As we honor Black History month this February, the Stagedge team is proud to partner with The Critics Choice Association, the largest critics organization in North America, to bring the 3rd Annual Celebration of Black Cinema to life. This event celebrates over 100 years of black cinema and honors the stars of the silver screen for their outstanding achievements in film. While in past years, the program is an upscale evening celebrated in person, in 2021 the event went virtual. And as a result nearly 10 times more people were able to watch it!
This prestigious award ceremony, hosted by Bevy Smith, honored an impressive group of visionary films, actors, producers, and directors. Including Delroy Lindo (Career Achievement Award), John Legend & Mike Jackson (Producers Award), Chadwick Boseman (Performance of the Year Award), Zendaya & John David Washington (NextGen Award), Shaka King (Director Award), Tessa Thompson (Actor Award), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Breakthrough Award), Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom, Jr. (Ensemble Award), Andra Day (Special Honoree Award), and Tommie Smith (Social Justice Award).
Converting such a distinguished in-person event into a virtual experience is not without its hurdles, but the Stagedge team was up to the challenge:
First our design team would need to create a brand identity and visual style worthy of such an important, high profile event. This visual identity would be pulled through to everything from the Virtual Venue, to the digital program booklet, to the physical awards presented to each film start.
Then our virtual event experts collaborated closely with the Critics Choice Association to realize their vision, finalize the run of show, and produce an immersive, highly cinematic virtual event. Our video production team leveraged remote video capture technology to ensure the audience could experience the reactions and acceptance speeches of the actors, directors, and producers.
To ensure the experience was upscale, immersive, and dynamically paced, Stagedge partnered with LiveCGI, a software company specializing in creating immersive computer-generated environments for events, broadcast, virtual reality and more. This virtual environment was custom branded with the visual identity created by the Stagedge design team and was integrated directly into the production workflow. Creating a highly polished cinematic experience to keep the at-home audience engaged.
Our web development team created a boldly branded Virtual Venue which would host the live broadcast and featured a digital program booklet, spotlights on the award recipients and presenters, and access to live technical support.
The invite-only virtual event was broadcast live via the custom-branded Virtual Venue on February 2nd to a VIP audience of television and film industry leaders, critics, and reporters. The live program was viewed by nearly 1,000 virtual attendees around the world. Throughout the month of February, in partnership with Nexstar Media Group, the show will air on over 40 broadcast networks around the country including KTLA in Los Angeles.
Stagedge was proud to partner with The Critics Choice Association to bring The Celebration of Black Cinema to life in 2021.