Saturday the 9th of February promised to be an excellent day. The sun was shining brightly outside. We had just filled our stomachs with massive blueberry pancakes and gigantic cappuccinos. And we were looking forward to one of the most exciting, important and special evenings of our lives: The Academy Awards annual Dinner and Ceremony; our reason to come to Los Angeles; our long-awaited reward after years of hard work; and a reason to be very nervous!
From noon onwards everyone was getting ready to look their very prettiest in the elegant suits from Cornejo Tailors and beautiful dresses from Pedro del Hierro and Galatti. Actually, Victor, Ignacio, Angel and Phil waited around while the girls endured beauty treatments and hair styling (why is it always the women who have to suffer to look pretty?) at the hairdresser’s.
At exactly 5 pm everybody gathered downstairs in the hotel lobby, looking their best and trying not to break out in huge sweats. We drove down to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and arrived half an hour later, precisely in time for the cocktails. Piccolos opened the doors of our car with a chic “Welcome to the Beverly Wilshire ladies and gentlemen.” They might just as well have said: “Welcome to the wonderful world of luxury, fame and glamour; welcome to the Hollywood of the stars.” We all stepped out on the red carpet and realized what an amazing night this was going to be.
Once inside, we received our table cards and the award winners were given buttonholes to pin on their jackets. Victor, Ignacio and Angel left to speak to people from the American press, including journalists from CNN, and the rest of the Next Limit group got busy ordering champagne and attacking the silver bowls full of nibbles. While waiting for the dinner to start at 6:30, we took lots of pictures and met with Mark Stasiuk and Lauren Miller from Fusion CIS who, as RealFlow experts, collaborate with Next Limit to promote and support RealFlow in the USA.
Finally, the huge red curtain separating the dining area from the drinks area opened, revealing a spectacular ballroom decorated with Oscar statuettes, expensive chandeliers and dozens of set tables waiting to be occupied. All guests wondered off in search of their table and when the last bell rang, the last people took their seat. Dinner was served quickly. A starter of mozzarella, tomato and asparagus salad was followed by a healthy dish of ravioli, and a “double-dish” of seabass in white wine and parmesan cream and entrecote in truffle sauce. A dish of petit deserts completed the dinner. While guests were enjoying the food and wine, an illusionist brought entertainment to the stage, changing suits without anybody noticing, sitting on invisible chairs and making two-dimensional birds in books fly.
Nerves were rising high now that the moment of truth came near. Jessica Alba, the famous actress presenting the event, took to the stage and let various other awards and award winners pass the revue. RealFlow came up fourth, first in the group of fluid simulation, and Jessica struggled to give a correct introduction including all the tongue splitters she had to read out loud from the teleprompter. Her final words were: “For the creation of RealFlow, the Academy is pleased to present Technical Achievement Awards to Victor Gonzalez, Ignacio Vargas and Angel Tena. Gentlemen?” Then the applause broke loose (especially from the Next Limit table), and the winners took the stage. A bit nervous but in control, Victor first thanked all the people at Next Limit and the Academy, and went on to address the audience in Spanish, because after all that’s where we are from! Ignacio took over saying “Thank you to everybody in the company, because we are thirty people and not only us” and subsequently dedicated the award to his family, and in particular to his grandfather, his little daughter and his girlfriend Hanna. Finally Angel, nervous to make it all too long, quickly expressed thanks to his colleagues, his wife Paloma, and to Mark Stasiuk, also seated at the Next Limit table.
Excited but relieved, the winners returned to their table where the nerves slowly recessed so that they could finally relax and fully enjoy the rest of the evening. Lots of other winners went up on stage and did their speeches, including big Oscar statuette winners David A. Grafton (who held a hilarious speech) and the president of the Eastman Kodak Company (who actually comes from Lugo in the north of Spain).
Then, suddenly, it was all over, and all guests were told to go back to the cocktail area where official pictures of all the winners and Jessica Alba would be taken. While we had some more champagne, Victor, Ignacio and Angel kept smiling standing in the top row of winners while their pictures were being taken. Those smiles stayed on their faces for the rest of the trip (and will probably stay for the rest of the year).
Finished shooting photos, the guests left one by one, and we also took off around 11 o’clock, which is of course way too early for the true, celebrating Spaniard. Therefore we decided to take the party elsewhere and have a few drinks in a more relaxed atmosphere to celebrate our great achievement. Unfortunately, after American custom, bars were closing around 1 am, forcing us to conclude the fiesta and return to the hotel. Tired but fulfilled, we dove under our blankets and fell fast asleep. The next morning we awoke, thinking: “Was it all a dream?” But Victor, Ignacio and Angel looked at their bedside tables and saw their fancy folders with their Academy Awards Certificates…. Theirs…. forever.
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