The brief
A first birthday at a villa in Uluwatu, in the middle of the day, by the pool. Half the guests were going to be swimming and the other half holding drinks — so the set had to work as the backdrop to a pool party rather than as a stage nobody goes near.
What we built
A sky-blue arch with clouds sculpted in relief, a turquoise aeroplane flying across it, and <i>Matvei</i> spelled out in silver. A blue tractor cut out at knee height for him to hold onto, a <i>1</i> filled with balloons, white plinths to stand him on, and a garland in sky blue, white and blush with silver foils. Then we filled the pool with oversized white balloons, which cost very little and changed every photograph taken all afternoon.
How the day went
Loosely, and that was right. Family photographs at the arch first, while he was fresh — father lifting him onto the plinth, his sister leaning on the <i>1</i>. Then the adults got into the water and the children ran between the pool and the tractor, and the balloons drifted around all of them. He was one; he was carried, passed around, and put down for a nap.
What the parents got
A set that made the villa look like it had been styled for a shoot, and a party that did not ask anyone to stop swimming. Nothing to build, nothing to fish out of the pool afterwards.
