Creating A Special Holiday Card

This year at Rapport we decided to use our talent and resources to do something special for our holiday card. It allowed us to be purely creative – it didn’t have to be practical or stay within a budget. We did it with the help of regular partners like Doug Hall (photographer), Beth Parker (writer) and Rob MacGregor (our narrator). It was a lot of fun!

We created a full version inside a storybook setting that can be seen here. We also created a YouTube version you can see below:

How we did it – Preparation

One of the most enjoyable aspects was it pushed us outside of our daily creative comfort zones. We brainstormed the concept, roughed out the scenes, briefed Beth (the writer) and off we went. Beth had so much fun she got the script back to me in less than a day, and that was holding back so she didn’t look nuts (she says).

The designer in me usually thinks in still images, but I had to draw up a storyboard, planning out each shot for the photographer. I had to think about props and sound effects for each scene. We had to think it all through to ensure a logical order and plot continuation, one scene to the next.

The Shoot

Thankfully Doug, ever the professional, needed no more than my storyboards and the script. He had great ideas on how to actually bring the scenes to life, with creative angles and visual devices. When we started out I was expecting an amateur shoot with a handy cam, and suddenly it’s done by a pro, professionally lit and held to the highest standards. It took all day to get the shots done, and we had a lot of fun. Rob rented a professional microphone and recorded the narration on his own.

The team all had a blast, and the star did a fantastic job. Unfortunately, she had her own wrap party after we left for dinner, and trashed the bathroom like a rockstar.

Editing and Putting it all Together.

This part is just time-consuming, but Lisa did a great job. I saw the first cut and realized that she didn’t have the same vision as I did on some scenes, so I had to push back and request changes. They were minimal considering the length of it. One was ensuring we introduced Candy early on (getting up from under board table in beginning) otherwise the tail wag didn’t make sense. I enjoyed seeing Lisa’s creative touches, and she very much enjoyed the opportunity to do something creative that she doesn’t do everyday.

The final step was putting it all together in the context of our storybook design, with interactive page-flipping. The team – as usual – worked really well together and bent over backwards to get it out in time as we do with all our client jobs as well. The whole experience was a lot of fun and I hope to do something similar next year.