How To Choose A Movie For Your Child's Birthday Party At A Theater
One fun birthday party idea that does not require a great deal of work for parents is to host it at a movie theater. You usually just have to bring in the cake and any plates and forks that you might need. Many theaters will even have a room that you can host the event in. Beyond that, you just need to shepherd the kids into the theater at the right time and make sure that everyone has enough snacks. The only difficult part about having a birthday party at a theater is choosing an appropriate movie. Here are some tips for choosing a movie for your child's theater birthday party.
1. Prune Your Possible Movie List
First, you are going to want to see what types of movies are coming out or are going to be available on the date when you are going to have the party. You can use a site that keeps track of movie reviews which will have a complete list of all of the movies that are going to be available, or you could simply call the theater at which you are planning to host the party if it is within a few weeks of the party. Write down all of the movies that are going to be available during this time. Then, start crossing movies off the list. Get rid of any movie that you are not comfortable having your child or other children his or her age watch. Get rid of any movies that you don't think would be interesting, such as documentaries for a group of eight-year-olds.
2. Take the Pruned List to Your Child
Next, take the pruned list to your child and ask him or her what movies he or she would like to see. Your child's interests are going to be a good indicator of the types of movies that the other guests of the party are going to be interested in. Have him or her choose three movies off this list and rank them in two different orders: the order of movies that he or she would like best down and the order that he or she thinks his or her friends would like best down.
3. Consider the Length
Look at the length of each of the movies. If you are going to have younger children at the party, you might want to try to steer your child to a shorter movie because younger children have shorter attention spans.
4. Consider the Value for Any Adults
If you are going to have a number of other adults helping you with supervising the kids, try to pick a movie that you will be able to enjoy. Animated movies are often a great bet because the nature of the filmmaking style makes it easy to pack in jokes that adult audience members will appreciate that will go over younger viewers' heads.
For more information, talk to a company that specializes in upcoming animated movies (such as Rotoscopers).
