This year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided that some traditions were meant to be broken. Not only did it end its practice of denying five-time nominee Martin Scorsese an Oscar, but it also reworked many of the customary key elements of its official post-Oscars Governors Ball.The ball took over 28,000 square feet of the grand ballroom—part of the Hollywood & Highland structure that also houses the award ceremony’s venue, the Kodak Theatre—with Mediterranean-inspired motifs, including five pergolas lined with vines, ivy, and roses for a Tuscan-countryside feel. More than 30,000 square feet of black canvas covered the ceiling so as not to distract from the pergolas’ ceilings, which were decorated to emulate different night vistas, complete with starlike white lights interspersed among the overhanging foliage.
Scorsese, along with the 1,500 other guests who attended the event, discovered that ball chairwoman Cheryl Boone Isaacs, together with Sequoia Productions’ Cheryl Cecchetto, had bypassed the traditional assigned seating of past years in favor of a more relaxed format, with eclectic arrangements ranging from suede banquettes to tall wooden tables and stools.
The pair also eliminated the formal tableside plated dinner service, replacing it with buffet-style stations. Guests not only could serve themselves but also watched as meals were prepared in the 10 kitchens within the dining room (four in the center, six on the periphery)—another first for the event.
The ball’s caterer for the past 13 years, Wolfgang Puck, also made Academy history by creating the event’s first completely organic menu. On the night that An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars, Puck used only organic, locally grown, sustainable ingredients and meat from humanely treated animals when serving the evening’s 1,600 pounds of lobster, 800 pounds of chicken, 400 pounds of Kobe beef, 40 pounds of black truffles, and 40 pounds of salmon.
—Rosalba Curiel
Posted 02.26.07
Photos: Nadine Froger Photography
Scorsese, along with the 1,500 other guests who attended the event, discovered that ball chairwoman Cheryl Boone Isaacs, together with Sequoia Productions’ Cheryl Cecchetto, had bypassed the traditional assigned seating of past years in favor of a more relaxed format, with eclectic arrangements ranging from suede banquettes to tall wooden tables and stools.
The pair also eliminated the formal tableside plated dinner service, replacing it with buffet-style stations. Guests not only could serve themselves but also watched as meals were prepared in the 10 kitchens within the dining room (four in the center, six on the periphery)—another first for the event.
The ball’s caterer for the past 13 years, Wolfgang Puck, also made Academy history by creating the event’s first completely organic menu. On the night that An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars, Puck used only organic, locally grown, sustainable ingredients and meat from humanely treated animals when serving the evening’s 1,600 pounds of lobster, 800 pounds of chicken, 400 pounds of Kobe beef, 40 pounds of black truffles, and 40 pounds of salmon.
—Rosalba Curiel
Posted 02.26.07
Photos: Nadine Froger Photography