A while back, we wrote about the “movie star” photos that we created to dress one of our film locations. With the help of our still photographer, Jonathan Okafo, we were able to replicate the look of Hollywood headshots from the silent era to the early 1960s.
Jonathan’s photos weren’t the only graphic elements we created for set dressing. We had another location, a booth in a local antique mall, that needed to be filled with entertainment memorabilia. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use the items already there; as with photos of actual movie stars, the process of gaining permission would have been costly and time-consuming.
So we went ahead and created our own memorabilia — in this case, lobby cards. These were movie posters on a small scale, 11 x 14 inches, displayed in the lobbies of theaters. Though rarely used anymore, they’ve become highly prized collectibles.
During pre-production, we determined that we needed three lobby cards, each advertising a different fictitious movie. One was mentioned specifically in the Oh Crappy Day screenplay: a film noir called Touch of Danger, released in 1947. The other two required some brainstorming, to make sure the cards would jibe with the story and the overall spirit of our film. Eventually, we decided on And So It Spreads, a British horror movie from 1970, and Hands Across Wyoming, a singing-cowboy western from 1942.
In designing the cards, we worked diligently to make them look as authentic as possible. We used historically correct fonts, and we manipulated photos to give them the proper period “feel.” We even created a painting to mimic the artwork on film noir posters.
We’re happy to say that our diligence paid off. Because of all the work that went into set dressing, the world of Oh Crappy Day looks like just the kind of place that our main character would call home. Jared, after all, is a film student and aspiring filmmaker. His world would hardly be complete without some film posters — even imaginary ones!