Quidditch Comes to the Big Screen in The Internship
Brace yourselves; the sport of quidditch is coming to the big screen. Movie stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson will be running around with broomsticks between their legs in the 20th Century Fox movie, The Internship, which premieres Friday June 7.
Photo Courtesy of Dylan-Obrien.org and Regency Enterprises
Although the sport will look familiar to current quidditch players the rules in the movie are not quite the same. Co-President of University of California Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA) Quidditch Brennan Ross who was involved with the sound effects in the quidditch scenes explained, “Fair warning to all people who love quidditch they have some pretty egregious rule breakings. They definitely didn't look at the handbook when they were setting it up. They tried to make it easier for audiences who don't play quidditch, who don't understand it.” Ross added, “Overall of any Hollywood representation of quidditch this is probably the furthest quidditch has gotten.”
Ross became involved with "The Internship" after a sound editor for the movie emailed the UCLA team about a film project. Although Ross was initially unsure about working on this mystery movie, he eventually agreed to meet with the editor, and later learned that he was working on "The Internship," which he had not heard of at the time. At their meeting, the editor, who Ross elected not to name, asked Ross for sounds that would make the sport's scenes seem realistic. “I gave them proper terminology like ‘brooms up.' I gave them the phrase the ‘snitch is loose'...I gave him proper things that quidditch players would actually say while they're playing,” Ross said.
Although “The Internship” portrays quidditch matches at Google's headquarters, in Mountain View, CA, Sam Fischgrund, a current Google employee, who also founded the Silicon Valley Skrewts (Mountain View, CA) noted that the sport has not yet reached prominence on the company's campus. “Unfortunately, quidditch is not established (yet) at Google, like The Internship would have you believe. There's a quidditch group mailing list, but supposedly the group only played one game over a year ago (before I joined), and no one knew the rules, so it didn't go well,” Fischgrund wrote in an email.
However, Fischgrund is hopeful that the sport will soon catch on at Google. “I'm working with the Google Fitness people to set up some quidditch games, so hopefully there will be more quidditch soon.... I know a lot of my other coworkers would be interested in playing. I'm also hoping The Internship will increase interest in the sport here.” If games do start at Google, Fischgrund would not be the only experienced player; several other Skrewts also work at the company.
