Angelenos may not be able to smoke cigarettes in public places, but at the right venue they can certainly sit on them and sniff flowers in them. At Fox Searchlight’s Thank You for Smoking premiere party, guests certainly enjoyed their cigarettes. Working with Ruth Busenkell, the studio’s vice president of special events, Natalie McAdams of NamEvents turned the Directors Guild lobby into a giant lounge filled with furniture, vases, and even structural columns in the shape and color of unsmokable smokes.McAdams recruited event designer Keith Greco, who had already designed chocolate-brown daybeds with back rolls shaped like cigarettes for another event sponsored by Camel cigarettes. She supplemented them with brown leatherette-covered couches and ottomans lined with gold- and rust-colored dupioni silk, which were clustered around glass tables to make sure that guests had plenty of seating.
The structural columns were wrapped in two shades of silky material—white for the cigarette tube and the color of manila envelopes for the filter. McAdams actually used manila envelopes to create “filters” for the vases on the buffet tables. Inside the vases were red carnations—pulled low so that only the blooms were visible—producing the floral equivalent of a cigarette flame. The buffet and waitstaff offered Americana cuisine inspired by the masculine diner where lobbyists gathered in the film. Cigarette girls wearing T-shirts with the logo of sponsor Rock N Republic circulated with trays of candy cigarettes.
McAdams used the vertical spaces to spur further conversation about the satirical film. The First Amendment was emblazoned on the front of one bar and the Surgeon General’s warning appeared on the other. Event designers researched smoking images on the Internet and created three banners with photos imprinted on Celtic cloth that stretched along the walls—one of famous men, one of famous women, and another of anonymous children all lighting up.
“The point was that this film is really about freedom of speech and the First Amendment regardless of the cause,” McAdams says. “We were trying to translate it in the DGA, where it’s not super easy to do something different and thought-provoking. Rather than do something that was literally taken from the film, we wanted to make something interesting that people would talk about.”
—Irene Lacher
Posted 03.23.06
Photos: Dale Wilcox Photography
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The structural columns were wrapped in two shades of silky material—white for the cigarette tube and the color of manila envelopes for the filter. McAdams actually used manila envelopes to create “filters” for the vases on the buffet tables. Inside the vases were red carnations—pulled low so that only the blooms were visible—producing the floral equivalent of a cigarette flame. The buffet and waitstaff offered Americana cuisine inspired by the masculine diner where lobbyists gathered in the film. Cigarette girls wearing T-shirts with the logo of sponsor Rock N Republic circulated with trays of candy cigarettes.
McAdams used the vertical spaces to spur further conversation about the satirical film. The First Amendment was emblazoned on the front of one bar and the Surgeon General’s warning appeared on the other. Event designers researched smoking images on the Internet and created three banners with photos imprinted on Celtic cloth that stretched along the walls—one of famous men, one of famous women, and another of anonymous children all lighting up.
“The point was that this film is really about freedom of speech and the First Amendment regardless of the cause,” McAdams says. “We were trying to translate it in the DGA, where it’s not super easy to do something different and thought-provoking. Rather than do something that was literally taken from the film, we wanted to make something interesting that people would talk about.”
—Irene Lacher
Posted 03.23.06
Photos: Dale Wilcox Photography
Related Story
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Victoria’s Secret Party Is Smokin’ (Cigarettes)
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The bars in the Directors Guild were emblazoned with the First Amendment and the Surgeon General’s warning for Fox Searchlight’s Thank You for Smoking premiere.
Structural columns were wrapped in white silky material for the cigarette tube, and the color of manila envelopes for the filter.
Event designer Keith Greco set up chocolate-brown daybeds with back rolls shaped like cigarettes.
Banners with smokers' photos imprinted on Celtic cloth stretched along the walls?one of famous men, one of famous women, and another of anonymous children.
