Isn’t it too early to be glamorous?

THE scene: 4:30 a.m. in a Beverly Hilton Hotel ballroom. Searching the room for scrumptious gowns in anticipation of the Golden Globe nominations but finding instead a sea of pleather-jacketed reporters pacing to stay awake; a room full of camera guys setting up their tripods with bleary determination in performance fleece vests and Birkenstocks.

By 4:33, a riot seems imminent as tuxedoed waiters push in carts of food covered in cellophane. One man stands guard, leaving it temptingly close but still off-limits.

Fashionably dressed youngish people begin to arrive. Can the press corps have transformed itself so completely? No, it’s an invasion of Hollywood flaks. Figures. Every studio, PR firm and awards-season campaign consultancy has its people on hand, scrolling through their BlackBerrys, poised to phone clients with the good or bad news.

The glamour quotient rises with the arrival, oddly enough, of guest announcer Steve Carell, who is looking unacceptably spiffy for this hour in a black suit and shiny tie. Inside, cameras are being set up on platforms, while onstage a roundish older man waves his arms and mock-yells soundlessly as though he is making an angry speech. His angry fake delivery glares out of monitors across the room, ignored by the handful of reporters who slump at the banquet tables set up at the room’s rear.

Amid this unshaven rabble of reporters, rare, fragile gazelles caper into the room -- women with extremely complicated long flowing coifs and several layers of makeup, and tall men in perfectly tailored suits. The on-air personalities are arriving and are leaped upon by a phalanx of makeup and hair people.

A catering manager finally calls across the room to the waiters standing guard at the buffet: “Open it up!” The crowd instantly forms a line that stretches across the ballroom. It’s nothing fancy, but at least it quells the masses.

It’s after 5 when Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., takes to the podium and reads a speech about the awards and introduces the presenters -- Carell, Kate Beckinsale and Mark Wahlberg.

And then the big announcement: the identity of Miss Golden Globe, a.k.a. the Trophy Girl, a spot traditionally reserved for a daughter or granddaughter of a famed actor. This year, Globe winners can look forward to seeing their statuettes fondled by Dakota Johnson, daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson.

Carell takes the mike and reads the nominations with no banter or comic bit. Is he doing a subtle parody of a serious awards show announcer guy? There are subtle signs, but who can be sure? Beckinsale, whose gown is alarming at this hour, reads through more of the minor awards. Bleary-eyed Wahlberg gets a laugh with a “good evening” as he takes the mike.

A woman blurts a loud “Yes!” when “Prison Break” gets a nomination. Beckinsale draws a cheer when she announces the nomination of Carell for “The Office.” Wahlberg’s phone goes off as he reads his list, and he refers to George Clooney as “Jorge.” Otherwise, the final list is a straight read and the show is over in a flash.

In the back of the room, a veteran of these events points out the beaming publicist for Showtime. The network’s “Weeds” received two nominations; the veteran predicts the flak will say he made history. Sure enough, the publicist soon whispers, “I made history today.” These, he explains, were Showtime’s first nominations in 30 years. The veteran leans in, “This is Woodstock for publicists. This is their high holy day.”

Legendary awards-campaign coordinator Tony Angelotti sits in a knit sweater, scarf and baseball cap at the Universal table. The day, he says, is “like working off a huge hangover.”

*

Richard Rushfield is a senior editor at latimes.com. He wrote this column for The Envelope (theenvelope.latimes.com), a Times website devoted to Hollywood’s awards season.