Earlier in the year I took my family
to the Warner Bros Studio in Leavesdon, London for the Harry Potter Tour. For anybody who is interested in film-making,
set and costume design, animatronics, prop making, CGI, or special effects this
is the place to come.
The characters of Harry Potter look
down on you in the entrance and The Weasley’s old Ford Anglia hangs
precariously above you.
At the allotted time we were ushered
into a queue and got our first glimpse of The Cupboard Under the Stairs before
being escorted into a small cinema to watch a short film on the Making of Harry
Potter. The next part of the tour was a
bit of a surprise so I won’t mention it here but we eventually found ourselves
outside the main doors of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. If I hadn't known better the set looked very realistic
such was the attention to detail.
As the doors slowly opened we found
ourselves in the Great Hall. It was
smaller than I had expected but it makes you appreciate the power of film and the
extraordinary skills of the cinematographers.
For the rest of the tour we were
allowed to wander around freely to explore the behind scenes of the making of
Harry Potter.
These are just a few of the many
images we took on the day.
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| The Weasley's old Ford Anglia |
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| The Cupboard Under The Stairs |
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| Some Muggles outside the doors of the Great Hall |
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| One of the long trellis tables in the Great Hall |
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| Costume design for Harry Potter |
The fireplace in the Great Hall
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| Hagrid's costume worn by Robbie Coltrane |
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| Wig making |
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| The set of no 4, Privet Drive |
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| Hogwarts Night Bus |
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| Headless Nick aka John Cleese |
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| Animatronics Dept |
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| One of the many drawings of the sets on display |
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| One of the set models |
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| Model of a set. Notice the intricate modelling of the stairs. |
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This is a hand sculpted 1:24 scale construction model of Hogwarts castle.
It sits at nearly 50 feet in diameter.It took 86 artists and crew members to construct the first version
which was then rebuilt and altered many times over the next seven films.
The man hours added together in the constuction and reworking came
to 74 years. |
