Welcome to Pottermore

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: August 3rd, 2011 | 0 Comments

Now that all the books are written and the films have been released and even a theme park has been opened! It is time for the publicity team behind Harry Potter to try and cling on to the success of the series for a little while long, and why shouldn't they! Harry Potter brought about a fantastic storyline of fantasy and fiction and was the first book that really took my interest. So how are they going to keep the hype about Harry Potter? The answer is Pottermore, for those of you who dont know what Pottermore is, it is a new service coming out later this year which will offer audiotapes and a new experience of the books, also there will be new information released about the books that J.K. Rowling didn't add into the book, watch this video below to hear all about what Pottermore is. As the video says, a lucky few will get early access into the site. Luckily for me i am one of them! For 7 days anyone can try and get early access to Pottermore, all you have to do is go to the website and answer the clue that is up on the site. The thing is the clue is only available for a short time each day and the time it is shown is random. Today the clue was released at 11am, and gone by about 11.30! I had tried yesterday to answer the clue, but i was too late by the time i woke up! Today the clue asked what was the score that Gryffindor were on in a game against Slytherin in the Prisoner of Azkaban, then you had to multiply the answer by 35. If you knew the answer then you had to append the answer to the end of the URL for example todays URL looked like this: http://quill.pottermore.com/2100. If you typed in the correct URL then you would be brought to a page where you had to carry out a task, today we were brought to the Guardian (english newspaper) website, and instead of a normal advert in the sidebar, it was replaced by a pottermore box where you had to levitate a feather and if you managed to do this then you were given a link where you could sign up with your details! I managed to register three accounts today! One for me and then two spares for my friends. The site receives a lot of traffic, the site ended up putting a landing page with a countdown of 15 seconds before it would refresh so that it would not cripple the server. On another note, each clue relates to a differI am looking forward to the early access now, once the invite stage is over they will be sending out emails saying when the early access begins.

Its all over

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: July 26th, 2011 | 0 Comments

Its been about a week and a half now sine the final Harry Potter film has come out, i went to see the film the Saturday after the film came out, and being that it had the option for the first time in the entire series, i opted to watch the film in 3D! I am fully aware of how much overrated 3D is, to be honest most films could do without it, usually the films i enjoy most are not 3d and i also feel the only films that actually work as 3d are cartoons, simply because they are animated and are fully created using computers and therefore can be worked perfectly using virtual cameras to make the best 3d high definition quality with eye popping effects! Anyway that was a bit of a tangent, i saw the final installment of harry potter (Deathly Hallows Part 2) in 3d and i am glad i did. There was nothing over the top about it, nothing popped out at you, i had expected to see some spells going straight towards the audience, but nothing of the sort. They kept it simple, depth was pretty much the only factor of 3d in my opinion, and you got a greater feel of how large an area you were looking at. The film is brilliant, definitely a great way to end the series, they seemed to of really made Neville into a huge role model and the battle scenes were great. Surprisingly though **SPOILER** when Fred died in the film, it didn't actually show it happening! I thought this would of being a sure thing that would of had a big build up in the film, however they seemed to completely skip it until after the main battle when they panned to him lying there with his family around him, i think that this scene should have been included. Although, like all of the other films, they had to cut parts out and it is expected that this would happen. Anyone who didn't read the books wouldn't have passed any remark on things like this, but i suppose as someone who read the books, you always want to see the whole lot made into a films, but others might not feel like sitting through hours and hours for a film! Alan Rickman, who plays Severus Snape, was definitely the scariest character in the film, surprising since he was the hero in disguise and Voldemort was supposed to be the person of fear! I was wondering how they were going to tackle ending the film, in the books it skipped ahead to 19 years later, obviously the whole cast would be older and have there own family (they didn't hang around with only 19 years) and the book ended with them all on the platform sending their own kids to Hogwarts. When the ending came, i couldn't help but laugh, literally out loud! Everyone in the cinema seemed to agree as they were laughing too! I was thinking they would attempt to make them look older by using some sort of computer magic, but this didn’t happen, i guess they thought if this was the last time they were going to be on screen for Harry Potter they might as well look as normal as possible. They way they achieved making them look older (only slightly older looking to be honest) was by lashing on a lot more make-up and sticking them into more formal / older looking clothes than they would usually wear! Anyway it was a great film series and its sad to see its over, but no doubt there will be plenty of special features once the film come out on DVD. All that remains now is to go to the Harry Potter theme park in Florida, which is on my to do list! It’s a great excuse to go back to Florida again, it was great the last time and i am sure it will be just a good next time i manage to go!

The Harry Potter Collection

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comments

I love to read books. Not a lot of people i know actually read a book. They would rather either watch a television show or go on the internet. I do them both but i also read. Some people see a book and say ah sure i will wait until it comes out as a film, they dont realise that films can sometimes ruin a book and all of the time films tend to leave large chunks of a book out in order for the film not to be too long.

Out of all the books i have read i would definitly say that the Harry Potter collection is my favourite. They go into such great detail and are by far the best story about magic that has ever been written. I started to read the books back when the first one was published, and i continued to read all the rest of them as they were released. Now there is a total of 7 books and now there will be no more :(, which is disappointing but if it was to go on there would really be nothing else to talk about and it would likely ruin the story.

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Author: J.K Rowling

The 7 books are available in 2 different styles, one is the childs version which is a cartoon like cover and then the other is the adult version which would have a real picture. The first 5 books in my collection have the childrens covers and then the last two i bought have the adult cover.

I think the adult cover looks much better and i reckon that i will eventually buy the first 5 books again just so that i can have the full collection with the adult covers :D

So far the first 5 books have been made into films and they are really well portrayed when compared to the book however a lot is left out and i would of loved to see more in some of the films. It is however a difficult task to choose what will make the final cut for the film but it would be great to even have additional scenes available on the disc when it is released.

The next film to be released is 'The Half-Blood Prince', and from what i have seen so far it looks great, the director of this film is David Yates and he has been directing the Harry Potter films since 'The Order Of The Phoenix', he has been doing such a great job that he was asked to direct the remaining films so in total he will have directed 3 of the 7 harry potter films, he is the longest standing director of the films so far, all the other directors only lasted for one film each apart from Chris Columbus who directed 2 of the films.

Technically David Yates will be directing 4 Harry Potter films since they have decided to make the last book, 'Deathly Hallows', into a 2 part film. I think it is great to have the final film as a two part film since we will get to see the majority of the book on the big screen :D The final film should be really epic!

'The Half-Blood Prince', film was supposed to be released late last year but instead was delayed until this july, they did this so there would not be a massive gap between this film and the final one. It would of been at least a year and a half and they decided it would be better to only have to wait about 10 months instead of a year and a half to see the last film.

Check out the trailer below for the next film to be released; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: