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Harry Potter: Page to Screen
Apr. 3rd, 2012 08:17 pm
Harry Potter: Page to Screen, the Complete Filmmaking Journey by Bob McCabe. Hi, my name is Katy, and I am a Harry Potter fan. I have friends who are bigger fans – I checked this book out of the library rather than buying it myself. But still. I got on the hold list so that I was the very first person to check this book out, and I read it. It is a gigantic heavy tome of a book, with big pictures and tiny print and I read a potentially embarrassing amount of the print. This is truly a book for the fan. There is no criticism here – you will find no hint, for example, that Chris Columbus might not have been as good a Harry Potter director as Alfonso Cuaron. Instead, there are lots of pictures, photographs, sketches, mock-ups, things that were made but never used. It goes through film by film before covering individual characters, locations, creatures and artifacts. Curiously missing in this otherwise comprehensive coverage is any mention of the composers who wrote the beautiful music and any talk of the real animals, especially the owls, which featured in the films. I enjoyed it. I got to tell all my fellow Harry Potter fans how, for example, Cuaron assigned the three leads to write autobiographical essays in character – Emma Watson writing a bio of Hermione as Hermione, for example. Watson’s essay got longer with every draft; Radcliffe said it was a useful exercise. Grint, who played Ron, didn’t do one at all because Ron never would. As a bonus, flipping through the pictures made the Boy excited enough to listen to the first book at home – still long for his out-of-the-car listening.
As a slight follow-up to my earlier knitting and Harry Potter fan post, I have not knit any of the larger projects from the book, though I still think my son would look fabulous in a Weasley sweater. I have knit two of the baby/elf hats, and several teeny-tiny Harry Potter sweater ornaments, though I knit them in the round instead of following their pattern.
Harry and the Potters by Harry and the Potters This is the time of year when I start feeling nostalgic for Harry Potter – waiting in line for the new book, then discussing it with all my friends. Why not celebrate Harry’s birthday (July 31) and relive the magic with some wizard rock? Harry and the Potters is one of the first wizard rock bands to make it big. The two performers, brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge, recorded their first album in their garage with not much but a whole lot of enthusiasm. Intonation and timing were sometimes a bit off, but I couldn’t help smiling as I listened to lyrics like, “You can’t take my best friend’s sister and get away with it,” or “Why’d you have to kill my parents, Lord Voldemort, I mean You-Know-Who?” The songs in this album are taken directly from the plot of the first two books and sung from Harry’s point of view. Although my library only has the first album, the band is still going strong, with several more albums and active tours – their [edited to add link] 
California Demon by Julie Kennon I must confess that I couldn't get through this second book about a Buffy-like demon hunter mom. It's just that it's a little too personal at this time. I can't really enjoy reading about a mother dealing with potty training and demons, when just potty training feels like too much just now. Maybe in 5 or 10 years I'll be able to joke about it. Meanwhile, if you're a Buffy fan and are not involved in toddler rearing, you might very well enjoy this.
Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans of Harry Potter by Alison Hansel When I first saw this book advertised, I thought that I wasn’t really a big enough Harry Potter fan to want a book like this. Then I actually saw it. I guess I’m a bigger fan than I thought. Now I’m longing to knit Mrs. Weasley’s initial sweaters, recreated in tweedy yarn with soft rolled edges, sized for children, adults, or Christmas ornaments. Her clock is made into an afghan, with the arrow conveniently pointing to “at home”. The striped scarves from the movies are included in both the wide stripes of the early movies and the narrower double barred versions from the later movies, with matching hats and mittens. A Hogwarts v-neck sweater with narrow stripes in house colors at the cuffs and waist is subtle enough to wear without any but other fans noticing, while only the most die-hard of movie buffs would recognize the (still nifty) zigzag cabled hat and mittens from Hermione’s trip to Hogsmeade in the fourth movie. Knit mismatched Dobby socks, including a pair with Snitches on one sock and broomsticks on the other, wand cozies, a miniature stuffed Errol, house elf hats for babies. The patterns look well crafted, the book is nicely put together, and there are projects for both the rabid and the shy Harry Potter fan.
