One thing I did this weekend
This weekend, I did many things. One of them involved silver, and a gift for someone who is leaving the NY office this week - pictures of that will be posted once the gift has been given.
Another involved baking. My team delivered a great site on Friday (not yet live), and I've been promising cupcakes, so....
:)
This is my job
It really does feel this way sometimes...
Beth's Fabulous VIP Adventure
I wore my black dress. In the end, I realized it would be fine, but that I proabably should get better shoes for it. So I did. Of course, new shoes at an event where you're standing the whole time = bad idea.
Anyway, we all met up in the office at 6:45. Then we spent the next half hour looking for cabs. Not very cool. When my little handful of people finally got there, we were dropped off over sort of around the side. As we walked closer, I could see there was a crowd. Around the red carpet. And that was just rubberneckers. There was a table at which we had to check in, give our names, and once that was over, there was the walking down the red carpet. With, y'know, paparazzi. As you do. It was intimidating. And I was Very Disappointed that we were not snapped walking down the red carpet, but I was also sort of relieved.
Procuring the first glass of champagne, once we were in, was surprisingly hard. It was all good after that.
There were a bunch of people milling about, and we gladly joined them, splitting up after a bit, circulating around, enjoying the champagne. The first famous person I saw was Alan Cumming, I think. But of course, Live Tyler was there, too. And Vivica A Fox. And Mary J Blige. And apparently some of the Real Housewives of Manhattan.
And Valentino, of course. Big man himself. Sadly, he did not bring his pugs.
I ended up spending a lot of time talking to Dtas people (of course), but also Danny Boome (who is a chef), who did some work with Dtas on the Guggenheim refridgerator microsite and a creative director for Saks.
Afterwards? Bottle service at the Bryant Park Hotel, which, sadly, did not serve real food. So we sat around eating chips and salsa all night.
All in all? It was pretty freaking fabulous, and probably the only time in my life that I'll be in the same zip code with most of those people. ;)
Oh... and Wireimage was there. Y'know. As they are.
Valentino VIP Party
Part of the Valentino project I've been working on is the site. We launched that. Woo.
Another agency has put together a corresponding exhibit. That is set to launch tomorrow night with a VIP invite-only party. Fancy.
As one of the people who slaved away for all of this, I have an invitation to this fancy VIP party. Procuring said invitation actually required a lot of groveling and schmoozing on our marketing lead's part, but in the end, a few of us Digitasians are invited.
On the invitation, it says "Dress to Impress."
My question is: what the hell does that even mean? This is a fashion thing, so... what? Cocktail dress? Evening gown? Really trendy, funky ensemble of some kind?
Wtf. So completely unhelpful.
What would you wear if you were me?
Timezones...
... the bane of my existence for most of my adult life.
Oh Korea, why must you be 13 hours ahead? I shouldn't be ready to pass out at 10PM on the eve of a four-day weekend.
Out of the frying pan...
... into the fire.
My last project had 12.5 official build days.
My next project only has 9.5. It's not quite so fancy, but it's a lot less templatable.
Eeeee!
(And here I thought I'd still be nice and relaxed for the wedding I'm going to in September. Oh well.)
We are live!
The Red Thread: The Inspiration and Passion of Valentino Garavani
:)
Delivered.
We delivered our site on Thursday. The delivery was pretty smooth and only remarkable in that we didn't actually have clearance to push anything live. That said, we were on time... which is what mattered.
On Friday, that last bit of approval was sought from the appropriate (high-profile) parties. Of course (of course) changes were mandated. Predictably, most of the team had taken the day off (we get four days of summer flex time at Dtas, and they're about to expire), so... yeah. Trying to coordinate a creative team to remotely get images retouched, cropped, prepared, copy written, approved, videos correctly encoded... well. It was a lot smoother than it could have been.
The lovely thing is, once again, we delivered. But this time, we have full approval and clearance and rights and everything else that we need and that we have been maneuvering to get over the last month or so. I cannot WAIT until the site is live... which may be this weekend (which the client would like), or Monday morning (which the people who have to do the work would like). Whichever, it's going to be great.
This project has been the most enormous learning experience ever. I have hopefully proven myself a competent manager so far, though next week will come with new challenges as we try to deliver the UK version of the site. In any case, I totally want to learn Flash now, which is WAY more codey than it was the last time I checked it out. Now, to find the time for that...
The Red Thread
For those of you who subscribe to Conde Nast magazines, check your mailbox. You should be receiving your new issues very soon.
And when you get them, check inside for a six-page insert! While not all Conde magazines will have this pull-out, many will, and it's advertising my current project:
The Red Thread: The Inspiration and Passion of Valentino Garavani
The full site will be up on August 12 - there's only a splash page just now there's actually nothing up now... don't ask. Do let me know, though, if you see the insert. I'm curious as to which magazines it will be in (I know it'll be in Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ...) and how it looks.
:D
Finally, the weekend.
This week has been, well. I've been trying to be positive - and I think I mostly succeeded but... yeah. It's hard not to be despondent. Which I am just this side of. Time to focus on the weekend instead of impending doom. If that's possible...
Gareth went home on Wednesday after a really fun week. We cooked more than I have in ages, we spent six hours at the Natural History museum and learned all about dinosaurs and saw coelacanths, and even did a restaurant week dinner. On Saturday, we saw three movies I have never seen before: Wall•E, Ratatouille and Amelie. I loved them all.
This weekend... I have nothing planned, though I do have an urge to go to Socialista. And I still need to see Batman. Mostly, though, I want to relax. Maybe get a pedicure. Or a massage. Or something.
Fun fact of the day: they're making Ender's Game into a movie. I have no idea how they will accomplish that and I'm both skeptical and not expecting much. But a tiny part of me is very hopeful... it's probably my favorite piece of fiction of all time.
