There are few directors more iconic than Mike Nichols, who scooped up A.F.I.'s lifetime achievement award on June 10, and there are few venues in town more iconic than Sony Pictures Studios' stage 15, where filming for The Wizard of Oz took place. So with that feeling of Hollywood heft, guests of the black-tie taped-for-TV marathon ceremony in Nichols' honor moved afterward to a more casual mingling space, mostly outside, for a smart-looking after-party. A.F.I. director of special events Tess Csiszar tapped Jason Wanderer of Precision Event Group for the party's production.
About 600 of the 1,000 guests flowed into the alfresco space adjacent to the stage, plus the commissary and dining room on the Sony lot, around 11 p.m., when the ceremony wrapped. Wolfgang Puck offered hors d'oeuvres and desserts from passed trays and at stations. All-white flowers from C.J. Matsumoto & Sons topped stations, tables, and bars for a clean, monochromatic look.
An illuminated circular bar served as the party's centerpiece, and other bars had quilted white fronts. White gobos bore the logos of A.F.I. and Deloitte. In the commissary and dining room space, chocolate brown wood and white cushioned seating advanced the mostly monochromatic palette.
Ordinary workday business on the lot necessitated a tight load-in window fof only about five hours. "As we utilized the Sony commissary and dining room, we had to wait until 2 p.m. when each ceased its usual daily activity serving Sony employees to begin load in," Wanderer said. "We than had another two hours of striking existing furniture before we could load in."
Orson Welles, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Spielberg, and Robert De Niro are among the other heavyweights to have picked up A.F.I.'s lifetime achievement award since its inception in 1973. The 38th annual ceremony honoring Nichols, with appearances from the likes of Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, will air on TV Land Prime on June 26.
