BOOKS

MOVIES

THE MAGIC MAKERS

INTERESTING BITS

Harry Smith, the commentator, begins:

JK Rowling, this former French teacher instructor and struggling single-mom is now the world’s most popular contemporary author.  The release of JK Rowling’s fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, set off a rush on stores the likes of which the publishing world has never seen.  Adults and children alike lined up days in advance to obtain a copy.  A sign of just how thoroughly JK Rowling has tapped into our collective imagination.  Tonight, JK Rowling reveals the inspiration behind Harry Potter.

“He’ll be famous.  A legend.  I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day,” speaker reading from chapter one of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Showing different people reading the book, both children and adults.

The voice continues, “There will be books written about Potter.  Every child in our world will know his name.”

Commentator:  When JK Rowling first wrote these first words from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, she never, in her wildest dreams, thought they’d come true.  Harry Potter has become the largest publishing success the world has ever seen.  (Showing kids and adults dressed up for Harry Potter)  Since 1997, more than 135 million copies have been sold in 48 different languages.  Only the Bible has more translations.  Every thirty seconds someone somewhere begins a Harry Potter story. 

JK Rowling begins, “I think I would’ve been clinically insane to have expect what’s happened.  Who could’ve predicted this?  No one could’ve.  I certainly didn’t.”

Commentator:  Just a few years ago, JK Rowling was broke and jobless.  A single mother who spent her afternoons writing in Edinburgh coffee shops, while her baby slept.  Today she is rich and famous, the most popular children’s author on the planet.

Showing her pictures of book signings.

Commentator:  The Potter books she created have all been international best sellers.  The first Harry Potter movie was a blockbuster success.  The legions of fans are desperate for the next boy wizard installments.  But, it’s Rowling’s story that is the most amazing of all.  Only now, as she agreed to tell it, in her own words.

JK Rowling:  “A lot of rubbish has been written.  Not necessarily malicious rubbish, but things get exaggerated and distorted, and I thought that maybe the moment has tome to . . um . . just to say how it happened, truthfully.  Then I can go easy to my bed and think well the truth is out there, and people can take it or leave it.”

Commentator:  Harry’s arrival on the doorstep of his muggle, or non-magic, relatives, is the start of an epic journey.  Harry grows up thinking he is just an ordinary boy, until he finds out that in the wizard world his name is legendary.  And he is destined to attend Hogwarts Schools of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  (Shows excerpt from Sorcerer’s Stone movie, first years walking down walk way towards sorting ceremony).

Commentator:  The Harry’s adventures really begin as Harry and his classmates, Hermione and Ron, battle with the dark forces of magic.  A story that JK Rowling has meticulously planned to tell over seven books.  One for each school year.  (Shows more movie excerpts)  It was a journey that began back in 1990.

JK:  “I was going by train to Manchester from London, just sitting there, thinking of nothing to do with writing, and the idea came out of nowhere.  I could see Harry very clearly.  (shows ghost image of a Harry walking down train isle)  This scrawny little boy.  And it was the most physical rush.  I’ve never felt that excited about anything to do with writing.  I’ve never had such a physical response.  So, I’m rummaging through this bag to find anything to write with.  I didn’t even have an eyeliner.  So, I just had to sit and think.  Um, for four hours, because the train was delayed.  I had all these ideas bubbling up through my head.

Reading excerpt from Chamber of Secrets:  “Harry was small and skinny, with brilliant green eyes, and jet black hair that was always untidy.  He wore round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin lightning shaped scar.  It was this scar that made Harry so particularly unusual.  This scar was the only hint of Harry’s very mysterious past.  Of the reason that he had been left on the Dursley’s doorstep eleven years before.”

JK:  “I can’t describe the excitement to someone who doesn’t write books, except to say that it’s that incredibly elated feeling you get when you’ve just someone with whom you might fall in love.  That was the kid of thing that had happened.  Like I had just met someone wonderful, and we were about to embark on this wonderful affair.  That kind of relation, that kind of lightheadedness, that excitement.  So, I got back to my flat in Platinum Junction (sp?) and started writing.  And now I’ve been writing for ten years.  It’s been a good affair.”

Scenes of King’s Cross Station

JK:  “For me King’s Cross Station is a very, very romantic place.  Probably the most romantic station, purely because this is where my parents met.  So, that’s always been part of my child folklore.  My dad has just joined the navy, my mom had just joined the W.R.N.S. (Womans Royal Navy Service), they were both traveling to Edinburgh on the train.  They met on the train.  And I wanted Harry to go to Hogwarts by train.  I just love trains, I’m a bit nerdy like that.  Obviously it had to be from King’s Cross.

Shows excerpt from Socerer’s Stone King’s Cross Scene, with Harry trying to find the platform

JK:  “Like a lot of Harry Potter books, it was reality with a twist.  I wanted to find another entrance to the magical world, but I didn’t want the time warp thing.  I like the entrances to be places that you can only find if you have the knowledge.  So, anyone who ran at the barrier with enough confidence would be able to break through onto the platform, between platform nine and platform ten.”

JK:  “I wrote Platform 9 ¾ when I was living in Manchester, and I wrongly visualized the platforms.  I was actually thinking of Ustom (sp).  Um, so anyone who’s actually been to the real platforms nine and ten at the real King’s Cross will realize they don’t a great resemblance to the platforms nine and ten as described in the book.  So, that’s just me coming clean there.  Obviously in Manchester, I couldn’t check.  It was five years from the train journey from where I had the original idea to finishing the book.  During those five years, this massive material was generated.  Some of which will never find it’s way to the books.  Will never need to be in the books, it’s just stuff I need to know for my own pleasure.  Partly for my own pleasure, and partly because I like reading a book where I have a sense that the author knows everything.  They might not be telling me everything, but you have that confidence that the author knows everything. “

Cuts to scenes of JK’s boxes of notes

JK:  “Okay, so this is, uh, to the untrained eye, might look like a pile of wastepaper, but um, this is ten years’ work, and I file meticulously.”  (shows papers everywhere)  She clears her throat.  And I know where every piece is.  I’ve dragged out a few bits and pieces.  So, this is the name of everyone in Harry’s year.  (shows close up of list of names, with symbols).  Each symbol mean what house they’re in, how magical they are, and what their parentage is.  Because I needed this with the deatheaters, and certain allegiances that will be set up in the school.  (she pulls out a blue small writing book)  I like this.  This is ’98, and this is me trying to find words for the dementors.  So I’ve written all these words the inside (of the cover) of my diary.  (shows a large envelope)  I used to write on just about anything.  As you can see this is my application for housing benefit at 28 Gardener’s Crescent, which is the place where I lived, obviously in Edinburgh, treated with a complete lack of respect by me.  (shows her holding piles of papers)  Discarded first chapters of book one.  I reckon I must’ve got through 15 different versions of chapter one, book one.  The reason for which I discarded which were it gave too much away.  In fact, if you put all these together, almost the whole plot is explained.  Here is a book in which I’ve written – I don’t need to let you get too close (she whips the text quickly forward the back) – is the history of the deatheaters.  I drew a lot of pictures, just for me.  (Shows different drawings of different characters).

One in particular that she shows is a picture of the entrance to Diagon Alley, where it shows how she believed the wall should open.   She had wanted to show it to Chris Columbus, but thought she had lost it.  She said that Chris would be upset once he found out, then laughs.

As her life of Harry was being put together, JK Rowling’s life began to fall apart.  She arrived in Edinburgh in 1993, after a brief time teaching in Portugal.  There she married, had a baby and left her husband.  No job, virtually no money, and a little daughter to support.

JK:  “That’s where the tag Penniless Single-Mother came in.  And it was true.  But it wasn’t enough that I was a penniless single-mother, then I had to write on napkins because I couldn’t afford paper.  Then we started straying into the realms of the ridiculous.  Let’s not exaggerate here, let’s not pretend I had to write on napkins, because I didn’t.  They started adding little bits and pieces, that just weren’t necessary, because the stark reality was bad enough.”

Cuts to old apartment

JK:  “I haven’t been back here since 1994, when I moved out, and I don’t like like being back here, which is not offense to the place, I just don’t like being back here.  I’ve avoided the place, just in deference to the unhappy six months that I spent here.  I did a lot of writing here.  I would say that this is where the first book became a book instead of three chapters and a lot of notes.”

Goes inside of apartment

JK speaks of how hard it was to get childcare.  She is shocked at the difference of the present condition of her old apartment.  It has been refurbished since she had left.  She said she would be delighted to live here.  She said this was like an exorcism.

JK:  “Everyone asks how did you do it?  How did you raise a baby and write at the same time?  My answer was I didn’t do housework for four years.  I am not Superwoman.  Living in squalor, that was the answer.  During the day I was writing in cafes.  I would just like to say, for the record, because it really irritates me, I did not write in cafes because I did not have heat.  I am not stupid enough to rent an unheated flat in Edinburgh in mid-winter.  It had heating.  I wrote in cafes because  that was the only way I could get Jessica (her daughter0 to sleep was to keep her moving.  As soon as she was asleep, I’d rush into the nearest café.”

Shows her in Nicholson’s, which is a place she wrote often.  She speaks of not giving up on the book, and continuing to write, and that she really believed in them.

Publishers speak of the book being hard to publish.  Speak that they were amazed that she knew the entire story, and that it was interesting to have Harry developing with each book.  She was told to keep her real job.  That children’s authors don’t make money.

Bloomsbury acquired what would become the largest phenonoma in literature for only 2,500 pounds, about $4,000.

JK states that that was, second to her daughter’s birth, the best moment of her life.

Commentator:  JK Rowling introduced the world to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.  Not only does he find out he’s a wizard, but a famous one at that.  He’s renounced as the miraculous survivor of an attack by the evil Lord Voldemort, who killed his parents.  Through his adventures at Hogwarts, Harry begins to find out the mysteries of his past.

Cuts to scene of Harry and Sorting Hat ceremony.

JK:  “When he first arrives at school, he’s totally unsure, he has the feelings we all have.  As adults as well, when you enter a new place, and you don’t know what’s going on.  But greatly exaggerated obviously by the fact that he’s set even there by his fame and his ancestry.  And, um, this curious quirk, that he survived what should have been a fatal attack.  He’s every boy, but with a twist.”

Cuts to reader reading excerpt of Professor Snape’s introduction in book one of Potion’s class.

JK:  “I don’t believe in witchcraft.  I’ve lost count of the number times I’ve been told I’m a practicing witch.  I’d say that 90-95% at least of the magic in the books is invented by me.  And I’ve used themes from folklore, and I’ve used bits from what used to be worked magically just to add a bit of flavor that I’ve always twisted them, I mean I’ve used to suit my own ends.  I’ve taken liberties with folklore, um, to suit my plot.  Witches and wizards are a huge part of children’s literature.  It will never go away, ever, ever.  I mean 100, 200 years time, there will be another witches and wizards story.”

In 1997 JK Rowling moved on to her second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Book one was doing well, but no where near it’s popular today.  JK Rowling was still teaching.  Then, in 1997, Harry Potter cast a spell on America.  American publishers got caught up in a bidding war.

Cuts to Scholastic publisher, who speaks of the bidding for the book.  They ended up with a bid of $105 thousand, which was more than they had paid any author, let alone a first time author.

This meant that at last that JK Rowling could become a full time author.

Speaks of where JK grew up, with her parents and little sister.  She admits to being bookish and bossy, not unlike Hermione.

Cuts to scene of Wingardium Levosiosa.

JK:  “When I started writing Hermione, she came incredibly easy, largely because she’s me.  I was spotty, and I had that sense of insecurity underneath.  Tried to compensate for that by getting everything right all the time.  And, like Hermione, I tried to project this false confidence.  And I know it was irritating to people at times.  But underneath it all I felt completely inadequate, which is why I understand Hermione.”

Speaks of JK completing her first book named Rabbit when she was age six.  It was a small series, and very dark.  She speaks that The Dark Horse book being a great influence.

She speaks of her teen years, and living in a cottage.  She says she hasn’t been back since her mom died, so it was very emotional.  She speaks of meeting her friend, Sean, who was a very good friend, and who the second book is dedicated to.  She says that Ron owes a fair bit to Sean.  She speaks of Sean’s car, a Ford Anglia, which is the car the Weasleys had. 

Announcer speaks of JK Rowling attending University of Exeter with a degree in French.  She moved to London.  Then her mother, who had Multiple Sclerosis, died.

JK:  “The pain of her going, and just missing such a large part of her life.  She was only 45, which was far too young.  Perhaps two or three days after introducing Harry, I had his parents die, in a very cut and dry way.  No malingering.  At that stage, no real discussion of how painful that was going to be.  Of course, mom died six months after my first attempt at an opening chapter.  Um, and that made an enormous difference, because I was living what I had just written.  The Mirror of Erised comes absolutely from my own experience of losing a parent.  Please, God, just give me five more minutes.  That would be enough.”

Cuts to Mirror of Erised scene from movie.

JK:  “After five minutes, I’d tell her about Jessie, that she has a grandchild.  But, it could never be long enough.  That was the point of chapter ten.  It’s tougher on the living.  You just got to get past it.”

Cuts to end scene with Harry fighting Proffessor Quirrell/Lord Voldemort.

JK:  “Death is a very important theme through out all seven books.  The most important theme.  If you are writing about evil, which I am, and you are writing about someone who is essentially a psychopath, you have a duty to show the real evil to human life.  More people are going to die, and, um, there’s at least one death that is going to be horrible to write, to re-write, actually, because it’s already written.  But, um, it has to be.”

Commentator:  Some parents have questioned whether the books are too dark for children.

JK:  “It’s very interesting how parents think they have the right to dictate to you, because you are writing reading materials for their children.  I got a a horrible letter from book two from a mother that stated ‘this was a very disturbing ending, and I’m sure an author like you can write a better ending.  I’ll be back in touch if I find your other books acceptable.’  It was at that point I snapped, and I wrote back and said, ‘Don’t read the rest of the books. Yours sincerely, Jo Rowling.’  There’s no point, I’m not taking dictation here.  Do I care about my readers?  Absolutely, profoundly.  But, do I think they should dictate a single word of what I write, No.  I am the only one that should be in control of that.”

Commentator speaks of Pottermania, and how book signings start to resemble rock concerts.

JK:  “If you were to take me back, and tell me what’s happened, first of all I wouldn’t believe you.  Then if you might’ve convinced me of the truth, I don’t know what I would’ve done, because I would’ve thought I wouldn’t be able to handle that.  There will be people watching who wouldn’t believe that, because of the money.  How ironic is it that I imagined five years imagining myself into the mind of the boy, who became famous.  I mean, I spent five years imagining what that would be like, living in obscurity, and suddenly be famous.”

Speaks of press bothering her and her family, which really bothered her.

Commentator speaks of her books becoming like a modern-day witch-hunt.  In South Carolina they tried to ban the books from the classroom.  The books, it is believed, that it promotes witchcraft and Wicca.  That it puts negative thoughts into the minds of children.

JK:  “My polite answer to that is that not once has a child came up to me and said, ‘Due to you, I’ve decided to devote my life to the Occult.’  People underestimate children so hugely.  They know it’s fiction.”

She speaks of going to watch the film, and that she was terrified.  She was afraid of terrible liberties being taken.  But she liked it and she is happy.

She shows the last chapter of book seven in a yellow folder.  It’s where she wraps everything up. 

JK:  “It’s an epilogue of those who survive, because there are more deaths coming.”

Commentator:  With JK Rowling getting married to Dr. Murray on December 26^th, and the movie, it marked the end of a banner year.  With the Order of the Phoenix due this Spring, and the second movie, 2002 shows to be another banner year.