PERMIT ME TO KVELL...

Cory's graduating from 6th grade in a couple of weeks. Now, when I was a kid, 6th grade graduation was fairly meaningless, because we knew we'd see exactly the same kids the following year at junior high.

But in the world of private school, 6th grade is a huge deal. Not so much because we need to celebrate the outstanding accomplishment of learning to divide fractions, but because many of these kids, who've known each other for seven years, will not see each other again. In Cory's class, 40 kids are going to 12 different schools, many going to schools where they know no one, or at best, 1 or 2 others.

So when the call went out for kids to submit essays to be read as graduation speeches, I recognized that this was a potentially significant moment in a kid's life, and I encouraged Cory to write a speech.

He wasn't interested at first. After all, the call for essays (besides using that life-draining word "essay" rather than the more invigorating word "speech") suggested they focus on the school's Code of Conduct, or on special memories of the past years. Aren't you falling asleep just thinking about what those speeches could sound like?

Cory, it turned out, was only interested in writing a speech if it could be funny. So we brainstormed and came up with a concept: He would write a speech in the voice of a local health official warning people about a strange new disease or syndrome showing up in northern Santa Monica... "Code of Conduct Syndrome."

He did a great job. ("Could you be infected? Watch for these warning signs: Do you find yourself taking responsibility for your actions? Tucking in your shirt without being asked"... etc.) But given the rather solemn nature of our school at times, we knew the chances of a funny speech (excuse me, "essay") being picked were slim.

But they picked him! Apparently one of the administrators in particular just fell in love with his essay, and they decided it was okay to be funny. Clever, even.

It's a little thing, I know. But Cory has sometimes had rocky times at school, and has gone through a lot of uncertainty in these past few months regarding where he would go for middle school, which has been rough on him. So to be singled out as graduation speaker is a pretty cool thing. And we are proud of him.

Thank you for allowing me this moment to kvell.

COME SEE ME AT SONORUS 2007

For all you Harry Potter fans in the L.A. area, I have just been added to the program at Sonorus 2007, a small Harry Potter convention/dinner taking place on June 9th just north of L.A. As I understand it, Sonorus is actually the only California-based Harry Potter event yet held.

The real draw, of course, is not me, but the other two main presenters, John Granger, author of Looking for God in Harry Potter, and Steve Vanderark, editor of the Harry Potter Lexicon. I'll be joining them for an "intimate chat" after dinner, which should be a lot of fun.

I'll also be doing a book signing that morning at a Barnes & Noble near the event site. No details yet, but if anyone's interested, let me know, I should have the directions, etc. soon.

It all sounds like a blast! If anyone wants to come, let me know you're gonna be there!

MOVIE THOUGHTS: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

Whatever massive amount Johnny Depp is getting paid as Captain Jack Sparrow, they should double it.

Pirates 3 is a blast -- whenever Johnny Depp is onscreen. When he's offscreen, sometimes it's terrific, sometimes it lags. But the second Captain Jack appears, you just have to smile.

Yes, the movie is confusing, as the reviews have promised, but I have to say, not nearly as confusing as I expected (and slightly less confusing than Pirates 2, for my money).

I was a bit lost in terms of some of the side stories, and perhaps it would have been nice to have a "Previously on Pirates of the Caribbean prologue. I still don't quite follow what the Brits wanted, or why all those people were being hanged at the beginning, or what Jack's hallucinations were all about (though they were fun).

But the basic storylines and their central questions are fairly clear, given how much is going on: Will Jack defeat Davy Jones? Will Elizabeth and Will get together? Will Will rescue his father? And the screenwriters reminded us enough of what happened in the first two movies to help us not get totally lost.

Visually, the movie is absolutely stunning. I found myself gasping for breath at a few shots -- the pirate ships lined up waiting for the East India Co. to show up, for instance. Or the Black Pearl stuck on the Great Salt Flats. With so many movies these days done "for a price," it's truly lovely to see the money up on the screen, to have a sense of scope and power in the visuals.

The actors have pretty much all taken a step up in their performances. Geoffrey Rush clearly relishes every line, Keira Knightly adds some real fire to her beauty, and even Orlando Bloom manages to turn in a non-wooden performance.

But the movie belongs to Jack Sparrow. Hanging from the yardarm, exchanging quips with role model Keith Richards, cannonballing from one ship to another, sword fighting and mincing his way through the movie, Johnny Depp continues to redefine swashbuckling in a satisfying way.

Is the movie great art? No. Great craft? Yes (esp. in design and other visual areas). Is the movie great writing or storytelling? No. Is it great fun? Yes.

And that's enough. Fun eye candy and Johnny Depp as Cap'n Jack. Give me that, and I'll be there for Pirates 4.

FINALS WEEK

Reality/Talent show TV fans that our family has become, this was a big week for us. Dancing with the Stars and American Idol! Who could ask for more?

And we found both shows very satisfying. I liked the fact that in both shows, the emphasis wasn't on who was going to win as much as it was on enjoying what the season had brought us, and giving us new experiences.

Maybe it's the time I've spent listening to self-described artists who really only care about either "expressing themselves" or serving their agenda. But I loved it that both shows cared most about giving their audience a good time.

As I've said before, I love seeing the mix on the AI finals. Tony Bennett and Doug E. Fresh. Green Day and The Winans. With the balkanization of the music world (and every aspect of entertainment really, as we move more and more toward niche programming), it's so lovely to see the broadest audience being served. We all have to make a deal. I'll sit through the artist I don't care for if you'll sit through my favorites. Not a bad tradeoff.

As for the winners... it almost didn't matter. I've been an Apolo fan all along on Dancing, but the last couple of weeks Joey Fatone got my vote. I would have been happy either way. I just want to see Joey get work on Broadway now, 'cause he's certainly ready.

And we've been going back and forth between Melinda and Jordin for weeks on AI, so our shocker was last week when Melinda was voted off. We were glad Melinda got a spotlight on the show with her own song, we were glad Jordin won, but had it been Blake, we wouldn't have minded, given what a terrific performer he is. (And I have heard Cory trying to beat box behind the closed door of his room...)

So all in all, a very satisfying week of TV. Now everything fizzles to a slowdown, with weak contenders On The Lot and So You Think You Can Dance coming in as the B-team. (I'd be interested in hearing from any of you who are watching On The Lot who aren't in the biz; it feels awfully "inside baseball" to us...)

Maybe now I'll have time to finish my read-through of all of Harry Potter before July 21st...

SITTING FOR PHOTOS

I have been woefully negligent about blogging for the past week or so, for which I apologize. I have been cooped up in an editing room, and I thought it would be a tad rude to start typing away on my laptop while I was supposed to be directing an edit.

But many of you have kindly e-mailed or posted asking how the A&E interview went on Saturday. Thanks for asking!

It went really well. They interviewed me for over an hour, far longer than I expected. The producer/interviewer really knew his Harry Potter, had read my book, asked smart questions -- really all the elements one could wish for (including someone to do hair and make-up). And as I mentioned, John Granger and Steve Vanderark were also interviewed. (Actually, given our relative prominence in the HP world, I think I'm the "also" in that sentence.)

This particular special, to air mid-July on A&E (yes, of course I'll post the air date when I have it!), is tied to the release of the movie version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Because of this tie-in, the interview had to focus on the movies, not the books. In fact, we were not allowed to say the word "book." We also weren't allowed to talk about anything that happened in Half-Blood Prince or that might happen in Deathly Hallows.

Needless to say, this resulted in some very interesting self-censorship. It also meant I really couldn't talk about much from my book (only 2 months left to buy it! What are you waiting for?!). At one point, the interviewer asked me to talk about Severus Snape, and I sat and thought for a minute, then said, "You know, I really can't." Oh, I blathered something for him, but he won't be able to use it.

He was happy with my interview though, said there's lots of stuff they can use. The reason wasn't that I was particularly brilliant. The reason is because I did such a good job of self-censorship.

Which ties in directly to what I've been doing the past week that has kept me away from my blog.

You see, early in the school year, I volunteered to work alongside a commercial producer/school mom who's a friend of mine in compiling the school's graduation video for Cory's class. It really looked, frankly, like I was goign to have next to nothing to do. Another class mom who's a well-respected film editor had volunteered to edit it, my friend was collecting all the video and still photos from the various families... Not much for me to do at all.

And then Editor Mom had a diva fit and walked away from the project. Uh-oh. What do we do now? Well, Producer Mom knew a young just-out-of-film-school editor who would do it for us "for a price." Great. Still not much for me to do.

Until we actually saw the rough cut from Young Editor Girl. Which sucked. Totally and completely sucked. Bad picture choices, bad music choices, bad video cutting -- nothing about it worked. Producer Mom and I did the only sensible thing -- we panicked.

And then I stepped in and offered to start from scratch and just direct the entire cut. So that's what I've been doing this week and last week. I've been sitting over the shoulder of Young Editor Girl literally directing her frame-by-frame choices. I wrote an AV script, I re-chose all the pictures and video, I've basically been doing everything but typing in the commands for her (and sometimes that prospect is very tempting). We should have been done early this week, but we will still be working next week.

How is this tied to my HP interview? Well, it was the time spent sorting through video interviews of kids, literally thousands upon thousands of still photos covering 7 years (most utterly unuseable), odd snips of videos from field trips and soccer games and talent shows (again, disastrously unuseable for the most part), that made me so immediately savvy as to what the HP producer was going to need.

From this combined experience, let me offer a few helpful hints, should you be either sitting for an interview or shooting potentially archival footage in the near future (Producer Mom and I are going to write up some version of these hints to hand out to our daughters' 4th grade class, to try to improve the level of raw content we might have to deal with in two years):

--When you're asked a question on camera, repeat the question in your answer. If someone says, "Talk a bit about Severus Snape," don't say "He's the best character in the book." Do say "As we look at all the characters in the stories, Severus Snape stands out as one of the most fascinating, for several reasons," and go from there. If someone asks, "What's the most important thing you learned at school?" start your answer with "The most important thing I learned at school was..."

--Shoot your photos/videos from the appropriate height. If you're a six-foot tall man and you're shooting 4-1/2' tall kids, don't hold the camera at your eye level. All we'll see is tops of heads.

--And while you're getting down to your subjects' level, please get in front of them as well. As memorable as your hours of footage from from the class trip to Boston might be to you, to the rest of us, shots of a crowd of 40 kids from the rear are really, well, boring.

--Make your subjects look into the camera frame. Run toward the camera frame. Look up from what they're doing. Interact with you behind the camera. If we can't see the kids' eyes, we can't use the photo/video. (Obviously there are exceptions to this -- sports shots, for instance.)

--Think more than two-dimensionally when you compose your still photos. We've had a horrible time weeding through hundreds of photos where a group of kids is lined up horizontally across the frame. Ultimately, all these shots look the same. We jump for joy when we find a photo that actually makes use of the concept of foreground and background. Think of it this way: If you're shooting a group of kids sitting at a rectangular table (lunch, crafts, whatever), the obvious shot is for you to stand along the long side of the table and make the kids look at you. Instead, stand at the short end of the table and make the kids look down the table toward you. Instant foreground and background! Whoever has to look at your pictures will thank you.

...Anyway, that's how my HP interview actually owed something to the reason I haven't been blogging... No more interviews in my future, but lots more editing. I have today off so Young Editor Girl can color-correct, put in her dissolves and other transitions, and render her video. Tomorrow, we're back into it to tweak away. It's going to be an awesome video, I have to say.

And as soon as it's done, I will be back here to blog. Maybe even sooner.

HARRY POTTER CHAT ON A&E

Well, this is pretty cool.

Turns out A&E (the Arts and Entertainment Channel) is doing a hurry-up one-hour special on Harry Potter prognostication. Among the people being interviewed are John Granger and Steve Vanderark of the Harry Potter Lexicon. And John kindly suggested that, especially as the show is being produced out of L.A., they interview me on-camera as well.

So, if all logistics work out, Saturday I'll sit down in front of a camera and spin some set-up and payoff theories. Cool, huh?

I'll let you all know the air date (nothing set yet, as they're waiting for final clearances from Warner Bros.). In the meantime, all I have to do by Saturday is re-read my book, get my hair cut, and lose 20 pounds.

MY BIGGEST HP PREDICTION

Not all predictions regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows can be formulated in a yes/no fashion ("Will Harry die?" "Is Snape evil?"). Not all of them even lend themselves to multiple choice.

And some of the predictions I've seen are so vague as to be meaningless ("Luna will be important in Book 7"). I don't care much for vague predictions. They seem to me to be akin to the newspaper horoscope -- "Friends will be important in your life" -- not much to work with there, not much even to discuss.

So here is my big, bold, going-waaay-out-on-a-limb, as-specific-as-you-can-get prediction, based on my study of set-ups and payoffs in the HP saga.

I predict:

Harry, toward the end of the book, will be stymied in his need to get physically close to Lord Voldemort to kill him. He may or may not have tried and failed to reach Voldemort, or he may have just considered and discarded ways to get to him.

He may at this point remember Dumbledore's words: "They can't kill you if you're already dead." And he will get an idea. (I say he "may" remember only because my understanding is that this line did not appear in the UK version of Half-Blood Prince.)

Harry will make the Draught of Living Death. To do this, obviously he needs the Half-Blood Prince's potion book, the one currently hidden in the Room of Requirement. Harry may have already retrieved it by this point, or this could be his motivation to go get it.

Having made the potion, Harry will take it at the appropriate moment. He will then appear, to all intents and purposes, to be dead.

It's possible that Hermione and Ron (and Ginny) may not realize what Harry is doing. They might believe Harry is dead. In fact, we might believe Harry is dead (if we don't see him make the potion in chronological order, but just hear about it later).

Harry's dead body will be taken to Lord Voldemort. Voldemort will believe he has triumphed.

And then Harry will wake up (a bit at a time, but fairly rapidly, as we saw with recovery from the Polyjuice Potion). And he will be right where he wants to be, right where he couldn't get any other way: Within striking distance of Voldemort.

It's all been set up. And yes, of course I could be completely wrong. A prediction this specific is a risky, risky thing.

But if I'm right, I want a parade.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: SPIDER-MAN 3

I watched Spider-Man 2 last week on the small screen. Boy, did that movie hold up! (You can read my at-the-time thoughts on Spidey 2 here.)

The performances were still strong, especially Alfred Molina's haunting and memorable portrayal of the tortured Doc Ock who still manages to cling to his soul. The themes still resonate: The desire to walk away from all the demands, the desire to disbelieve the truth that "With great power comes great responsibility." The effects are beautifully done and always believable, with the CGI "octopus" arms of Doc Ock even brimming with personality.

Spider-Man 3? Well... Eh. Not so much.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's a fun movie, worth the popcorn. Everything is solid. Nothing is embarrassing (well, except for Peter Parker's over-the-top dance at Mary Jane's jazz club, where I think we're supposed to feel embarrassed). Effects are good (especially the Sandman, who looked unbearably cheesy in early trailers). Performances are good (again, especially Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman).

As for the plotting, frankly, it's quite an achievement to have so many storylines swinging around in there -- and so many villains, what with the Sandman, the Little Goblin (as it were), Venom, and Peter himself when wearing that weird black suit -- and not get the audience lost.

But in the crush of storylines and villains, nothing ever gets to breathe. There's no equivalent to that lovely dinner scene between Dr. Octavius and Peter in Spidey 2, no moment where we can stop and savor. We're either in the midst of impeccably-polished, breathtakingly-fast action sequences, or we're efficiently rushing from one plot point to the next.

The movie is also the king of coincidence -- Yet somehow that doesn't slow down our enjoyment of the movie. Perhaps it's because we're in this weird comic book world where the well-established rules don't match up with the real world (Peter spends enough on flowers for Mary Jane to easily afford a cell phone, yet he's still using the pay phone in the hallway of his slummy apartment house?)... we're in a world where such coincidences can happen, and we shrug them off as part of what happens here.

Spidey 3 did genuinely move me at the unexpected ending of the Green Goblin story -- I didn't see it coming, and it touched me. But for the most part, the movie, at least compared to its predecessors, was eye candy. Fun, but not memorable. Which is a shame, as I still find things in Spidey 2 to ponder and enjoy.

Go see the movie -- it's fun, it's very, very well-made, it's worth the ticket, and definitely one to see on the big screen. Just know that you'll be ready for a more filling entertainment meal immediately after.

WHILE WE'RE PREDICTING....

The Leaky Cauldron has its own set of Harry Potter prediction quizzes up. The first one, at least, is very long, much too long to copy in full here. But you can check it out here.

It asks some good questions (though you have to get a ways in before it asks the rudimentary questions like "Is Harry a Horcrux?"). It also asks a lot of questions that are, to my mind, a waste of time. But it's fun. Let me know what you think!

A LITTLE BLOG MAINTENANCE

When I lost Squawkbox as my comment keeper at the end of 2006 (they shut down), I had to switch over to the Blogger comment boxes, and couldn't transfer the Squawkbox comments. However, before the switch, I saved all the old comments by hand (even the mean ones!).

And now I am transferring them all back into the Blogger comments. I'm always surprised to see someone commenting on a post from, say, 2005, but want to restore the blog so that people looking into the archives get a full pictures. I've gone back about 6 months so far, but will keep doing it.

Just wanted to let you know. And in the meantime, keep posting those HP predictions....

IMMODERATE COMMENTS?

Well, I haven't seen any spam postings from "alex" for a week or so, so I'm hoping Blogger has managed to shut down his drug sale spam, and I am turning off the "comment moderation" option. I'm really enjoying seeing all the Harry Potter prediction comments, and want you to be able to see them as soon as they're posted, too. So let's cross our fingers and hope that "alex" is in retirement.

(Now if I could just figure out what to do about someone stalking my statistics page -- creepy, huh? -- I'd be a happy blogger.)

Anyway, comment away! Can't wait to see what else y'all have to say. (And I can't believe no one has insisted that Harry is a Horcrux!)