Oscars Report! (Today: INTRODUCTION)

Hello my friend!!!!!
And here I am with my Oscars report!!! (Part One)
As always there is so much to talk about that's why (if you don't mind) I will deliver all the information in more than one post :)

HERE IT GOES:
For Bill and I the Oscars started on Saturday night (just the night before the actual event) when we had dinner with our friends Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo and their sweet daughter at this great Japanese restaurant called Katsuya. I could not resist showing you the business card from this place, which is sooo beautiful. Not many times we find cards like this one. Take a look:

It was Francesca’s idea to go to Katsuya, she has a great taste for restaurants! The whole place is new and it looks amazing, the decoration is very modern with Japanese accents everywhere.
That night was so special! We talked with Dante and Francesca about their experience working with Tim Burton in Sweeney Todd. Everything in our conversation about Tim Burton was positive. They think that he is a true Artist and their chemistry working together was beautiful. They also said that Johnny Depp is the sweetest guy ever which is something that I hear all the time. As I mentioned before Dante Ferretti was the Art Director for Sweeney Todd and Francesca was the Set Decorator. They always work together as a team and together they were nominated for the Oscars this year! So to make the story short I am sooo happy to say that they won their awards!!! (This is the ninth Academy Award nomination for Dante and the seventh for Francesca, can you believe it?) It was just perfect and Bill and I were sooo excited jumping in our sits!! After the ceremony I got to do something that I had promised myself to do if Dante and Francesca won the awards: I lifted the two statues three times with my hands as if they were weights to see how they felt and THEY ARE SOOO HEAVY!!! It was my first Oscars workout ever :)

Up here you can see two pictures taken by Bill at the restaurant and in third tiny one there is Francesca and Dante accepting their awards! GONGRATULATIONS ITALIA!!!!!
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GETTING READY:
OK, Oscars day: I had my appointment for makeup at 10:00 AM which was so early! We left the house at 4:00 PM but that was the only time when this place had some space for someone non-famous like this client called Ilsa, Elisa or Alisa (that's me, they couldn't get my name straight) so I said that's completely OK with me. The owner of this salon (a real character with the most perfect eyebrows that I have ever seen in a man!) is supposed to be a well-known makeup Artist. Someone else introduced me to him the day before while he was working with another client. He looked at me for a half second and since I didn't look like a star he loudly called one of his Assistants in training and asked him to take care of me. Let me tell you this: the whole thing was sooo funny!! His Assistant was the nicest person in the place, he setup the appointment for me and next day there I was. I could have done the makeup thing myself but I have been sooo curious to see how a real Artist does it (in this case an Artist in training :o). I wanted to experience the whole thing in person and I am glad that I did it. Our young man was great! I can say that the process was like painting on canvas (there was even an airbrush involved plus many other little tools that I have never seen before!). He enjoyed his work and it was nice seeing the transformation little by little. It took about an hour and a half to complete the job. I gave him a big THANK YOU, a deserved tip and then I went back home and that's when I put my dress on and took some pictures for you.

(Interesting detail: For a Makeup Artist in training you pay $150 and for a famous makeup Artist with perfect eyebrows you pay from $400 to I don't know how much. I am sooo glad that I went with the first option!)

I never took the dress off after the pictures because it was really comfortable to wear. At 3:30 PM the limousine arrived but we left the house at 4:00. Now the surreal part begins!!!! After a few minutes we found ourselves in this area where there were only limousines around. Hundreds of these black cars looking all the same. I would love to see how the streets looked from an helicopter (there were a couple of helicopter flying around) all the streets near the theater were closed but people were everywhere on the sidewalks asking the limousine drivers to roll down the windows, which they are not allowed to do for security reasons :o You can see the most interesting characters on the sidewalks. Many are curious people trying to get a glance of the celebrities but there is this group of funny characters performing and showing the most creative and funny signs. There was also a small group of crazy people doing crazy things like trying to get into the limousines by asking the drivers to give them a ride. They were mostly paparazzi. The security guys were always trying to keep them away from the streets.

After all this process that took about an hour we arrived in front of the Kodak Theatre where we got out of our car and walked toward a big tent. In this very moment we heard a huge ovation dedicated to the man getting out from the car in front of us and here is a picture of him and the autograph that I later asked him to sign for Deborah who is my friend Margie's daughter:

Colin Farrell, he has the reputation of being a bad boy but I have to tell you: he was so nice and natural, plus he took his Mom to the Oscars with him. How sweet is that? In the picture below we see how they looked together :) After the event was finished, when we were waiting for our cars, he ordered some hot chocolate as well as Bill and they had a little conversation, he was very friendly. When I asked him to sign the autograph he did it with a smile. We like you Colin!!!! Let's give him a 10!

Now it comes the time when we go through the metal detector so you must show your golden ticket. Here is mine:

Several days before the event you get a little book with the rules for the event. For some reason I like to read all these things from the beginning to the end. Take a look at it:

After we went through the metal detectors we had to wait in order to walk on the red carpet that is behind the real red carpet and I have a SPECTACULAR photo of Bill and I from that very moment but I will show it to you tomorrow. That photo is too important, it deserves a whole new post. Please come back tomorrow and I will be here with that photo and more details from the event!!!! There is still A LOT more to say!
Now back to real life, I have a loooong list of things to do!!!
Have a wonderful day!
Elsita :)