It’s July tomorrow, which means the last phase of Warner Bros.’ year-and-a-half long advertising plan for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince goes into effect.  That means lots of talk show appearances, preview screenings, and other scheduled events Potter-philes might want to write down.

For example: soon, HBO will start airing a 13-minute Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince “First Look” featurette.  Since it’s 13 minutes and used to pad time after movies, the scheduling is a bit all over the map.  Here are the first few days and times:

Fri 7/3 09:45 PM HBO - EAST
Sat 7/4 12:45 AM HBO - WEST
Sat 7/4 12:00 PM HBO - EAST
Sat 7/4 03:00 PM HBO - WEST
Sat 7/4 06:40 PM HBO FAMILY - EAST
Sat 7/4 09:40 PM HBO FAMILY - WEST
Sun 7/5 05:45 AM HBO FAMILY - EAST
Sun 7/5 08:45 AM HBO FAMILY - WEST

Head to HBO’s website for a full schedule.

Also coming up: Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are doing the Late Show with David Letterman.  Emma will appear July 7th (Tuesday), and Dan will appear July 8th (Wednesday).

The L.A. Times‘ “Hero Complex” blog just started running a series of daily interviews with the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince cast and crew.  First up was Steve Kloves, screenwriter of every Potter movie except Order of the Phoenix.

In terms of insights about the new movie, he shares this:

What, if anything, can you say about the climactic moment between Snape and Dumbledore? In the book, it’s a short but intense scene.

It is informed by everything [Potter readers] have come to know is true. So if you watch the film carefully, there are performance moments that are quite extraordinary, Alan Rickman [who plays Snape] especially. There is something we added that you can look forward to, a short scene between Harry and Snape prior to the big event. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays to the audience. It should be a haunting moment for Harry. While I was writing, I just had a notion about a moment between him and Snape, something Harry could look back on and question as to why he didn’t act differently.

He also explains why he didn’t write Phoenix, and man, does it sound like he regrets it:

Why didn’t you decide to adapt “Order of the Phoenix”?

You know, I don’t even know why. The fourth film, “Goblet of Fire,” was really hard to do. I wrote on it for two years. But it’s not that simple and I don’t know that I’ll ever fully understand why I didn’t do it. This will sound glib, but it’s somewhat true: They asked me on the wrong day. They asked me for the last time on the wrong day. Had they asked me the next day, I probably would have said yes. There’s always stuff that goes on around these movies and I felt an urge — and I still feel an urge — to do other things. To go back to making movies nobody wants to see, and I’ll do so. But I think I was feeling that urge particularly keenly at that time. I always said too that if the kids left, I would leave too. And there was some talk about Emma Watson [who plays Hermione] leaving and that would have been hard for me if Emma had left because I like writing for the three kids.

For more, read the full interview.

It’s another week, which means it’s time to post even more posters.  Of the five new ones, two of them feature the Ron/Lavender/Hermione love triangle.  Let’s hope the entire movie isn’t just Hermione being mad at Ron; I was more looking forward to the Harry/Ginny thing.

Oh, and Luna.  I really can’t get enough of Luna.  Evanna Lynch was probably the best part of Order of the Phoenix.

Warner Bros. released four extra behind-the-scenes photos this week, plus a random close up of Hermione.

What’s that, you say?  After six trailers, fourteen posters, and a couple of video featurettes, you’re not impressed with behind-the-scenes photos?  Me neither.  Just don’t tell Warner Bros.  It’s exactly a month until Half-Blood Prince comes out, and they’re obviously desperately trying to give us a steady string of material to talk about.

Click on each photo for a bigger look.

The YouTube user “BexyBat” has been uploading some shaky spy videos of the crew filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Shell Cottage (Bill and Fleur’s place).  They’re mostly just really faraway shots of the cast standing around, but they actually film a take in the video below.

Best as I can tell, they’re filming the scene (spoiler alert!) in which the gang shows up near the cottage after Dobby apparates them out of the Malfoy’s dungeon.  Of course, since you can’t really apparate on camera, when the scene starts, they all just sort of…fall down.

Harry lands with Griphook first, then a short distance away, Ron and Hermione.  Harry stumbles over to see if Hermione’s okay, then runs toward the camera, where a stand-in for Dobby stumbles around, fatally wounded.

At least, that’s what I think is going on.  Let me know if I’ve got it wrong.

You know who I don’t see in this or any of the photos from Shell Cottage?  Dean Thomas.  Poor guy has a big part in Deathly Hallows, and it seems like they’ve written him out.  Totally lame.