Movie Pyjama Party
Teenagers love the movies, and my 13 year old son David, is definitely no exception. In fact as he has grown he has developed a love of movies and moviemaking. He knows all the new and old actors and actresses, famous and influential directors etc. and talks about working in the movies or in TV when he is older. It was then quite appropriate that for David's Bar Mitzvah he wanted a movie pyjama party with his friends. We had already celebrated David's official Bar Mitzvah with the family, and this was to be a smaller gathering with a group of 15 or so of his classmates. But, since this was David's Bar Mitzvah, I wanted to make the whole evening slightly more special and memorable.
The planning and preparations were actually quite simple. I wanted to create the ambience of a cinema, so to do this I acquired a large amount of back linen and sheets and hung them from floor to ceiling in the lounge completely covering the walls and windows. I then cut out dozens of gold stars covered with gold glitter and stuck them onto the sheets together with some old movie posters that David had collected. The effect was simple but impressive. Comfortable seating was a must, so I decided to hire a load of bean bags to scatter in the lounge so that the kids could really chill out, as well as a couple of professional Director's chairs. To really create the effect of a true cinema I decided to push the boat out and rent a large screen. Even David was impressed with my efforts and agreed that our lounge had indeed been transformed into something that very closely resembled a private cinema.
David asked his friends to come dressed up as their favourite movie star, which certainly gave them a lot of latitude – any actor or actress, any film, any era. The kid's really let their imaginations run wild.
As for food, I decided to keep it simple, by ordering pizza and soft drinks that the kids could eat between the two movies that David had chosen. I even managed to hire a small popcorn machine for a very reasonable price which went down a treat. The smell alone really gave the feeling of a real cinema.
The evening was fun and relaxed and the kids really enjoyed the extra 'bits' that had been added to this movie sleepover. Just the size of the screen was greeted with a lot of 'wows'. The kid's had tremendous fun guessing which actor or actress their friends had come as. David's older brother Jake was at hand with the video camera all evening, capturing the kids' conversations and laughter and asked each of them to say a few words about David for his Bar Mitvah. I took photographs of the kids in their costumes both individually and together which I later gave them copies of.
This was a late one, and I'm not entirely sure what time the kids finally fell asleep, but they all left the following morning very happy, if not a little bit tired.....
