England

Warner Brothers Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter

A Byrd

— 8 min read
Warner Brothers Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter
The Hogwarts Express!

We've just had a wonderful four days in London! Now for a flurry of blog activity as we try to catch up before we head to Ireland for ten days...

On Monday, we left the home of our friends near Cambridge and headed to Leavesden (northwest London) for a tour of the film studios where the Harry Potter movies were made. Despite booking back in July, the earliest timeslot we could get was 2:30pm, so this is definitely an activity that needs to be booked in advance!

It feels a bit daunting to blog about this fantastic experience given how many photos we took, how much we learnt and how much we loved it! Due to our limited time for blogging and the current late hour, I'll try my best to be brief... but, for the record, this day was an absolute highlight of the trip so far for all of us!

The studios consisted of several enormous soundstages filled with sets, props and costumes from the movies, plus a backlot with outdoor sets. There were informative signs and videos along the way, plus we rented guides with extra video and audio content (narrated by Evanna Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood). A lot of the information was about the various roles involved in making the films (from set design to costuming to animal actors to special effects), which was fascinating. There were also several gift shops and two cafes.

This is a map of the site. Each "room" was the size of a huge shed (e.g. Platform 9 3/4 housed a steam locomotive and carriage).
The Hub.

All up, we spent 5.5 hours there... and would definitely have spent longer if we'd been able to book an earlier timeslot, as we were quite rushed at the end! (We were literally the last people there, and were followed around by the staff for the last half an hour as they closed up each area once we'd gone through it!)

After an introductory video, our tour began in the Great Hall. It was awe-inspiring to walk through the doors and see the tables laden with food (some fake, some real but lacquered) and the pumpkins floating up and down!

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Dame Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall, died just three days before our visit.

We then moved into a huge soundstage where we saw many more familiar sets, props and costumes...

The soundstage, with various sets and displays visible.
Costumes and props from the Yule Ball.
A forced perspective corridor at The Leaky Cauldron (it was only a few metres long).
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The Gryffindor boys' dormitory.
The Gryffindor Common Room — apparently a favourite set for Daniel, Rupert and Emma.
The potions classroom was a spectacular set, filled with hundreds of bottles the prop department had filled and hand-labelled.
Dumbledore's office was fabulous too. The books on his shelves were made from covered British telephone books!
Memory vials in Dumbledore's Memory Cabinet.
The special effects section was super interesting. It was amazing how many on-screen happenings were real, physical effects rather than digitally added later!
One example is this door. The snakes really do slide on tracks!
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Here are some more examples in the Weasley family home, The Burrow!

The animal actors who played Hedwig, Mrs Norris, Crookshanks and Fang.
Hagrid's Hut.
Professor Trelawney's Divination Classroom.
The Grim!
Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes (left) and Ministry of Magic fireplaces.
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They have a Dark Arts special feature on at the moment, so every half hour these sinister Death Eaters would come through and we'd all have to stand aside for them...

... but they were surprisingly obliging about posing for selfies!
A statue from the Ministry of Magic.

After we left that soundstage, we passed through the Forbidden Forest...

This animatronic Buckbeak regularly raised and lowered his head.

... and then onto Platform 9 3/4!

We got to go aboard the Hogwarts Express...
... and peer into some compartments. "Anything from the trolley, dears?"

This display shows some of the work done by graphic design duo MinaLima for the Harry Potter films...

They got to design everything from Harry's Hogwarts letter to the Daily Prophet to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes products!

After a break in the Backlot Cafe for some Butterbeer, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and pulled pork loaded fries...

... we saw some more sets in the Backlot.

The Knight Bus had unfortunately closed for the day...
... but Professor Sprout's Greenhouse was a highlight!

Then we learnt about the process of making silicone masks for the goblins etc...

... and visited Gringott's, which was extremely awesome...

This is another door on which the intricate metal mechanisms really worked!
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The destroyed Gringott's set.
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... and Diagon Alley (we were really being rushed along by now; I would've loved way more time here!)...

Staff members blocking the way back as it was almost closing time!

... and, finally, this magnificent massive model of Hogwarts, which was used for wide/overhead shots of the castle!

Then we sped through the gift shop (during which J dropped his earlier purchase of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, but a staff member kindly replaced them), and that was that! We emerged at 8pm and set off to find our AirBnb.

Well, I don't think I've succeeded in being very brief, and it's now past 1am, but I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into The Making of Harry Potter! We would class the Warner Brothers Studio Tour as a must-do for any Harry Potter fan heading to London — it was incredible!

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