a throwaway idea. It was not something that I’d ever considered doing or wanted to follow, really. And then that idea just grew and grew. I kept saying sort of yes to every opportunity, and it’s now one of the proudest achievements of my career. You never know where doorways are going to lead. You only really ever regret the things that you didn’t do.

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