Intense planning; cue: spontaneity

JUST before 3 p.m. Sunday, an “Access Hollywood” producer named Mike Marson was rapping at the door of the show’s co-anchor, Nancy O’Dell. He -- like everyone else -- was sweating in his tux in the ungodly heat.

“One of my most important jobs is to make sure Nancy gets to the red carpet on time,” he said. “Are we ready? Let’s go!” A few minutes later, O’Dell gingerly descended from her trailer, blond tresses at full extension, long lashes in place. She was helped along by an assistant who was gingerly carrying the train of her long, very low-cut purple gown. Suddenly, she stopped. “Where is my credential? Who has my credential?” Magically, the credential appeared, the mini crisis ended and O’Dell strolled the red carpet.

The red carpet show is now an institution inseparable from awards shows themselves -- the tabloidy, snippy, gossipy sibling -- and hosting the “Emmy Red Carpet Special” for NBC for the first time, O’Dell and her “Access” co-anchor, Billy Bush, were in full celebrity press mode. The two celebrity interviewers are celebrities themselves, as evidenced by the number of fans who called their names and pointed cameras at them as they made their way to their booth. It all may look ad-libbed and tossed off, but it’s almost as robustly orchestrated as the main event. The logistics are formidable.

O’Dell had just recovered from nine days of laryngitis and had spent a good deal of that time memorizing names, nominations and a staggering variety of factoids. Those helped her to interview celebrities as effortlessly as possible when, as happened later, she and Bush had actors like Denis Leary, Jeremy Piven and Julia Louis-Dreyfus lined up like jets awaiting takeoff, on a red carpet where temperatures would hit 100 degrees. (“Access Hollywood” weekend co-anchor Tony Potts, who swore his foundation was melting off his face and forming itself into a Halloween mask, called that a “red carpet SigAlert” and added, “We love those!”)

On Sunday, “Access Hollywood” had 120 staffers on site, including five anchors and correspondents and three special correspondents hired on just for the day. There were technical trailers, talent trailers, tented eating areas and three interview areas on the red carpet itself. Backstage, they had installed a spa and positioned a camera on the underside of a massage table, just below the face hole, for celebrity interviews with a twist.

Rob Silverstein, the show’s intense and funny executive producer, said he’d been working on the show for months, trying to figure out a way to make it fresh and different and, not incidentally, rip the heart out of the show’s main competition, “Entertainment Tonight.” “I’ve looked at every [arrivals] tape for eight years, and we’re trying to add dimensions you don’t normally see,” Silverstein said. “We’re gonna loosen it up, be energetic, have a little attitude. Not so reverential.”

To that end, he and his anchors taped humorous segments with nominee Charlie Sheen -- O’Dell in baseball regalia catching for Sheen, Bush with Eva Longoria getting a spray-on tan from a mobile tanning service -- and he planned to show them during the stars’ red carpet interviews. Unfortunately, the segments were iced when Sheen and Longoria didn’t make their entrances on time and never stopped by for interviews. But Silverstein did get to use the McDreamy gambit: The blimp that was flying over the Shrine Auditorium for those familiar long shots that began the arrivals show segment flashed a message to Patrick Dempsey of “Grey’s Anatomy” when he stepped up to be interviewed by Bush. “Dr. McDreamy.... That’s hot.” (Dempsey looked up and saw it, but his socks did not blow off.)

Although the talent and staff of “Access Hollywood” were spread out all over the arrivals area, the heart of the operation was the control room, an overcrowded trailer with three tiers of seats for about a dozen people working computers and other equipment. An additional 10 people jammed in.

Everyone faced a wall filled with dozens of monitors.

Silverstein was trying to decide which actor should open an upcoming segment. “Randy Jackson is better than Jean Smart, don’t you think? More people watch ‘American Idol,’ ” he said. Meanwhile, director Bob Levy (from “Fox NFL Sunday”) was anticly choreographing the live broadcast. Curiously, Levy was wearing black gloves. No one seemed to know why, though Silverstein guessed it was so he didn’t bite his nails. That would be understandable, given the intensity level in the trailer. When Levy was especially happy, he rang a little silver service bell on his desk.

To an outsider, it’s almost impossible to understand the precisely calibrated dance that happens. Levy yelled out numbers and names and commands: “Hey, blimp man, you can zoom now!” or “Factoid!” Sometimes, his utterances were comprehensible only to those they were meant for: “Peter, you cannot fade that [stuff] up. You gotta have ‘em potted.”

It was close to 5 p.m., when the Emmy show was due to start. Back on the red carpet, a booming voice urged stragglers to take their seats inside the Shrine. The stars were coming in clumps now and O’Dell’s assistant, Joe Siyam, was helping supervising producer Adam Jordan spot interview quarry. The entire cast of “The Sopranos” walked by, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar strolled past, but they held a spot for nominee Barry Manilow (who later won a statuette). They also made time for Annette Bening and Warren Beatty.

The last few minutes of the show were devoted to a fashion analysis with Tim Gunn of “Project Runway” and actress Maria Menounos. Together, the two decided who “made it work” (Katherine Heigl, Mariska Hargitay, Debra Messing) and who didn’t (Sandra Oh, Cheryl Hines).

A quick goodbye from the hosts, and then, Levy said, “We’re clear. Nice show! Way to go.” He took off his gloves and either hugged or shook hands with everyone in the trailer.

Silverstein, for his part, stayed at his seat, looking slightly drained but satisfied. He was not sure how he was feeling about the broadcast. “I think it was pretty good,” he said, “but I gotta go home and watch it.”