Week 54: Yennie and the MPTF's 17th Annual Evening Before!
- elenalilamartin
- Jan 14, 2024
- 5 min read
Week 54: January 7th-13th, 2024
My cousin Yennie is one of those people who knows everybody. She is so charming, funny and likeable, so I see how everyone gravitates toward her positive light. I was lucky enough to benefit from this light when Yennie connected me with her friend Emily Park toward the end of last year. Emily, along with an amazing woman named Esther Oh, runs an event planning and design firm in LA called Studio Komorebi. Last year, I got the chance to have a phone conversation with Emily about the event industry and her experience, and this opened the door to the events world for me.
Yennie's willingness to bring people together led to Emily inviting me to help Studio Komorebi with a massive event in LA this past week. The event itself was related to the Emmy's, and was hosted by the MPTF (Motion Picture & Television Fund). It was called the MPTF Seventeenth Annual Evening Before and was to be a glamorous fundraising gala, with huge stars like Quinta Brunson and Bob Odenkirk leading the charge as event chairs.
Let me preface this by saying I have found it hard to enjoy Los Angeles as an adult, with the grueling traffic and depressing displays of wealth disparity just blocks apart, but I had a wonderful experience this past week. Buckle up, folks, because I have a lot to report.
I drove up to LA on Thursday evening, and the aforementioned grueling LA traffic was made bearable by my excitement and my chaotic Spotify shuffle. I entertained myself by making up a game of counting how many Teslas I could spot between highway exits. (The record was 13! Classic California.)
In true generous and welcoming Yennie fashion, I was invited to stay at her place right by Paramount Studios. She lives in an incredible location (just the thought of Jeff Probst possibly being in a building a block away from me was thrilling, but he is probably filming in Fiji) with delicious eateries and fun shops around the neighborhood. The Pacific Design Center, where the MPTF event was taking place, was only 15 minutes down Melrose.
I was nervous, admittedly, because I had never even met Emily or her team in person, and this was a massive event. I was worried I would make a mistake, and leave a horrible impression, and ruin any potential future in event planning. Thankfully, (I am pretty sure) this didn't happen.
The Studio Komorebi Team was made up of a few incredibly capable and welcoming people. The powerful duo of Esther and Emily are supported by Linda, Oma, Zaid, and Matt (and this time, me!). The first day on site was primarily set-up, familiarizing myself with the space and all the moving parts that make up the machine of event planning. There were constantly people buzzing around for catering, lighting, signage, security, and more. All staff on site were required to wear wristbands for security. The Pacific Design Center is made up of a bunch of buildings, and a huge tent was built outside for the reception area. The staff HQ, or "Production" space, was a dimly lit room filled with boxes and makeshift workstations for check-ins and badges.
I won't bore you all with the granular details of what I did all day, but I'll paint a general picture. Some of our time, especially on the first day, was spent sitting around waiting for the decision-makers to make their decisions, but most of it was fast-paced, detail-oriented work. Heavy lifting was required for furniture placement, artistic ability for spray-painting and decorations, efficiency for running errands, and a general willingness to get shit done was 100% necessary. I loved it and I thrived.
During any downtime, like waiting for vendors to show up or for the lighting to get finished, the standard practice was to do a trash sweep. I said I wouldn't bore you all with details, but just know, from these trash sweeps, I was reassured of the fact that pretty much all men are absolute pigs with no sense of responsibility. We would do a lap around the massive tent, collecting empty water bottles, ends of zip ties, and loose screws, and not even five minutes would pass, and more litter would appear, somehow conjured up by groups of men wielding their various hammers and ladders and carpet tape. During one trash sweep, Esther gave me a knowing look and said, "A lot of this job feels like looking after toddlers the size of men." It was ridiculous.
After an eight hour day on my feet, I was exhausted, but felt great. The productivity of the day fueled me, and Yennie, Brian and I enjoyed drinks at Thirsty Crow and a delicious dinner at Pijja Palace.
The second day was even more productive, chaotic, and fulfilling. We finalized decorations like placing tea lights in votives, and flashed our "All-Access" badges as we scurried around like worker bees.
The plastic on the carpet and furniture was removed, final vacuuming and florals were touched up, and lighting was set.
We enjoyed ourselves and tried the catered food at each station. It was awesome to look around and see how the tent was transformed. I overheard many people commenting on how gorgeous the space was. Here are some photos and videos that barely do it justice.
I spent the last few hours of the day absolutely star-struck. As the event officially started, and work began to wind down, we did a lap to survey our hard work, and I began noticing a lot of familiar faces. The tent began to fill as more guests arrived. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the celebrities I saw in order of when I noticed them: Rege-Jean Page from Bridgerton, Akwafina, Jennifer Morrison from Once Upon a Time, Kieran Culkin (!) and the entire cast of Succession, Quinta Brunson (!), Joe Keery, Terry Crews, Zeke Smith from Survivor, Shaun White, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jack Quaid and Claudia Doumit from The Boys, Max Greenfield (Schmidt from New Girl), Lukas Gage and Theo James from White Lotus, Christina Hendricks from Good Girls, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Yvette Nicole Brown from Community, Sofia Bush, Wanda Sykes, Alexander Skarsgard, Ken Jeong and his wife, Danny Devito, Jon Ham, Bob Odenkirk, Adam DeVine, Zooey Deschanel, and Jon Hamm. There were many others whose faces or names I couldn't quite place. I couldn't help but find myself thinking about how much money and fame was in that room.
After this entire experience, I can better appreciate cities like LA that are simultaneously influencing the world and pop culture, while still being heavily influenced by a diverse set of outside forces. It is an interesting place.
Bonus: the Hollywood Reporter booth had a photographer taking portraits of guests and we all took a bunch before the rush!
This was an incredible introduction to event planning, and I hope I get to see all of the Studio Komorebi team again sometime in the future. And I think I could be an amazing force in the events industry. We'll see!
See you next week.
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