Making Magic

Greetings Blogging World!

One of my lifelong goals has been fulfilled. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. Or maybe I'm not. What am i so excited about you ask? Well I got to hear the words every child of the nineties yearns to hear...

"Welcome to Hogwarts."

Scaled-Down Model of the Entire Hogwarts Castle - Used for filming aerial views

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I visited THE Warner Brothers Studios where all eight of the Harry Potter films were shot, and I was in heaven. Actually being in the same places that the cast once stood was an amazing experience for me. Especially considering the first part of the "tour" was walking through the doors to the Great Hall, one of the sets that is still in full existence. Watching the movies, you never realize just how much detail was put into each set - ESPECIALLY the Great Hall. The floor was real stone, not laminate or a temporary installation, the long tables had graffiti-esque carvings like you'd see in a real school hall, and most interesting, there was no ceiling on set. I'd never really thought about it while watching the films, but the amount of CGI involved in the Great Hall is astounding!

The Great Hall, Sans Ceiling

Anyway, the entire facility was coated, top to bottom, with various parts of sets, props, and costumes that the actors themselves used. Special effects tricks were revealed (you'd never look at Quidditch the same again) and partial sets were put up throughout the entire tour (remember the fireplaces at the Ministry of Magic? Yeah, those things are incredible).  My little Muggle eyes were ecstatic to see the real invisibility cloak, Dumbledore's Office, Diagon Alley, and even the animatronic form of Dobby! It took a lot of self-control not to nick him out of his spot and take him home.

(I was later told I should have smashed the case, given him a sock, and asked him to teleport you both out...if only I'd thought of that then)

Needless to say, I absolutely LOVED the trip to Warner Brothers Studios. Being such a Potter fan basically guaranteed that I'd have a spectacular time. But I was also thoroughly taken by a small portion of the tour at the end. Some of the last few exhibits before the final Hogwarts Castle featured the painstakingly tedious work of the set and prop designers. There were exquisite paper models of each major building, interior, or scene and breathtaking hand-draftings of the same. Excuse me, but I think I may have experienced a designgasm. 

Excuse me for being a total dork.

The Dream Studio

Having worked on plenty a bristol-board model myself, I can't even imagine how many long nights were spent, paper cuts were suffered through, and expletives were said during the process of cutting, gluing, and shaping the miniature sets. Don't get me wrong, model-making is one of my absolute favorite parts of the design process. But what gets me even more is something one of my friends read while on the tour. Apparently, if you combined the total manpower put into the large Hogwarts model into one theoretical person, it would have taken 72 years to complete. Let's just let that sink in for a moment...

...yeah, that's incredible. 

And that's just part of the work that came before the movies could even begin to be realized. After experiencing this tour, you really might think that there's no way the films could have been completed without a bit of magic!

Some of my favorites from the technical department:

Scaled-Down Model of Hogsmeade: One of my favorites.

Technical Drawings

Close-Up of the Hogwarts Courtyard

& Last but certainly not least, Hagrid's Hut

U.K. English Word of the Week: "Nick" meaning to steal something