Working on it Wednesday: Custom Movie Posters and More

This post is a guest post from a reader, Annie Harrington, who wanted to share her story of prepping for a party for Working on it Wednesday. Annie Harrington is a small business owner, writer, and amateur photographer. In her free time she enjoys writing about ways other business owners can positively impact their brand image with unique printed material.  She also dabbles in party planning and DIY projects.Working on it Wednesday is all about projects and parties in the works— Please enjoy Annie’s work in progress and feel free to share any tips and ideas in the comment section!  

Upcoming Party Project:

 Custom Movie Posters and More

Over the past week or so, I’ve been fervently brainstorming over how I can top the birthday party I threw for my niece last year. She had Harry Potter on the brain at the time, so I used that as a starting point and ended up putting together a Harry Potter movie themed party. A month before the party, I helped her and her friends create “promotional material” for her party. We created a movie poster based on one of the Harry Potter movie posters, digitally replacing the actors with images of my niece and her friends. They had specifically requested posters, since I typically design business posters for clients. They know me and my generous nature too well.

This poster ended up serving as a centerpiece for that particular party. I really wish I had taken more pictures of everything! Actually, that’s a bit of a lie, as I wish I had taken pictures of any of it at all! I was so wrapped up in creating everything, I didn’t get around to it (and much to my dismay neither did anyone else. Thanks, guys). The younglings were supposed to help, but they ended up becoming little more than the party prep equivalent of backseat drivers. This year, however, I’ve decided to take a different approach. My niece doesn’t get to serve as the creative director/executive producer of the party. Instead, she’ll remain the girl of the hour, the star, and her favourite aunt will handle the production.

So far, my brainstorming has led me to one primary conclusion. While Mr. Potter isn’t on this kid’s brain nearly as much as it last year, she’s still a movie-minded girl, thanks in large part to me, who is also a movie-minded girl. I’ve managed to get her hooked on all sorts of genres and given her much more cinematic perspective than most 11-year-olds probably have. I’ve been looking at upcoming films for a little help in picking a potential direction. I have plenty of time to prepare, but since I have an obsessive personality when it comes to party planning (and planning in general), I do things way in advance, plus it won’t hurt to have everything be just right for her 12th birthday in early spring. So, my conclusion? Sequel!

Well, sort of. I’m not going to go the Harry Potter route. Instead, the party will remain film-inspired, but I don’t think I’m going to go with a specific film or film series. This time it will be an original production, or at least intended to be original (everything’s derivative, oy!). After looking at upcoming movies and trying to tie the party’s theme to one of them, I felt a bit flat and lacking that spark of inspiration. Sure, there are plenty of great movies I know my niece will love (like Star Trek Into Darkness. She wishes old Spock was her grandpa), but I feel the result may end up too much like last year’s (and thus, suffer from sequelitis).

One project from the last party I really liked was the poster project I mentioned earlier. This year, I’ll take that idea and develop it further. The difference, though, is rather than basing it on an existing poster, I’ll start from scratch. It should resemble a poster you might see at the cinema, but I don’t want to overtly copy an existing poster. I’ll start like I did last time and take a bunch of digital photos of my niece and her (supporting cast) of friends and family, then incorporate them into the design, which is still to be decided.

Though I want this to look as much like the real deal as possible, I’m not sure if I want to take my end result to a shop that handles poster printing or to just do it myself, since there are many creative ways I can do this. I certainly can’t print out something really sharp and glossy at home. Last year, we printed a small poster on an inkjet printer, which lacked any cinematic pizazz.

There are a few other things I’m considering doing leading up to the actual party including a trailer (what this would entail, I’m not sure) and possibly other mock advertising and merchandising. For the party itself, this would be the “premiere” and would likely be a red carpet event, provided I track down suitable red carpet. In any case, even though I have time to get everything just right, I’ve given myself so much to think about. And I haven’t even gotten to the food yet! I’d better get started.