Portrait Wall
Next stop after the burrow was the portrait wall. The portraits were actually based on several of the crew members, such as the production director, producer and prop master. Some screens were left green so they could be filled with visual effects - moving posters.
All of the paintings in the movie were hand painted.
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| Here's the guide (its a little blurry). |
The text on the guide says:
(Top left): Barry Wilkinson - Prop Master
(Bottom left): Matt Cooke - Dressing Prop
(Bottom middle): David Heyman - Producer & Stuart Craig - Production Designer
(Bottom right): Greenscreen portraits - Replaced with visual effects
(Top right): David Barron - Producer
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| Right Side - showing two green screen portraits |
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| Middle |
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| The wall |
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| More portraits. The White haired man in the middle top is based on David Barron |
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| The sitting man in top left is based on the Producer and the small one to its right is based on the Production Designer |
Dark Arts
Next stop was the Dark Arts display:
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| Info |
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| Death Eater Masks |
Wand Duel and Black Family Tree
Tucked away in the corner after the Dark Arts was a wand combat area and the Black Family Tree from the movie:
Alana and Cam had a shot at practicing their wand moves:
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| Practicing move number 1 |
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| Showing off move number 3 |
Animal Actors
The next section paid tribute to the animals
used in Harry Potter -
Hedwig the owl was played by four different owls - each trained for a specific trick.
Scabbers the rat was played by more than a dozen rats and an animatronic version.
Fang, Hagrid's dog was played by nine Neapolitan Mastiffs.
Crookshanks, Hermione's cat was played by four Persian cats. To make them look more unkempt, they had extra fur clipped to them with hair-clips.
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| Animal Actors |
Hagrid's Hut
After seeing the various dogs that played Fang, it was off to Hagrid's Hut:
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| Hagrid's Hut |
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| Info 1 |
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| Info 2 |
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| Hagrid and Fang |
Ministry of Magic
The Ministry was based on 19th Century Victorian buildings in London and covered with red and green wooden tiles. The fireplaces were 9 meters tall.
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| Info |
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| Costumes |
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| Part of the fireplaces |
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| Ministry Buildings |
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| Info |
The original glowing prophecy orbs were created as props - over 15,000 in total, before the decision was made to make the whole set digitally instead.
Also included was Dolores Umbridge's Ministry office:
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| Info |
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| Umbridge's Office |
and the Magic is Might Statue
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| Info |
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| Magic is Might |
Quidditch
Next was Quidditch, the kids got to check out the sets and levitate a broomstick:
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| Quiddich Set |
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| Broomsticks |
Forbidden Forest
There was a special exhibit when we visited, the Forbidden Forest - for the next of the movies to come out. It started with a special effects demonstration of Aragog the spider and then we could walk through and see the set and some props.
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| Entrance to the Forbidden Forest |
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| Buckbeak |
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| Cam and Alana with Buckbeak (after bowing) |
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| Aragog - Kind of made me homesick for Australia.. |
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| Us Aussies are used to giant spiders. Tom not giving a single care. |
After Aragog we saw how they made the Patronuses (I checked - while I expected the plural of Patronus to be Patroni, it's used as Patronuses in the book).
A live Scottish Deerhound was loaded with a light up vest and replaced post-production (with, ironically, Harry's deer Patronus). The vest gave the correct movement of light in the set.
I've decided if I even get a Patronus it will be a dog wearing a lit up vest just for ease.
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| Info |
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| My Patronus |
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| Info |
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| Info on Building the Forest |
It was interesting to see how the forest was created - massive canvases were painted as trees created for the foreground.
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| How the trees are made |
Platform 9 & 3/4
Platform 9 & 3/4 was used for the first and last ever shot for the Harry Potter series, with 10 years between them. Most of the scenes were shot in the actual Kings Cross Station, but the scenes in Deathly Hallows 2 were shot at the soundstage at Leavesden.
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| Luggage props |
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| Alana on the way to Hogwarts |
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| Here's the magic shot - Ghost Tom with no legs... |
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| Hogwart's Express |
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| Carriage interiors with greenscreen for filming |
Butter Beer and the Backlot Cafe
There was a brief interlude in the exploring, while we stopped at the Backlot Cafe for some lunch (sausage sandwiches) and to try Butter Beer, which tasted like the old style Creaming Soda (not the raspberry one, the vanilla one) and
butterscotch.
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| Alana tries butterbeer - and yes that's Tomas in the background stealing sauce. |
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| Possibly one of Hagrid's Cousins with butterbeer |
Knight Bus
After the Butterbeer had settled, we headed outside to the backlot. The first sight was the Knight Bus.
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| Knight Bus |
Privet Drive
The original Privet Drive (The Dursley's house) was an actual house in England, but it was soon decided to make a replica for filming so the poor owners could actually have a life. (Well one around the 7 million fans who camp in their front yard for photos).
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| Kids outside Privet Drive |
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| An accurate representation of Alana's bedroom |
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| The way the walls are painted and designed |
Hogwart's Bridge
Potter's Cottage - Godrics's Hollow
Chess Pieces
Outside in the backlot, were a series of the chess pieces used for the Wizarding Chess.
Creatures
Heading back inside again we came to my second favourite area, the creatures workshop. This is where the creature costumes, animatronics and digital models were displayed. It was interesting to see that they actually had a replica giant head for Hagrid for the scenes where they couldnt use perspective differences between him and the other actors to make him seem giant.
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| Inferi (the undead that Dumbledore burns in the cave) |
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| Bathilda Bagshot |
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| Goblin Heads - This was the scene of a mass murder where many goblins were beheaded and their heads kept as grisly trophies... |
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| Oh the carnage |
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| Fawkes - his plumage is real feathers individually hand painted |
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| Books |
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| Robotic Hagrid Head |
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| Thestrel and Hungarian Horntail |
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| Poor dead Dobby - while he was mostly digital, some models were made for reference |
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| Basilisk Head |
Film Effects
This section showed off the green screen and mechanical effects used in the movies.
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| Info |
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| Moving base for the Gringotts Cart - the rest was digitally added |
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| Hagrid's Motorbikes |
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| Whomping Willow |
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| How the pudding scene was done |
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| Broomstick flying rig |
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| Hogwart's Door |
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| Gringott's Vault Door |
Diagon Alley
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| Diagon Alley - which bears a marked resemblance to the Shambles |
Drawings and Models
The next section was blueprints, concept art and paper scale models - very cool.
Hogwart's Model
They saved the best for last:
The 1:24 scale model was created to plan shots, build sets and to use for actual filming. It was built for the first movie by 86 artists from a concept drawing. It was inspired by Alnwick castle and Durnham Cathedral with the landscape based on Glen Nevis, Loch Shiel and Glen Coe. More than 300 fibre optic lights were installed and could be controlled to appear as students walking through the halls.
The Wand Shop
Just before entering the actual enormous gift shop, there was a replica of Olivander's Wand Shop, but each of the wand boxes was hand created and marked with the name of a cast or crew member:
After spending way too much in the shop, it was off to Stansted airport and our flight back to Sweden. We got back in just before midnight. It was a tiring trip, but lots of fun.
Total traveled today 64mi or 103km.
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| Our final drive |
Total driven overall 2610km approx, or 1622mi.
