''Wizard People, Dear Reader'', released in 2004, is an unauthorized alternative
soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...
to ''
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a 1997 fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers hi ...
'', written by
Brad Neely
Brad Neely (born October 26, 1976) is an American comic book artist and television writer/producer known for his work on television series such as ''South Park'', '' China, IL'' and ''Brad Neely's Harg Nallin' Sclopio Peepio,'' the web series ''I ...
, a
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...
from
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area ...
.
''Wizard People, Dear Reader'' is a narrative retelling of the lives of the characters of ''The Sorcerer's Stone'' and the world in which they live. Presented in the form of a thirty-five chapter
audiobook
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sch ...
, this soundtrack is intended to replace the film's audio track.
Origins
Brad Neely, in an interview with ''Chief'' magazine, described the beginning of the idea as follows:
Anyway, we were at a bar and were getting a good laugh at a guy who was playing pool all by himself while wearing a hoody over his hat, sunglasses under that and headphones on the outside of all of it. So we started riffing on "What could he possibly be listening to?". Someone who I don't think was me said that he was listening to a book on tape of ''Harry Potter''. And out came the ''Wizard People'' narrator. I joked that night that I was going to rush home and record an entire misinformed book on tape of ''The Sorcerer's Stone'', because I had not and have not ever read any ''Harry Potter'' books. Once I started making notes for it I realized that an audio track alone could get boring, so I decided to sync it with the movie. Then I took a week or two and made the damn thing. I love it.
Presentations
In 2004, the
New York Underground Film Festival The New York Underground Film Festival was an annual event that occurred each March at Anthology Film Archives in New York City from 1994 through 2008 founded by filmmakers Todd Phillips (''Road Trip'', '' Old School'') and Andrew Gurland. After P ...
rented a print of the film from Warner Bros., screened it with the sound off, and played Neely's soundtrack instead. Shortly thereafter, website
Illegal Art
Illegal Art is a sampling record label that was started in 1998. The label gained immediate notoriety from legal threats surrounding ''Deconstructing Beck'', a compilation made exclusively from sampling Beck's music. This was followed by two oth ...
made Neely's work available for free download. In the following year, Neely also performed ''Wizard People'' live in several cities, until Warner Bros. took action against theatres that had rented prints, and forced them to cancel the shows.
Rather than taking legal action, however, Warner Bros. reportedly told theaters which had scheduled a performance of the show that further movies produced by the studio would be withheld unless the dates were cancelled.
[ Carrie McLaren, whose website Illegal-art.net promoted the work, claimed that Neely's use of appropriated plot, characters and themes interlaced with humor constituted a separate work of art in its own right.]
Humor and writing style
In ''Wizard People, Dear Reader'' Neely's writing ranges from simple childish mockery, to criticism of the acting and set design, to awkward metaphors, to over-dramatic philosophical speeches. Harry himself is repeatedly referred to as a god, references are made to the "stockpiles of nuclear-level energy" that are his powers, and so on. At one point, Harry calls himself a "beautiful animal" and a " destroyer of worlds". He also repeatedly affirms that he is "Harry ''fucking'' Potter". Numerous references are made to characters taking out unseen flasks or drinking alcohol, and Harry is mentioned as being "drunk every day before noon."
Hermione ("Harmony") is repeatedly described as incredibly ugly, Snape
Snape may refer to:
Places
* Snape Island, Hudson Bay, Canada
* Snape, North Yorkshire, a village in England
* Snape, Suffolk, a marshland, a village and an arts center in England
People
* Andrew Snape (1675–1742), headmaster of Eton College ...
("Snake") is referred to as a hideous woman, and at one point, Neely simply remarks that " Ron loves Twizzlers." (Ron is almost always referred to as "Ronnie the Bear.") A range of other insults see less consistent use, and Harry is also described with various symptoms of dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (DID), better known as multiple personality disorder or multiple personality syndrome, is a mental disorder characterized by the presence of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states.
The d ...
, at one point "leaving his multiple personalities in the locker room." The use of spells receives similar twists, with Dumbledore ("Near-Dead Dumbledore") casting the "stand without effort" spell due to his advanced age, while Harry casts the "rarely used winter-begone spell" at a scene transition between winter and spring.
The work makes extensive use of simile: Professor McGonagall (" Hardcastle McCormick") is described as having a voice that is "chilling, like a piano made of frozen Windex," while her "eyes float like smears of fish-scales on her candle-wax stump of a head"; the face of Voldemort
Lord Voldemort ( , in the films) is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of ''Harry Potter'' novels. The character first appeared in ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Ston ...
(" Val-Mart") "moves like a marmalade
Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The well-known version is made from bitter orange. It is also made from lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamo ...
baby just out of the womb."
The soundtrack uses heavy descriptions of events, including events the viewer can plainly see: "Blam! Blaam! Blaaam! at the door. The Porktown family scuttles into position, but what busts in the door is far more than expected. It is Hägar the Horrible, the nightmare of hair, a wall of a man."
Neely segues into multiple fantasy sequences that have nothing to do with what is actually going on in the film. One such scene is where Hagrid ("Hägar the Horrible
''Hägar the Horrible'' is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973 and was an immediate success. Since Browne's retirem ...
") is explaining Norbert's egg. Instead of regaling Hagrid's encounter with a strange man in a bar, Hägar tells of how Val-Mart impregnated him with the egg, resulting in his survival of a shark attack. Another such scene is where the trio of young wizards encounter Fluffy for the second time and are about to jump down the trap door. Harmony is allegedly decapitated and resurrected without those events occurring onscreen. One of the most elaborate divergences is the sequence where Neville ("the boy known as Upfish") loses control of his broom. Neely narrates Harry's daydream climbing his parents' giant rotten wedding cake thanks to Dumbledore's body ("using his old ribcage, mouth sockets and such for footholds"). As Harry goes to retrieve a winged key at the finale, Neely narrates that Harry goes into a waking dream-like trance. The entire scene is dominated by a rambling vision of Harry's in which he conquers the American continent with a telescope, teaching the natives spells, "and they in turn teach him how to fly across the continent at ridiculous speeds. He learns to slay deer with laser beams from his eyes, and how to make all things around the house out of buffalo parts".
There are also many references to other works throughout: Professor Flitwick
Flitwick () is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England.
It is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "a hamlet on the River Flitt". The spelling ''Flytwyk'' appears in 1381.
The nearby River Flit runs through Flitwick Moor, a natu ...
is referred to as "Professor Ugnaught" in reference to his similar appearance to the Ugnaughts of Bespin
The fictional universe of the ''Star Wars'' franchise features multiple planets and moons. While only the feature films and selected other works are considered canon to the franchise since the 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm by The Walt Disn ...
in ''The Empire Strikes Back
''The Empire Strikes Back'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back'') is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner from a screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, based on a sto ...
'', while Val-Mart is made Harry's true father à la Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a fictional Character (arts), character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. The character is the central antagonist of the Star Wars original trilogy, original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the main protagonists in the ...
. At one point Harry puts on the invisibility cloak and Neely exclaims "Invisibility ON!", as per the Human Torch
The Human Torch (Jonathan "Johnny" Storm) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is a founding member of the Fantastic Four. He is writer Stan Lee's and artist Jack Kirby's reinvention of a ...
of the Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in '' The Fantastic Four'' #1 ( cover dated Nov. 1961), helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first ...
. Hägar introduces himself as "gatekeeper and keymaster" in reference to ''Ghostbusters
''Ghostbusters'' is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed and produced by Ivan Reitman, and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, ...
''. Neely even refers to future ''Potter'' films when he claims that the children are on their way to the Chamber of Secrets
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry () is a fictional Scottish boarding school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J. K. Rowling's ''Harry Potter'' series and serves as a ma ...
.
Naming
A recurring theme in ''Wizard People'' is the changing of characters' and locations' names.
The CDs
This soundtrack is composed of two audio CDs, which were made available for free download in MP3 format. The CDs must be played simultaneously with a DVD of the first ''Harry Potter'' film, preferably the North American DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
, muted or at low volume.
Two versions of the CD set have been released: the first in summer 2004 and the second in early-mid-2005. As of February 2007, only the second version is available on the Illegal Art website, while the original is available at Brad Neely's website, Creased Comics. The two versions are very similar: differences include "fixing" the weaker lines from the first version, and a more polished and thoroughly-rehearsed performance by Brad.
The first version's CDs can be played completely continuously, and there is no need to alter the discs' timing or volume. In order to play the second version continuously, a delay of approximately three seconds must be inserted between the CDs, and the tracks' volume must be normalized, as the first disc is significantly quieter (approximately 7.7 decibels less) than the second.
Since the CDs are designed to synchronize with the North American release of the film, played at 24 frames per second, the PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
video transfers of the film (used in most of the rest of the world) suffer from a technical incompatibility, meaning that they run at 25 frames per second, so the MP3 files must be sped up by 4.2% (or the movie slowed down) in order to retain synchronization. The Canadian release of the film also uses alternate takes to refer to the titular stone as the Philosopher's Stone (the original name) rather than the Americanized "Sorcerer's Stone", and as such, the audio may get slightly out of sync as the film progresses on the Canadian DVD.
See also
* Parodies of Harry Potter
* Neo-Benshi
References
External links
{{Wikiquote
Full Audio
''Wizard People, Dear Reader'' sample videos
on YouTube
LiveJournal community
Burning a Wizard People, Dear Reader DVD in Linux
Works based on Harry Potter
Literary parodies
Alternative versions of soundtracks
2004 works