HARRY POTTER! Warner Brothers Studio Tour

Aug 25, 2016
3 min read

I am not the best person to be writing this blog. Kat and Ellie are the biggest Harry Potter fans--particularly Kat, who is a Harry Potter historian and can tell you anything about Harry Potter. But I'm also a fan, and it's left to me as the girls are deeply engaged in their school work this week. I am a big fan but have not watched the movies or read the books multiple times (as has Kat) so I may get some of the names or events wrong. Please forgive me. Additionally, please forgive the photos. We used only our cell phones on this trip. The lighting in most of the rooms was darkened and I have edited the photos to make them as clear as possible. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you will enjoy this. In fact, the whole tour was very emotional because we were immersed in all of the Harry Potter scenes and sets and it was amazing to see the amount of work that went into these productions. The tour was prefaced by some narrative from J.K. Rowling that was very moving. We saw some preliminary films, while waiting in queue, from the directors and producers of the films who described how enchanted they were by the books and how much they tried to honor the books when going through film production. So, here are some of my impressions.

We arrived at the studio! While waiting in line to enter the tour, we got to see the "room under the stairs."

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Before entering the actual sound stages and sets, we watched a short film by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint (Harry, Hermoine, and Ron). They're all grown up now, but they explained that they were 10, 11, and 12 when they began filming these movies and how the Warner Brothers Studio in London would become their home for the next 10 years. They were quite touching, explaining how much the entire crew was a "family" and what good friends they all were, showing a number of film clips of them interacting with all kinds of crew members during the making of the films. At the conclusion of their preface, the screen was raised and we were in front of the doors to Hogwarts School. After some instruction from our guide, we entered the Great Hall. The photos that follow are from the Great Hall. Included are photos from the Yule Ball in the Great Hall. Fans will recognize these. (In moving pictures from the archive to this gallery, there are some truncations--apologies.)

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As we walked around the sets and the sound stages, we saw so many amazing things. These are some of the rooms used in the films. I tried to label them for you, but the program cuts the labels off. So, below you see the Gryfendor Boy's Dorm, a prop cage, Malfoy Manor, the Portrait Hall, the Weasley's Kitchen, Dolores Umbridge's Office, Hagrid's Hut, the Potions Classroom, and Dumbledore's Office.

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Some images of Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic, and Gringott's.

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Then there was the back lot where we saw the Knight Bus, Harry Potter's ruined house, and some of the moving chess men. We also enjoyed a Butter Beer. They had Butter Beer drinks and Butter Beer ice cream. We tried both. Strange taste.

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The rest of the pictures I'll just let you enjoy. It's hard to try to explain them all. I'm sure you'll recognize them from the films. They are in no particular order. I just want to say that the model of Buck Beak was a moving model that was very cool. The final pictures below came from the last room in the tour. It was a huge scale model of the complete Hogwart's Castle. It was lit on one side as daylight and on the other side as night with lights on inside the buildings. It was difficult to get pictures good enough to show what an impressive structure this was. After that, we just sat on the curb and waited for our bus home! What a great day!