My final Harry Potter video poject
In case anybody is interested, here is my final project for my YA Lit class, my Harry Potter video, along with the accompanying paper.
Thank you to brennailya, asyouleft, and sehsun for sending me videos, I couldn't have done it without you guys!
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was a senior in high school in 2000. I was taking a short story creative writing class, and the teacher assigned it as outside reading. While it seemed to have nothing to do with what we were learning in class, beyond a test at the end of a semester, the teacher loved the book, and wanted to share it with us.
A couple of months into the semester, I finally decided to pick up the book and get it over with. I had resisted reading it at first. It was a kid’s book, and I was a senior in high school. All I knew about it was from an episode I had seen of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, where I got the impression that it was about this kid who traveled the world through a magical place called “Platform 9 ¾”. I have never been so glad to be so wrong.
I went home that night, started reading, and couldn’t put the book down. I read until I went to bed, and then got up and started reading again. As soon as I finished reading, I flipped right back to the first page, and started reading it all over again. Before the test at the end of the semester, I probably read the book about ten times.
I read the second and third book once I got out of classes. I borrowed the second book from my grandfather, who had bought it just to see what all the fuss was about this new Scottish author. He didn’t understand the book, because he didn’t realize that there was another book before it, and let me have it. I spent all day of a trip to Maine reading the book instead of spending quality time with my family. When I read the third book, I was waiting for my favorite band to appear on a night time talk show, and almost missed them, because I was so caught up in the book.
That summer, I worked as a counselor at a day camp. It was also the same summer that the fourth book was released. Since I wasn’t finished with the third book, I didn’t go to any midnight release parties, although I remember just how prevalent the book was in the news. The week the book was released, I had kids who would read the book any chance they got. They would be reading before camp started, lunch time, any break in between activities, and as soon as camp was over for the day. I had never seen kids so excited about a book, and it was a great sight (I was also slightly jealous…I wanted to grab the book out of their hands and read it myself).
I’ve met some of my closest friends because of Harry Potter. I met my friend, Megan, because she noticed I had a Harry Potter inspired screen name on the message boards for my favorite band, and she sent me a message. I met Mariella, Amy and Megs by going to midnight releases for the books and movies. I’ve also met so many amazing and generous people through the fandom, by going to conventions in Salem, Las Vegas and New Orleans, and especially through the “wizard rock” fandom, a group of fans that create music based on the books. What started out as some friends making music together, and joking around because two brothers looked slightly like Harry Potter, has grown into a phenomenon, with hundreds of bands out there playing.
Harry Potter has inspired so many different people, in so many different ways, through fan fiction, fan art, cosplay, music, and even puppetry. I got into photography because I started taking pictures at all the wizard rock concerts I went to. Before that, I was interested, but not actively pursuing it. Taking pictures at the concerts helped me realize how much I loved doing it.
Harry Potter hasn’t just inspired fans personally. They’ve also inspired fans to give back to their community. Harry and the Potters, the first wizard rock band, hosts an event called “The Yule Ball” every winter, and a portion of the proceeds to go various literary based non-profit organizations. They also created the “Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club”, with all the proceeds going to benefit the Harry Potter Alliance. The wizard rock community teamed with The Leaky Cauldron, one of the most well-known Harry Potter news websites, to put out compilation CDs, including 4 “Jungle Spells” CDs and a “Wizard and Muggles for Social Justice” CD, with all proceeds going to different charities. During the 2008 Presidential elections they also set up “Wizard Rock the Vote”, in order to get as many fans as possible registered to vote.
In 2010, Matt Maggiacomo of The Whomping Willows, Lauren Fairweather, and Justin Finch-Fletchley went on tour in support of “Friends of Esther” and “This Star Won’t Go Out”, a charity established in the memory of 16-year-old Esther Earl, a Harry Potter fan who was well known throughout the fandom as a bright and caring young girl. She was diagnosed with metastasized papillary thyroid cancer in 2006, and sadly died on August 25th, 2010. She touched many different Harry Potter fans. Matt, Lauren, and Justin hoped to raise $500 from their tour. They ended up raising $2313, almost five times their goal.
The Harry Potter Alliance is another way fans have reached out to their community. The HPA mission statement states that they take “an outside-of-the-box approach to civic engagement by using parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights. Our mission is to empower our members to act like the heroes that they love by acting for a better world. By bringing together fans of blockbuster books, TV shows, movies, and YouTube celebrities we are harnessing the power of popular culture toward making our world a better place. Our goal is to make civic engagement exciting by channeling the entertainment-saturated facets of our culture toward mobilization for deep and lasting social change”. They’re currently hosting a book drive to help build a library in Brooklyn, New York. In previous book drives, they’ve collected over 50,000 books.
I am so proud to be a part of the Harry Potter community. I can only hope that the books continue to inspire kids as they read them in the future.
Thank you to brennailya, asyouleft, and sehsun for sending me videos, I couldn't have done it without you guys!
Part One:
Click to viewPart Two:
Part Three:
I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was a senior in high school in 2000. I was taking a short story creative writing class, and the teacher assigned it as outside reading. While it seemed to have nothing to do with what we were learning in class, beyond a test at the end of a semester, the teacher loved the book, and wanted to share it with us.
A couple of months into the semester, I finally decided to pick up the book and get it over with. I had resisted reading it at first. It was a kid’s book, and I was a senior in high school. All I knew about it was from an episode I had seen of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, where I got the impression that it was about this kid who traveled the world through a magical place called “Platform 9 ¾”. I have never been so glad to be so wrong.
I went home that night, started reading, and couldn’t put the book down. I read until I went to bed, and then got up and started reading again. As soon as I finished reading, I flipped right back to the first page, and started reading it all over again. Before the test at the end of the semester, I probably read the book about ten times.
I read the second and third book once I got out of classes. I borrowed the second book from my grandfather, who had bought it just to see what all the fuss was about this new Scottish author. He didn’t understand the book, because he didn’t realize that there was another book before it, and let me have it. I spent all day of a trip to Maine reading the book instead of spending quality time with my family. When I read the third book, I was waiting for my favorite band to appear on a night time talk show, and almost missed them, because I was so caught up in the book.
That summer, I worked as a counselor at a day camp. It was also the same summer that the fourth book was released. Since I wasn’t finished with the third book, I didn’t go to any midnight release parties, although I remember just how prevalent the book was in the news. The week the book was released, I had kids who would read the book any chance they got. They would be reading before camp started, lunch time, any break in between activities, and as soon as camp was over for the day. I had never seen kids so excited about a book, and it was a great sight (I was also slightly jealous…I wanted to grab the book out of their hands and read it myself).
I’ve met some of my closest friends because of Harry Potter. I met my friend, Megan, because she noticed I had a Harry Potter inspired screen name on the message boards for my favorite band, and she sent me a message. I met Mariella, Amy and Megs by going to midnight releases for the books and movies. I’ve also met so many amazing and generous people through the fandom, by going to conventions in Salem, Las Vegas and New Orleans, and especially through the “wizard rock” fandom, a group of fans that create music based on the books. What started out as some friends making music together, and joking around because two brothers looked slightly like Harry Potter, has grown into a phenomenon, with hundreds of bands out there playing.
Harry Potter has inspired so many different people, in so many different ways, through fan fiction, fan art, cosplay, music, and even puppetry. I got into photography because I started taking pictures at all the wizard rock concerts I went to. Before that, I was interested, but not actively pursuing it. Taking pictures at the concerts helped me realize how much I loved doing it.
Harry Potter hasn’t just inspired fans personally. They’ve also inspired fans to give back to their community. Harry and the Potters, the first wizard rock band, hosts an event called “The Yule Ball” every winter, and a portion of the proceeds to go various literary based non-profit organizations. They also created the “Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club”, with all the proceeds going to benefit the Harry Potter Alliance. The wizard rock community teamed with The Leaky Cauldron, one of the most well-known Harry Potter news websites, to put out compilation CDs, including 4 “Jungle Spells” CDs and a “Wizard and Muggles for Social Justice” CD, with all proceeds going to different charities. During the 2008 Presidential elections they also set up “Wizard Rock the Vote”, in order to get as many fans as possible registered to vote.
In 2010, Matt Maggiacomo of The Whomping Willows, Lauren Fairweather, and Justin Finch-Fletchley went on tour in support of “Friends of Esther” and “This Star Won’t Go Out”, a charity established in the memory of 16-year-old Esther Earl, a Harry Potter fan who was well known throughout the fandom as a bright and caring young girl. She was diagnosed with metastasized papillary thyroid cancer in 2006, and sadly died on August 25th, 2010. She touched many different Harry Potter fans. Matt, Lauren, and Justin hoped to raise $500 from their tour. They ended up raising $2313, almost five times their goal.
The Harry Potter Alliance is another way fans have reached out to their community. The HPA mission statement states that they take “an outside-of-the-box approach to civic engagement by using parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights. Our mission is to empower our members to act like the heroes that they love by acting for a better world. By bringing together fans of blockbuster books, TV shows, movies, and YouTube celebrities we are harnessing the power of popular culture toward making our world a better place. Our goal is to make civic engagement exciting by channeling the entertainment-saturated facets of our culture toward mobilization for deep and lasting social change”. They’re currently hosting a book drive to help build a library in Brooklyn, New York. In previous book drives, they’ve collected over 50,000 books.
I am so proud to be a part of the Harry Potter community. I can only hope that the books continue to inspire kids as they read them in the future.