STATE that Amanda Berry is organising a prize-giving followed by a dinner party this weekend and it sounds like a fairly ordinary social occasion. It takes on a rather different complexion when you learn that we're talking about the Orange British Film Academy Awards, that the guest list runs to 1,800 names led by Hollywood stars Tom Hanks and Russell Crowe, and that the event is spread over seven venues in London's West End.

More than ever this year the event aims to live up to its tag "the British Oscars" and Darlington-born Berry is the person in charge of ensuring that. In a bid to raise the profile of this annual glittering prizes gathering, they're being staged before the American Oscars.

"The nominations for the Baftas are similar enough to say we are an indicator for the Oscars but different enough to show our independence. Both these two things are important," she says. "The Americans can see us as part of the Oscar competition but love the quirkiness of the Baftas like last year when everyone expected Sam Mendes to get best director for American Beauty but we gave it to the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar." Bringing the prize-giving forward lost Berry and her team six weeks of valuable planning. Coupled with changes in the voting system and the introduction of a new high-tech vote-counting system that has made organising this year's event "a nightmare". Yet Berry, 39, who became Chief Executive of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in December after joining as Director of Development and Events in 1998, clearly relishes the challenge and takes a pride in getting it right.

This shows from the obvious delight she takes in showing me the awards tickets that have just been delivered to her office in London's Piccadilly to saying that the best thing anyone can say about this year's event is that it's better than last year. "I was really proud of what we did then but you never sit down and say we can't change anything," she says.

"What we want is an event where we have managed to look after 1,800 people and look after them well, and that they leave the ceremony with a very positive view of Bafta and the film industry in the UK generally." The prize-giving itself is being held in the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square with the post-ceremony dinner and party at Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. She needs to worry about everything from ensuring the mini bottles of champagne waiting on seats for the 1,800-strong audience are at the right temperature to transporting guests from cinema to hotel in 45 minutes.

If anyone had told her two years ago she'd be Bafta's Chief Executive, she wouldn't have believed them. This latest change is typical of a career that has zigzagged about the entertainment business taking in TV, production, talent management and public relations. Yet the former Richmond School pupil was set to study law at university until a last-minute chat with a careers advisor led to her switching to business studies and graphic design courses in York and Newcastle.

A course placement at Thames Television in London led to her quitting the course and staying in the capital where she worked as a company director of Duncan Heath Associates (now ICM) in the 1980s, representing performers and directors as well as handling public relations for clients.

Then she decided to go into TV, starting all over again from the bottom and taking a big pay cut to become a researcher at LWT. "People said I must be mad. I'd been the director of a leading theatrical agency and should have been a producer not a researcher. But I felt I didn't know anything about TV production and should start again," she explains. "People say I must have plotted everything out but I haven't. I've just gone for things that felt right for me and always applied for them not wait to be asked." She turned down the Chief Executive's post several times because she "wasn't a business person" and enjoyed organising Bafta's five annual ceremonies too much to give them up. She took the post after they agreed to give her the title but let her carry on with her old duties too.

She'd worked on awards ceremonies before joining Bafta, which she joined after the film and TV awards presentations had been split into separate events.

There had been talk along the Bafta corridors about the film awards going pre-Oscar for some years. The success of last year's events spurred them on to take the major step of changing the date, which has only been possible with the support and co-operation of the film industry and the American Oscar organisers. Changing the voting system (which Berry feels is fairer than the one used for the Oscars) and counting method added to the logistical problems. Her dream is to have one big venue where the reception, awards ceremony and party can all take place. Until that happens it has to use various locations. Today she'll go along to the Odeon to see how the set construction is getting along and once the posters, displaying Bafta's distinctive golden mask, go up outside "I suddenly realise I have a show to do". Come Sunday afternoon, she'll swap jeans for party frock and her Chief Executive's hat, leaving the running of the event in the hands of her "fantastic team".

In the evening she'll be in the audience which will include nominees Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Juliet Binoche and Kate Hudson (with her actress mother Goldie Hawn).

As someone from North-East, Berry might be secretly cheering for the Billy Elliot team including best actor nominee Jamie Bell. She worked with him when he was one of the presenters for Bafta's children's awards in November.

"I'll be sitting on the end of a row with my mobile phone on vibrate so they can get to me if there are any problems," she says.

The star-studded occasion is very different to her early cinemagoing days in Richmond, where she grew up and her father ran Richmond Cleaners, which had branches around the North-East. The town's Zetland cinema fully deserved the label fleapit. "You sat on the seat and clouds of dust came out. I was a serious asthmatic and I would be in bed for a week after watching a film," she recalls.

The Orange British Film Academy Awards are being shown live on Sky One Sunday at 6.45pm with highlights on BBC1 on Monday, 10.35pm