Buena Vista International Television's upfront event is etched in red letters on the company's calendar. Other television studios also throw parties for foreign buyers, but they alternate as host for one big annual party. Not so with Buena Vista. This is the sixth consecutive year that the Disney division has gone all out to entertain prospective customers from overseas who attend screenings of its fall lineup, which currently includes some of the industry's hottest series—Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, and Lost.As for the decor, it was all about brilliant illumination. Russell Harris Event Group decked out the Hollywood Roosevelt lobby, restaurant, and ballroom; Russell Harris is particularly adept at taking a hotel ballroom or some other venue with limited opportunities for extravagant decor and making it sing with lighting. "The one thing you never cut in the budget is lighting," Harris said. "You can cut the chairs and the linen, but you never cut lighting. It's amazing."
Impressing this group was no mean feat, considering its size and provenance—1,200 global shoppers. Evelyn Geraci, executive director of television marketing for Buena Vista International, worked closely with Russell Harris, which used a large spectrum of lighting devices to punch up the Hollywood Roosevelt's handsome interior. Previews were held a block away from the hotel at the El Capitan Theatre.
Harris selected the orange of Buena Vista's logo for his lighting scheme because it meshed nicely with the hotel's masculine decor. "The foundation of the Roosevelt is dark brown leather and we wanted to accent what they already had," Harris said.
Around the lobby, Harris placed tall piles of plexiglass boxes lit from within with orange light. He surrounded the fountain in the center of the hotel lobby with screens that formed a tower reaching up to the ceiling and projected 22 dancing lights on it from inside and outside. In the Dakota restaurant adjacent to the lobby, the tables were removed and guests lounged on black leather banquettes piled with red and orange silk pillows as they watched one of 10 50-inch plasma screens located around the party. Early on, a loop reel of BVIT's upcoming season played on the monitors. Later, they projected close-ups of Lionel Ritchie's performance in the ballroom, which couldn't contain the entire crowd. Ritchie, jazzed by his enthusiastic reception, played an unusually long set that stretched an hour and ten minutes.
"We were shocked," Harris said. "He was having such a good time. It's an international crowd and he's very big internationally."
—Irene Lacher
Photos: Courtesy of Russell Harris Event Group
Posted 06.01.06
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Impressing this group was no mean feat, considering its size and provenance—1,200 global shoppers. Evelyn Geraci, executive director of television marketing for Buena Vista International, worked closely with Russell Harris, which used a large spectrum of lighting devices to punch up the Hollywood Roosevelt's handsome interior. Previews were held a block away from the hotel at the El Capitan Theatre.
Harris selected the orange of Buena Vista's logo for his lighting scheme because it meshed nicely with the hotel's masculine decor. "The foundation of the Roosevelt is dark brown leather and we wanted to accent what they already had," Harris said.
Around the lobby, Harris placed tall piles of plexiglass boxes lit from within with orange light. He surrounded the fountain in the center of the hotel lobby with screens that formed a tower reaching up to the ceiling and projected 22 dancing lights on it from inside and outside. In the Dakota restaurant adjacent to the lobby, the tables were removed and guests lounged on black leather banquettes piled with red and orange silk pillows as they watched one of 10 50-inch plasma screens located around the party. Early on, a loop reel of BVIT's upcoming season played on the monitors. Later, they projected close-ups of Lionel Ritchie's performance in the ballroom, which couldn't contain the entire crowd. Ritchie, jazzed by his enthusiastic reception, played an unusually long set that stretched an hour and ten minutes.
"We were shocked," Harris said. "He was having such a good time. It's an international crowd and he's very big internationally."
—Irene Lacher
Photos: Courtesy of Russell Harris Event Group
Posted 06.01.06
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Related Story From New York
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Buena Vista International Television's upfront event took over the entire ground floor of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Russell Harris Event Group used a large spectrum of lighting devices to punch up the Hollywood Roosevelt's handsome interior.
The ballroom was flooded with vibrant lights and gobos.
