My niece’s 11th birthday party was Harry Potter-themed. A couple weeks before the party, we shot her doing magic tricks and other Harry Potter-esque things before I edited them all in After Effects using the Saber Plugin from Video Copilot. This is definitely an example when the free jobs for your friends can be the most fun and rewarding. Not only did I get to hang out with Sage for a whole day, but making something she was pumped to show her friends as they walked in the party was pretty great too. Someone said, “It looks so professional!” That was probably the first time in my career that I realized that’s actually what I am.

This video is just snippets of the longer video we had playing on a TV as guests entered the party.

My favorite parts of these designs were the Photoshop work on the pages of the Daily Prophet. Wherever I could, I’d shout out Sage’s parents, siblings, and even my arch-nemesis, their dog, Patches.