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Documentaries Reflect on Last Season

by Jen Janiak | August 9, 2013

Images from “Forgetting Fiction: The Story of NYU Quidditch” and “Mudbloods: The Movie”

Amanda Dallas of NYU Nundus (New York, New York) created “Forgetting Fiction: The Story of NYU Quidditch” for her senior honor thesis as a broadcast journalism major. The 25-minute film covers the team’s journey to World Cup VI as a group many thought would not make it to Kissimmee.

“In choosing this topic before the team qualified for the World Cup, I took a huge risk,” Dallas said. “If the team didn’t qualify for the World Cup, the documentary would not have happened. But, as a captain, I knew my players and I knew what they were capable of, so I put my faith as a filmmaker in them as well. Fortunately, it paid off.”

The documentary shows the team’s journey through the eyes of three of Nundu’s captains, Bryan Hall, Ryan Blewett, and Dallas herself. Originally, Dallas did not want to be one of three main voices, but found that by using Nundu’s three vice presidents during its time as a team (who serve as a captain and head of the tournament team) she was best able to incorporate the team’s history.

“Stepping back from our roles as executive board members, we also had three very strong personalities,” Dallas said. “Hall is the heart of the team and the security blanket. He is optimistic and always has a kind word to say. Blewett is the epitome of competition and often comes across as harsh. He’s blunt, never hesitating to say, ‘We won’t win this match’ minutes before we’d go on the pitch. I was the happy medium between the two; like Blewett, I was in it for the competition and knew when we weren’t going to win, but, like Hall, I had a soft spot for the team and would stay outwardly optimistic. We complimented each other.”

Dallas created the film with the help of a minimal crew, per her assignment’s requirements. She also said that she chose to focus on three individuals rather than short interviews from more teammates so that the audience could “build an emotional connection.”

“It’s hard for a viewer to latch on to 21 different personalities in 26 minutes,” Dallas said. “But when you’re following three individuals, you get to know their thoughts and their emotions. You connect with them. They pull on your heartstrings.”

“Get Your Brooms Up” is another documentary covering a team’s journey to World Cup VI, this time covering the tournament’s champions, the University of Texas Austin (Austin, TX). Lori Lopez, a senior film student at UT, had a crew of other students with a film or journalism background to help document the team’s season and history. “Texas winning [the] World Cup has definitely become a large topic in the film, but I mostly wanted to focus on how they got to that point: the training, recruiting, time commitments, and the many sacrifices the players have had to make,” Lopez said. “We’ll mostly be focusing on the history of Texas Quidditch, how the organization is run at UT Austin, and an in-depth look at the two traveling teams (Texas Quidditch and Austin Quidditch).”

Lopez said her curiosity about the team and its recent, rapid growth inspired her to create the film, which she plans to release next month. “What I love about Texas Quidditch and the quidditch community as a whole is the passion and dedication people have for it,” Lopez said. “I wanted to portray that and make it a theme in this documentary.”

While the film will be available online shortly, the documentary already has a trailer on its .

Mudbloods – The Movie is a third documentary with a similar theme; one that followed World Cup runner-up UCLA. The film was screened for the UCLA team earlier this summer, but is still in production. Filmmakers could not be reached prior to publishing.