Great Coverups, Part Three

A glamorous setting? This photo, taken at the time of the site inspection, shows the future main entrance for the guest of honor at her bat mitzvah.

And a bit of Hollywood magic...

Here is that same setting after AOO Events was finished with it!

Great Coverups, Part Two

Behind the scenes at the load-in of Club Glen, a private birthday party for 80 guests.

And the dramatic result!

This small Hollywood space was converted from an empty space into an intimate, exlusive one-night-only club for an A-list birthday bash. Dana Carvey opened the show and Don Henley performed live.

We're especially proud of this "great coverup" -- it won the 2008 Special Events Magazine Gala Award for Best Theme Decor. After guests dined on a gourmet four-course dinner served in a Moroccan lounge created by AOO Events, they moved to Club Glen's ultra chic lounge and club where they were treated to a true nightclub experience.

Great Coverups

Before and after shots are the event designer's best friend; the perfect tool to truly illustrate what we all do every day. This is a picture of the hallway of the soon-to-be-renovated Las Vegas Planet Hollywood convention/ballroom area. Since we were in the middle of producing the opening of Planet Hollywood, the client's directive to AOO Events was to cover up every inch of anything that looked like the Aladdin for the event.




And voila! The only way you can tell this is the same space are the chandeliers down the center of the room and the glass divider at the very end.

I've Been to Spain...

Ah, time for a little vacation from it all. No time for a real one, so every now and then I take a virtual vacation by visiting my travel shots. This particular series is one of my favorites. It was taken last summer in the north of Spain while on vacation.

Sunflower fields just like this one line both sides of pretty much every rural road around the northern coastal town of Begur. I made my good Spanish friends stop the car on the side of the road to get this picture! This is one of the prettiest images in memory that I take with me from this region.

This is a gorgeous old Monastery Castle that we toured on our way to the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, Catalonia. Need I say more? It was as spectacular on the inside too!


And now, here we are inside the museum. Dali is one of my favorite artists and this museum, located in his hometown, Figueres, has the largest collection of his work. This is the Mae West Room, called that for a reason. To view it, you walk up a flight of stairs to a high platform. At the top is a giant lens that you look through. I shot this with my camera through this lens with no flash, so forgive the poor photography. But look beyond Mae’s face. Dali created a room in actual size that when seen from this lens looks like Mae West. The lips are a couch, the nostrils are a fireplace, and the eyes are painting in black and white. Stand back from your computer or squint your eyes for the full effect. Amazing!

Talk about inspiration for event design. Now if I can only find a client who wants to do something as “out-there” as this!

Hollywood Theme: Smoke and Mirrors

An event that we call Smoke and Mirrors has become one of our more popular themes for out-of-town groups in Los Angeles. This one was the gala event during an incentive trip for a Fortune 500 company.

This particular version of the event was done like a museum with hand props and costumes from either popular film genres or the films themselves.

The Entrance
Instead of real paparazzi, our twist is the imagery of paparazzi and the red carpet. This is done by creating photoboard cutouts of paparazzi and then putting the cutouts behind a scrim. Back lighting the cutouts creates the silhouettes. To add that element of reality and a clever detail, tiny “egg strobes” are put in the cutout flash bulb of the image to give the illusion that photos are being taken.

The Setting
The old-time luxe of Hollywood was evoked through dramatic pinspotting and large overhead lampshades, reminiscent of the restaurants of its heyday such as Chasens and The Derby.

Unforgiven
One of the centerpieces featured Western props from the Clint Eastwood film, “Unforgiven.”

Leatherheads
This table was set with old football paraphernalia from the movie “Leatherheads” with George Clooney.

Vignettes
Just as in a museum, we created vignettes to show off some of the film props and costumes. The base of the vignettes followed the same idea as the entrance and we created “silhouette” imagery of the Hollywood Sign. This vignette showcases the dress actress Kirsten Dunst wore in “Marie Antoinette.”

Heart to Heart

Louis Price on stage at the Heart Foundation event.

There actually were two stages at this event. The one you see in my July 2 post was the dance stage and this one was the main stage for performers such as Louis Price, Thelma Houston, Teena Marie and Michael Johns (from American Idol).

The stages were designed with worldwide media in mind. The entertainers would be photographed in front of this look, and the speakers -- such as Berry Gordy below -- had another. This ensured that the main photos of Gordy, Sydney Poitier and other huge names were released with the heart in order to further extend the brand of the Heart Foundation when photos were published around the world.

Berry Gordy on stage.

Note: These photos and the photos on July 2 were shot by Curtis Dahl.

More From the Heart

At the Heart Foundation event, we used a new product from Moss that was developed for the special event market. This stage backdrop is called Moss Mosaics, a line of modular shapes designed to clip together to create small or large backdrops. A multitude of patterns and designs can be achieved with these simple panels. I love them as they are a great canvas for any number of lighting effects. Here, they make a dramatic stage for dancer Vivian Nixon, Debbie Allen's daughter.

Blue was the theme color of the evening and we created a simple yet effetive tabletop using Wildflower's Paillette linen with large, bluish sequins and glass vases filled with hydrangea.

Guests entered the event through a series of photos showcasing the life and work of Berry Gordy, the evening's honoree.