How do you take an 800-page book and make it into a 2-hour movie? It’s not an easy trick to pull off (two out of four attempts have failed). In this week’s show, we listen to a few clips from the upcoming Order of the Phoenix movie and discuss the main themes of the book, and how they are addressed in the film.

Plus, we announce the winner of our Logo Contest!

And in the news:

• David Yates will direct Half Blood Prince.
• Yates is looking for actors to play Lavender Brown and a teenage Tom Riddle
• You can rent the suite in the Balmoral Hotel that JKR finished Deathly Hallows in!
• Select myspace users are going to the OoTP movie TODAY!!
• W.O.M.B.A.T. results still up.
• Official website for the OoTP Soundtrack is live.
• Scholastic asks: Will Voldemort be defeated?
• Scholastic to host “Harry Potter Place” in NYC.
• Is Harry Potter addictive? Help a Pennsylvania professor figure this out.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

Here is the letter I sent to MSNBC this past Monday:

Dear Mr. Olbermann and MSNBC,

Last week, news outlets reported that a computer
hacker hacked into Bloomsbury Publisher’s computer and
was posting spoilers from Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows online
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6225910.stm).
Most Harry Potter related websites (including the
website that I run called Harry Potter Prognostications - http://www.hpprogs.com) reported
this story but purposely did not include any information
that the hacker revealed.  Most of us true Potter fans
have been surfing the web with our hands half covering
our eyes because we didn’t want to see any of the
spoilers.

It has been almost a week, and I hadn’t seen the hacker’s spoilers.  I sat down tonight to watch Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” and thought I would enjoy the
segment on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”.
Until Mr. Olbermann so cavalierly and nonchalantly
mentioned what the hacker had revealed in his
spoilers.

Mr. Olbermann said that the spoilers seemed
unbelievable.  I agree.  However; be that as it may, I
was grossly appalled at the ease in which Mr.
Olbermann revealed a major spoiler that most credible
news outlets have been avoiding for the past week. 

I can only assume I will only be one of the many Harry
Potter fans to complain about this and I certainly
hope Mr. Olbermann will take fans into account when he
delivers news segments in the future.  I am extremely disappointed
in the integrity of both Keith Olbermann and MSNBC.

Penny

Baltimore, MD

Feel free to send similar letters.  I am still angry.  Grrr.

Here is a link to 11 clips and some behind the scene footage from the upcoming, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie. They look great, if you ask me. Tell us what you think!!

Well, the W.O.M.B.A.T.s are in, they have all been scored. I got an Exceeds Expectations. According to JK Rowling,

This excellent result proves you to be a witch or wizard of considerable learning. You have proven yourself to be part of the academic elite, and the Wizarding Examinations Authority was most impressed with your paper. The Ministry of Magic is always on the lookout for accomplished recruits as yourself and would welcome your application owl. Very well done indeed!

Unfortunately, Greg seems to have misplaced his identification number so we will be unable to compare results (a likely story most probably fabricated by someone who received a score of “dreadful” or “troll”), but please post your own exam results. I look forward to seeing how y’all did.

-Penny:)

With Book 7 just a month away, we here at HPProgs want to make sure that comments and discussion can continue without fear of spoilers. As such, we’ve taken a proactive step to make HPProgs a spoiler-free site. All comments on all posts are now moderated. While this may slow down the flow of discussion (as Penny and I will have to approve all comments before they are posted to the site), we think it’s a worthwhile trade-off in order to ensure that everyone can continue to visit, read/listen and contribute to HPProgs and our discussions without fear of having Book 7 spoiled.

If you left a comment, and it hasn’t appeared on the site for some time, feel free to email us at harrypotterprogs AT yahoo DOT com.

Please note: as of right now, this only applies to the blog; we are working on getting some kind of moderation in place for the message boards as well.

Comment moderation will be removed sometime after Book 7 is released. Thanks!

We were all quite excited when the title for Book 7 was announced. The initial reaction (Whoah!), was followed by questions (Huh?). What is the meaning of “Deathly Hallows?” Many have speculated as to what it all means, we’ve proffered our theory as well.

In this episode, we discuss some new possibilities based on some of the foreign title translations of Deathly Hallows.

We also recapped our Knight Bus experience. Try not to laugh at our extreme lameness.

Don’t forget to enter the Logo contest (entries due by midnight Saturday).

Want a chance to win a free copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

And in the news:

• JK Rowling to tour the US in October. Remember my birthday.
• Many Hispanic countries change OoTP release date to July 11.
• JK Rowling, Daniel Radcliffe,and Emma Watson land on Forbes Magazine’s annual “Celebrity 100″ list.
• Canadian fans to have a special OoTP special.
• You can take a virtual tour of 12 Grimmauld Place.
• Computer Hacker in UK announced what he claims is the ending to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (remember, NO spoilers allowed!!).

You can listen to the show using the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

We came. We saw. We felt stupid. More on next weeks podcast. Unfortunately, wordpress is giving me a hard time uploading the pictures, but if you want to see them, we have an album on our facebook page (HP PROGNOSTICATIONS)- check it out and let us know what you think!!

Here are the details of the hpprogs logo design contest:

-Design an original logo for hpprogs or use our idea for a logo

-Our idea is hpprogs.com with the /o/ and the /g/ looking like Harry’s glasses with a lightening bolt on top of the glasses and the word hpprogs.com sitting on an open book

-We want the words hpprogs.com because of copyright issues, so preferably the logo should not say Harry Potter

-You can submit as many logos as you want

-Preferably, send your logo in SVG (scalable vector graphic) format

-We have a slogan idea, but we don’t want to announce it yet because: a) we don’t want to tamper with your ideas, b) we aren’t 100% sure we are going to use it yet c) we just want this to be a logo

-Please have your designs in no later than 12 am on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 (that means Saturday night at the latest)

-You can e-mail your designs to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com (e-mail format)

-The winner of the contest, will receive one copy of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Deluxe Edition or the monetary equivelent if necessary

Happy Designing! We look forward to seeing your ideas!

Hi everyone!  We forgot to mention this on episode 35, but if there are any listeners in the Baltimore, Washington, or Southern Pennsylvania area, we wanted to let y’all know that we will be going to the Knight Bus tour tommorow, on June 15.

 We will be at the Baltimore County Public Library stop of the tour:

 Baltimore County Public Library
The Cockeysville Library
9833 Greenside Drive
Cockeysville, MD 21030

The stop lasts from 9-12 AM and we will probably be there from around 10-10:45 AM.  If you don’t know what we look like, I’ll be the one in the neck brace.  Hope to see you there! 

-Penny:)

Just in time for Episode #35, Scholastic released the cover for the Deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. At first glance, the picture seems quite unassuming (even austere, but certainly not threadbare). So we have Harry, Ron and Hermione riding a dragon…but then, the wheels begin to turn, and bits and pieces of information from various parts of the Potter-verse start to collect, theories start to form…and we have interesting ideas on our hands. In this episode, we review the discussion started on our last post about the draconian figure adorning the cover.

Also, we’re announcing our Second HPProgs contest! Anyone is eligible to enter this one, and there’s a really, really, really cool prize. Listen to the episode (near the end) for the details.

Vote for HPProgs on PodcastAlley! Subscribe on iTunes!

In the news:

• HBO to feature a “First Look” at the OoTP movie.
• ABC Family will air Potter movies till we puke.
• Deluxe Edition cover art for HP and the Deathly Hallows has been revealed.
• See the Death Eater Masks (a.k.a. MRI images) on the official OoTP website.
• Good interview with HP producer, David Heyman about Potter series.
• New Competition for French HP fans to win tickets to French Premeire of OoTP.
• OoTP Soundtrack announced and now available (link to HPPROGS Bookstore).
• Scholastic Question 5: Where are the Horcruxes?.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so close,  the third and last W.O.M.B.A.T. test is now available on JK Rowling’s web site. 

According to the site,

The Grade 3 WOMBAT is the final examination, and the most difficult. Not only is the subject matter much more advanced, but the examination is also more stringently marked. Certain answers will LOSE YOU MARKS, so choose carefully…

HPANA has info on how to access the W.O.M.B.A.T.

 Greg and I will be taking it and you better believe we will be posting our scores (and expecting my score to surpass his).  Let us know how you do.

Penny:)

Thanks to all of your wonderful prognostications on the Deluxe Edition cover art, we actually have a theme for this weeks show. I just wanted to give you the heads up that the show will probably be up on Wednesday or Thursday.

Also, as a bit of a teaser, we will be announcing a brand new contest on episode 35. This contest will change the face of HPPROGS as we know it. Get ready to get your creative hats on.

-Penny:)

Scholastic has revealed the cover art for the Deluxe Edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of course, the art was done by Mary Grand Pre.

There isn’t too much to prognosticate on but I wanted to offer my one major opinion. It could be bogus or not but here goes. Harry, Ron and Hermione (I think that’s Ron and Hermione) are riding a dragon in the picture. Call me crazy, but I think the dragon is the animagus form of Draco Malfoy (Dragon of Bad Faith). Look at the white blonde hair and the grey eyes on the dragon. I think it says it all.

Opinions?

Penny:)

By the way, if you’re thinking of ordering the Deluxe Edition, why not order it through the HPProgs Bookshelf?

OK, we have some HPPROGS updates. First, you might have noticed that we’ve gone red. Yes, it is true. There is really no significance to the color change but hey, I thought I’d bring attention to it.

Second, if you haven’t noticed, hopefully you will notice over the next few days that our site isn’t down as much. Thanks to our wonderful listener, CoolCole who is graciously hosting HPPROGS on his server. We really appreciate the gesture from him and wanted to publicly thank him. Thank you!

Finally, me. Well, things are looking good. I went back to the spinal surgeon yesterday and he said that things are starting to improve. My babinski (if you haven’t listened to the last episode, sorry) is negative (that is a good thing) and in general my reflexes are much better than they were at my last appointment. This is really good news since it indicates that hopefully I won’t need surgery. Yay!!!! The pain is still there, but nowhere as bad and honestly the news from the doctor was so good that it has improved my mood so much that I can’t help but feel better.

So, once again thanks for all the notes, messages, e-mails, pictures, you name it- it has all been so helpful in making me feel better. We will most probably podcast at the normal time next week. Thanks again for everything. Y’all are great.

-Penny

Hey y’all!  Penny just couldn’t stand being bedridden any longer, so she drug herself out of bed and we did a podcast!  Things have been a bit hectic around HPProgs HQ the last week or so, as Penny has suffered a pretty nasty injury to her spine.  Were still trying to figure out how we’re going to fix that; in the mean time, there’s no sense in not prognosticating.  This week’s quasi-episode features a bit of discussion into what’s going on with Penny (if you care), a little prognosticating on Potter, and a little off-topic discussions (sorry for the off-topic-ness, but we’ve been a bit busy) which are clearly marked as spoilers for those of you outside the US (you can listen until we tell you not to).  I have a pretty bad cold and therefore sound like a post-pubertal Kermit the Frog.  Anyways, thanks for listening, we hope to be back with your regularly scheduled all-Potter-themed podcast next week.

Update: Here is a link to the forum. There are a lot of great conversations going on there and you should join in. The thread about the TV finales is in the “All You Want to Talk” forum. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!!

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.