And Then There Were Seven

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story of how the film came to be, let me give you the short version: Rita and I were having lunch with John at the hotel that Prophecy 2007 was being held in Toronto. We were talking about how much fun it would be to take a trip into the Scottish highlands to find Hogwarts. Our first and original idea was a casual trip with a few of our closest friends. Rita then mentioned something like “What if we got on the Oprah show and she filmed it!”. We laughed and eventually realized…why wait for Oprah to film it? Why couldn’t we film it ourselves?

From that point on we started to consider who would be in the film. We decided we needed a group of diverse fans to represent each part of the Harry Potter fandom. We wanted people who had found unique and interesting ways to use their love of Harry Potter, but also had their own deep understanding for the themes in the books. Rita and I sat on the plane home from Toronto, made a list of people we knew and began the process of elimination.

We knew from the very beginning that we wanted someone to represent the Wizard Rock community and never was there a more obvious answer then Paul DeGeorge: the “godfather” of Wizard Rock. Paul and his brother Joe founded the term Wizard Rock when they founded the band Harry and the Potters: a band that played music written from Harry’s perspective. Paul and Joe’s DIY attitude spawned hundreds if not thousands of Harry Potter fans to try their hand at music. Because of this, we knew Paul would be fearless in the quest to find Hogwarts.

The next obvious answer was Melissa Anelli. Melissa would not only represent the many Harry Potter fansites, but would give us the perspective of a journalist and an author. When we approached Melissa with this project, she was in the process of witting her first published book, Harry, a History. Many in the fan community know Melissa’s name and trust her as the voice of the fans. She knows the Potter books like the back of her hand and can articulate the deeper messages in the series better than anyone I know. Since Melissa is a close friend of ours, we knew first hand that she would be a great pick for this project.

Frankie Franco has made a name for himself amongst Harry Potter fans because of his fantastic fan art and extreme enthusiasm for the series but I would be lying if I said we first considered bringing him on the trip because of his art skills. . We simply knew we wanted him around because there is rarely a time we DON’T want him around. He’s just a great guy to be around. The more we thought about it though, the more we realized that his artistic eye and his magical sketch book would be a great addition to the team.

This is where we got stuck. We had decided on myself, Rita, John, Paul, Melissa and Frankie but we knew we needed a 7th person. After all, this was Harry Potter and 7 is the magical number! We played around with a lot of different ideas until we thought we had found the perfect 7th member. Are you ready for the twist? The original 7 members of Finding Hogwarts did not consist of Andrew Slack.

We approached Evanna Lynch, the actress who plays Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films, about the project. She had been on Melissa and John’s podcast, PotterCast, in the past so she was already friends with them. It’s also widely known that Evanna was a huge fan of the books before she was casted for the films. She really liked the idea of Finding Hogwarts and wanted to be a part of it but we knew there could be some problems. The Harry Potter movies were still filming and we were unsure about scheduling as well as if she would be allowed to participate in an unofficial project about Harry Potter. The seven of us exchanged emails over the span of several months and ultimately Evanna was unable to go on the trip with us because she was in school.

Two months before we were scheduled to leave on our trip, there were still only six of us. Feeling a little put off and still disappointed with the fact that Evanna could not be a part of the trip, we decided to have a face to face meeting in Chicago where we all were for the convention Terminus 2008. That’s when Paul brought up the idea of having Andrew Slack (founder of the Harry Potter Alliance) join us. When I say he brought it up, I think it was more like he insisted. Paul helped found The Harry Potter Alliance with Andrew and had gotten to know him pretty well. I didn’t know much about the HPA at that point and I had never met Andrew before, but Paul was convinced we would be crazy not to bring Andrew along. We met with Andrew the next day and two months later we were all in the United Kingdom together.

As amazing as it would have been to have Evanna involved in the project, I am so thankful that Paul suggested Andrew. He really gave 110% of himself by being open and honest the entire time; an attitude which often rubbed off on the rest of us. He really helped make a documentary about a fictional location something real. He has such an understanding for the political and emotional themes in the books and how they correlate to real life. It was a unique perspective I don’t think we could have got from anywhere else. Getting to know Andrew during the making of this film was a pleasure and I am certain that you all will feel the same when you watch it.

- Bre

And Then There Were Seven

February 25th, 2011

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story of how the film came to be, let me give you the short version: Rita and I were having lunch with John at the hotel that Prophecy 2007 was being held in Toronto.

Introducing Finding Hogwarts Fridays

January 23rd, 2011

The production team of Finding Hogwarts will begin releasing new photos, clips, or random bits of information regarding the movie and/or production process starting this Friday. They will be in the form of blog posts here at FindingHogwarts.com as well as on our Facebook page and Tumblr. Looking forward to share more with you soon!