Quidditch World Cup V from Katie Chow on Vimeo.
On November 12th and 13th, Harry Potter fans flocked to Randall’s Island to celebrate the boy wizard’s favorite sport at the fifth annual Quidditch World Cup. The tournament was presented by the International Quidditch Association, which was founded in 2007 by Alex Benepe while he was a student at Middlebury College. Quidditch for Muggles, or non-magical people, was first developed at the Vermont school in 2005. In the Harry Potter series, Quidditch is a sport played by witches and wizards flying on brooms, competing to score points through hoops fixed high in the air. This is easy enough to adapt to the ground, but players are also in pursuit of the Golden Snitch. In the books, this is a winged ball that flies wherever it pleases. In Muggle Quidditch, the Snitch is a person who hides from the teams’ Seekers.
On that Saturday alone, 10,000 spectators visited the Quidditch World Cup. Additionally, there were about a thousand Quidditch players from close to 100 different teams, including one group that traveled from the University of Vaasa in Finland.
For more information, visit InternationalQuidditch.org.
I’ve never understood all the buzz around Harry Potter, read the first book and didn’t really care for it. Still, it’s great seeing how much fun people have been having doing stuff like this, so I know it can’t be a bad thing.
Nice shots. Cool game. Only thing: we don’t really get to see them playing much, just dudes talking about the game. Any chance you got more game footage?
This was a great idea for a video – I’ve heard about the Quiddich games, but never seen any.
The interviews were great, you really let them explain what was going on, and I feel like I know what’s happening and how it got started. The one interview that confused me was with the Snitch, because you didn’t indicate at all that that’s what he was, and he starts describing what he’s wearing like everyone should know what’s going on.
I think the only other problem with this is that there should be more action shots. There was a lot of face time for each of the interviews, and I feel like they’re talking about something that looks fun and a little silly, and there wasn’t very much of it happening on screen.