Weekend
- Watford wizarding
- Warwick Castling
Harry Potter World
Leavesdon Studios Watford
But first
The Premier Inn chain is a cheap, clean, ubiquitous hotel group that we have used for a number of our stops. They offer a "good night" guarantee which is rather subjective I suppose but means that if you aren't happy they will give you your money back. We arrived in Watford late afternoon to a lovely day, about 15 degrees and gentle breeze. Our room was obviously in a parallel dimension directly in the centre of the volcanic bubbling magma Pits of Mordor where Frodo had to throw "the ring" into. Even with the pedestal fan that was in the room, we were like jockeys in a sauna trying to get our weight down for the pre-race weigh in. Still, it was clean, breakfast was yummy, the staff were very nice and we got a full refund.
Harry Potter
We had been doing some Harry Potter study for the last few weeks. Zoe had read books 5, 6 and 7 again, then book 7 again again just to be sure. Drew was further behind so we relented and they got to watch the last 4 movies over the two weeks leading up to Harry Potter World (HPW).
Watching number 7, Drew was very very upset when Dobby the elf takes one for the team, but much less affected by the death of Dumbledore.
For this upcoming adventure, Zoe, Drew and I spend hours chatting about Grindelwald the previous dark wizard and his relationship to Gregoravich and the Percival brothers pact with death himself. Ree pretty much tags on the with nerdy rest of the family but isnt really into it - doesn't know anything about the tri-wizard cup, not really interested in what Bill Weasley has been doing in Romania nor of the intricacies of the Diagon Alley retailers. Sheesh.
HPW is more formally known as Warner Brothers - The Making of Harry Potter, and thats exactly what it is. Its all about the stuff that happens in the Academy awards that nobody really cares about. Best set decoration, best animated design etc.
Its a concept that has had me wondering recently. Occurred to me at the end of the two theatre experiences we recently had. Play ends, actors take a bow, quick clap for the orchestra then everyone goes nuts for the main character. The boy who played Charlie was good, but no better than the girl who played Verruca. Mathilda was good, but no better than the boy who played Bruce. None of them could have been anything withtout a super set, costumes from within which to express and emanate their character or the words or the playwright etc etc. So why is it the actor that takes the big kudos?
At least in Mathilda the band all came on stage at the end to take a proper bow. Maybe thats a TIm Minchin thing?
I was thinking that this is the same concept as why Schumaker gets the credit while the Pits guys are unknown but I dont think thats quite right. Maybe thats too individual an example - he drives against others not with others. Acting is a bit more team like - so maybe the sports anaology should be more like a time trial pursuit.
Not sure where this is going but it doesnt seem quite right that the heroes - who all step on the shoulders of many giants, seem so inequitably externally rewarded. ......needs more thought.
Back to HPW.
It's really well done from the moment you drive toward the carpark there are multiple happy smiling attendants (UK Disney?) directing you where to park and where to go next. You cant just rock up. Bookings are quite a bit in advance and for very speific times. This is how they control the line size and maintain the ability of everyone iinside to see without too much jostling.
There are a lot of people - we were in the first group on a Sunday morning and as you can see we were by no means alone but the system works. Lines moved very quickly and you never felt overcrowded or rushed.
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| A few other people also came along |
The loacation is actually Leavesden studios - where much of the movies were filmed (or as tehy say in Ireland fi-lumm-ed). All the sets are the originals so there is no touchy touchy.
FIrst thing you see is the Bedroom under the stairs - the name of the first chapter of the first book. Nostalgia for Potter nerds begins early.
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| The cupboard under the stairs - sends shivers down a nerds spine |
After a bit of a hooray for Harry talk, you enter a cinema and watch a little show which ends with the screen showing a picture of the doors to the Hogwarts Great Hall. The screen rolls up to show, behind it, the real doors to the Great Hall......ooooooh
Still, it was very cool walking in and feeling like a kid at Hogwarts. It's all very real.
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| Entering The Great Hall |
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| The Great Hall |
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| We have that exact cutlery - wedding present (now 12.6 years ago) from relative in LA |
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| Every piece is detailed to the nth degree. A theme that continued through the tour. |
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| Zozo the Ravenclaw (according to multiple sorting hat websites) |
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| Snape, Snape, Severus Snape |
Next you leave the great hall and enter one of the two large sound stages. the tour consists of huge soundstage 1, then outside area then huge soundstage 2. Soundstage one was mostly sets, costumes and a bit about greenscreen. THe second was more the art direction and animatronics.
Comment from the writer who was brought in to adapt the HP books into movies.
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| The wig of Bellatrix Le Strange |
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| Harry's bed |
The common room was very cool. a video of the head designer expalianing what they wanted and how they wanted it to look lived in was really interesting. They (read the intern) spent many days rubbing the couch material to make it look weathered and ancient.
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| The Gryffindor common room |
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| Dumbledore's office |
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| Door to the Chamber of Secrets |
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| Door at Gringots - took a specialized designer months to make. It really works. |
Video of a video showing a few tricks of greenscreen technology.
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| Wizard cereal packet. The writing on the side shows the nutrients etc. No detail too small. |
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| Printed on real newspaper. All the stories are written for real and proof read. |
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| Awwwww - nostalgia. Each envelope was handwritten. |
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| Dumbledore's book later bequeathed to Hermione |
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| FLu entry (via the toilet flush mechanism) into the Ministry of Magic |
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| Scultped artwork within the Ministry of Magic |
That ends soundstage 1. Outside now - lovely day by the way. Only greay skies in London, but Watford, for this day at least, was "sunny Watford".
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| In the flying (not at the moment) car |
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| Knock knock knockin on Dursley's door |
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| Butterbeer ROCKS |
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| Butterbeer moustakkas |
Soundstage 2 began with the character creators. From concept to finished product. Fawkes the Phoenix looked no less real than any bid we had seen in the Natural History Museum a few days before.
The Goblins were also cool. Each one had been given a personality and backstory prior to them doint the masks and body features. The major theme running through the entire tour was the degree of obsession behind EVERYthing in the movies - for example, every wand box in the wand shop had a handwritten label on the outside.
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| Fawkes the Phoenix |
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| Goblin hands |
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| Goblin faces - each goblin was given its own personality and backstory prior to the mask being created |
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| Ree in the morning? |
The animatronics department are also tres cool. They built a fully working HippoGriff (horse / eagle thing) and also the head of Hagrid below. Hagrid is a half giant. Robbie Coltrane who plays him is not a half giant. For any wide shots they used an ex UK rugby player who is very tall and big. To make him look like Hagrid, he had to put on the head in the picture below. It is completely mechanical, so the mouth moves in the right way, facial muscles move etc. So next time you watch the movies and see Hagrid as being large, you now know you are watching a machine face.
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| Animatronic head of Hagrid |
We all loved being in Diagon Alley - again made us feel like we were a part of the wizard world.
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| Diagon Alley |
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| Outisde Olivander's wand shop |
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| Obviously the sign was made more than 382 years after the store openned |
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| At the Weasley twins lolly shop |
Set design
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise but the level of complexity and detail in the set design was mind blowing. Not sure where to start.
They had a room of the architectural drawings of the buildings for the movies. Full architectural plans.
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| Architectural drawings for the upper floor of one of the Hogwarts towers |
Again, maybe I should know this but the thought of concept artists hadn't really entered my way of thinking. Essentially, these people read the book, get a mental picture and then draw that picture. Once the creative team is happy with the image concept, then the concept is taken to the next step of modeling.
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| Whomping willow concept drawing |
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| Final movie version |
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| Watch the last movie and compare this concept with the movie |
No need to write the next bit, it was on a poster that I took a picture of. White card models.
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| White card Hogwarts - exactly to scale |
The level of detail is as real as the final production model but built to a smaller scale. They must have had teams of creatives making tiny exact models of EVERY structure you see in the movie. Incredible. For example in the picture below, each tap was made carefully and at the exact angles according to the structural drawings. Same for the Hogwarts model above - down to the teeny lil indentations on the rocks or window decorations.
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| White card taps from the The Goblet of Fire |
AS you end th tour you enter a large room with a large scale reconstruction of Hogwarts. Its mind blowing. They used the model to plan camera shots, work out perspective and for movie wide shots or fly throughs (see the green screen video a bit higher up to see what I mean). The model IS Hogwarts in that sense. The lights are real and operate in the same way they would in a real Hogwarts - you can seem some of them flicker on at night (the room goes through multiple daily cycles of day /night with the castle lights changing as the light changes).
Finally you reach the last room which is a wand room. EVERY person who worked on the film has their own wand box; a testimony to the massive scope required to make a big budget motion picture. No box is any bigger or more jeweled than any other box. Ahhhh.
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| The wand shop tribute at tours end |
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| Just another contributor to the final product no matter who you are |
Finally the quite expensive but nerdily cool gift shop. I am told I wouldn't use full dress house robes, nor require a Hallows key chain or official Gryffyndor scarf - probably true. We browsed, bought a few lil must haves such as official house luggage tags and some Ravenclaw gloves for Zoe, then much to Ree's horror, talked Harry Potter for the long drive to Warwick (made longer by missing the turn off and having to drive almost 30 mins to the next one to do a U-turn). For us it was valuable time to discuss the significance and relative merits of each of the hallows, as well as the genius of J.K. Rowling who wrote the first book already knowing what was going to happen many books later.
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| Getting sorted |
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| My favourite was...... |
Enough
Next.......Warwick Castle
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