Project: MTV Europe’s Cannes Film Festival Party “Terminator”

Venue: Le Palais Bulles, France

Role: Party Designer and Creative Director

Having last year won the ‘Martini Award’ for Best Film Festival party, the same production team was feeling the pressure to live up to their own exceptional standards. Creative Director, Adrian Smith, worked alongside Production Agency, GSP, MTV Europe’s Pan-European Events Co-ordinator, Eazy Bailey and on-site production manager Alex Gorman, to create a sensational party, which did not disappoint the 1600 guests – including A-list celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Hall. Eazy Bailey commented: “ No job is too big for Adrian. From a creative perspective he can interpret any idea and make it happen!” The brief from MTV was to tie in the new Terminator film. However, unable to view more than the film’s opening sequence, Smith took his inspiration from the bold usage of colour and smoke, translating this into an apocalyptic set exuding feelings of devastation.

The walk-in through the amphitheatre played a vital role in creating an impressive ‘wow-factor’. The team harnessed the power of technology to great effect using moving lights, detailed sound-scapes, strobes and plasma screens.

The eerie soundscape that built to a heightened crescendo of helicopters, compounded by dramatic searchlights, further enhanced a sense of unease. Focussed at different angles through the gauze, saturated red beams of light gave the landscape an almost molten volcanic feel.

Cardin’s garage became the focal point of the party owing to the grand central bar designed by Smith.Cloaked in silver gauze, and towering over the guests from the core of the bar stood a Terminator figure which produced a holographic effect when lit. Smith wanted “To create a bar that would draw people in.Mirroring the circular shape of the garage, the idea was that everything radiated out from this central point.”