YouTube Music Awards Are Readied for Webcast

This was a reasonable sentiment that Mr. Jonze, the veteran director of music videos and feature films, happened to verbalize as he was overseeing a new music awards show.

Relaxing in an upstairs office at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, Mr. Jonze was taking a break on Tuesday afternoon from his duties as the creative director of the YouTube Music Awards, an online celebration of pop music and performers that will debut on Sunday.

When the curtain rises on this awards show, which will be held at Pier 36 in Manhattan and shown on the YouTube website, it will be the latest entry in a field of congratulatory broadcasts already dominated by the Grammy Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards and the American Music Awards, among many others.

But if done correctly — or even not so correctly — the event presents other substantial opportunities for YouTube and its corporate parent, Google: a chance to show that they can create the kind of content that was once broadcast television’s exclusive domain and that produces the unexpected, you-had-to-be-there viral moments that online audiences thrive on.

“It’s an important time for us to celebrate what YouTube’s role is in the music ecosystem,” said Danielle Tiedt, the website’s vice president for marketing.

“I think YouTube stands at a really interesting place,” she added, “where it not only is the water cooler, where the conversation happens and propagates, but certainly can be part of making the moments that lead to those conversations.”

One floor below Mr. Jonze’s office, a 5,600-square-foot soundstage had been overrun by artists and crew preparing feverishly but harmoniously for a live event that they had never attempted and whose commencement was five days away.

Along the studio’s perimeter, directors like James Larese, Chris Milk and Ray Tintori and the French graffiti artist Fafi were clustered around laptops, reviewing plans for performances by Eminem, Avicii and M.I.A.

In one corner, an enthusiastic choreographer was leading a squad of young dancers through a routine that will accompany an Arcade Fire number. In another corner, members of the band OK Go were conferring with Jason Schwartzman, the actor and a co-host of the awards show, figuring out how to paint his face and clothing to blend in with a picture of a mythical beast projected on the wall.

For Mr. Jonze, there was not much time for philosophical deliberations on why the YouTube Music Awards should exist; he and his collaborators were sufficiently happy to have a star-studded lineup of artists and a 90-minute canvas to do with as they wished.

“We’ve been given a lot of room to make a mess,” Mr. Jonze said. “Hopefully, it’ll be a fun mess.”

Mr. Jonze said he was approached about six months ago to take charge of the YouTube show, which will give out awards in six categories, like Artist of the Year and Response of the Year, with winners chosen by online vote. (The event is also being produced by Vice Media and Sunset Lane Entertainment.)

Over the last month, as Mr. Jonze finished his new movie, “Her,” and presented it at the New York Film Festival, he became entrenched in his work on the awards show. He helped recruit its hosts, Mr. Schwartzman and Reggie Watts, the musician and comedian, as well as directors like Mr. Milk, who came to New York a month ago for a conference on the future of storytelling — not necessarily to help out Mr. Jonze.

“The whole thing is like a game of pickup basketball,” Mr. Jonze explained. “Whoever’s nearby is playing.”

Mr. Milk said the goal of each artist’s performance was to create an original music video in a live setting. “It will never be as polished as a regular music video,” he said, “but it will have all the spontaneity and humanity of a live performance. In theory.”

Some of these videos, Mr. Milk said, “are more narrative, story-based.”

“Some,” he continued, “are more just about focusing on one performance. We have a video where —— ”

Mr. Jonze interrupted him and indicated the reporter in the room. “Don’t tell him any of the ideas,” he said.

Mr. Schwartzman said that he and Mr. Watts had been deliberately but willingly excluded from writing sessions so that their dialogue during the show would not sound programmed.

“Spike was like, ‘Why don’t we just not have scripts?’ ” Mr. Schwartzman said. “That sounded kind of fun. Then it became, why don’t you throw stuff at us that we don’t know is coming, to keep it spontaneous?”

As a tight, protective cap was being fitted around his head and chin, Mr. Schwartzman was asked if he was comfortable with knowing so few details about the show.

“Do I look like a guy who’s not cool with it?” he answered.

YouTube’s rivals in the awards show arena seemed to welcome the competition, though some cautioned that the site would face challenges as a web-only content company.

“If you’re asking, ‘How do we compete with a TV show, or how do we do a TV-like show?,’ then you’re not really creating something endemic to a medium,” said Dermot McCormack, an MTV Networks executive who is the head of connected content for the Viacom Music and Logo group.

Mr. McCormack pointed to MTV’s own efforts with a digital event called the O Music Awards, which emphasizes stunts like a 24-hour drumming marathon performed by the rock musician Andrew W. K.

“We were afforded that luxury,” Mr. McCormack said, “because we already have that great show called the VMAs that drives pop culture and creates moments.”

Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard, said that “there’s always room for more good entertainment,” whether on television or online, and that a viewership could be drawn to an awards show that rejoices in “the unexpected and the spontaneously weird.”

“There’s a great hunger, by YouTube and other online platforms, for the sort of moments created by an awards show,” Mr. Werde said. “People want to see a more honest slice of their favorite celebrities. The way to get closest to that is to take away some of the safety nets.”

Ms. Tiedt of YouTube declined to say how much the company was spending on the awards show. (“It certainly is not free,” she said.)

The success of the event, she added, would not be measured by its immediate viewership, but in weeks’ worth of online views and comments and other signs that YouTube is becoming increasingly integral to music fans.

“We’re looking for a long-term brand perception and a long-term belief,” Ms. Tiedt said. “That doesn’t need to happen in the moment.”

Mr. Jonze said his creative decisions were not influenced by corporate pronouncements but “more out of not wanting to be boring than any prerequired thing.”

Whatever the show turns out to be, he said, “It’s so awesomely not broadcast television.”

Adding three words that seem to forgive so much, he said, “It’s the Internet.”