Wild Party Key Art Poster Production
Creating the Wild Party key art for the poster and promotional materials was one of those photo shoots you just know will be talked about for years.
In fact, there is one story, about a 12 year old boy, helping out on the shoot who got an eyeful. He is now gainfully employed in the theater business.
Ask me about it some time.
Key Art Poster Thoughts
Judi Cook, the marketing director at the Footlight Club, asked me to outline the steps that go into creating a marketing piece for a theatrical production.
While every project has its own variations and requirements, most tend to follow this easy recipe:
The Key Art Poster Recipe
- It starts with research. Reading the play seems to be fairly important. The one time I didn’t, well…
- Look at what other people have done in the past. This always leads me to a fairly strong list of what we don’t want to do.
- Sit down with the producer and/or director to discuss themes and directions. Bring some ideas to the party but be open to their ideas, since they already have a vision of the production.
- Sleep on it.
- Have a wild dream, where a chimpanzee, riding a flamingo, across a golf course, at night, lays out the whole poster, including how to alter the key fonts in the title and how to layer in the different levels.
- Pitch the idea and start collecting/building props, key people and shoot dates.
- Day of the shoot: turn on some good tunes, get them into makeup and costume and light the set.
- Post shoot – edit edit edit!
- Proof everything and make sure that you have all of the key info: Date, Time, Place, Author, Where to Buy Tickets!
- Proof it again, something will always be missing
- Get final approvals
- Send it to print and make a low resolution file for posting on every social media site you can find.
- Rinse and repeat!
Wild Party the key art poster shoot, directed by Chad Flahive.
Hair by Katie Moore, MUA Catherine Moniz, Costume Maureen Festa and David Alger. Cast: clockwise frm bottom left: Tyler Strawhecker, Philip Montana, Todd Yard, Taryn Cagnina, Nate Haywood, Rebecca Turner, Chelcy Harrell, Anne Olmsted, Brian Bakofen, Channa Gilbert
- Tags: Footlight Club, Jamaica Plain, poster, theater, video
Related Stories from the Studio . . .
Just in time for the Fourth of July, my cover photography for the Boston City Paper features the Blue Hills Observatory American flag waving over a blue sky. I also got a nice write up by Janice Williams on the inside!
Casting and shooting Queen Titania and the search for the perfect Donkeyboy!
If you could live for ever, would you? From sketches to key art to the final poster for the musical Tuck Everlasting.
Photographing Live Theatre for Theatrical Marketing: On Stage with OTP's Fear Project. How we captured an amazing performance for posters and reviewers.