Reflections on harry potter studio trip

Charlie Derham
Sep 24, 2018
3 min read

Looking back on the harry potter trip I believe I have first handedly experienced specialist ways of filming on a set designed in such a way that it looks real life.

event time table, so we arrived at the studios about 1 pm and started our tour at about half past, we immediately were greeted with some of the first scenes which was the stairs where which harry potter slept under and the attention to detail was spot on! We then proceeded to walk into a screening room where there was eight vertically mounted screens playing a mixture of photos and videos, i found it interesting how they mounted the screens vertically however, as this format is rarely used.

After a talk in this room about rules and what we would be seeing in the following room, which was a massive cinema screen with impressive 360 degree audio which i could tell was present because of my hearing aid, which dramatically improves my awareness during these instances.

At the end of this short 5 min film was the opening of the projector screen and the massive 10ft doors leading you into the main hall in the harry potter movies in this set there was still mounting points for rails, which are for cameras in the ceiling which was mainly scaffolding and lighting for decorative purposes, then ahead was a demonstration of how some of the props were used which was a mixture of camera tricks as well as post production special effects.

I was then told i could do some exploring of the studio by my self so my friend and i went around looking at individual sets props and other interesting attractions. We saw all sorts of sets including details on how props were made how the movie was filmed and where it was filmed (mostly on green screens).

However my favourite part of the trip was when my friend and I both put on the harry potter cloak's on and went on a green screen broom stick action scene, we both throughly enjoyed the experience and was worth the 25 quid i put towards the photos and video (well maybe)!

After that extravaganza my friend and i realised that we only had 20 minuets left to explore half of the studio! So wiped round the rest of the studio catching harry potters original house which is located outside and actually properly built out of bricks carefully painted so that the house already looked as if it was 10 years old already even though it was finished a week before they shot the scene! From here we took the route through the animating studios where we say the process of how Dobby was created and animated using several cameras and tracking lazars and censors, after this we were walking through the models of the scenes created from plaster scene and other building materials, I was walking up this slow ramp like there was a kind of build up to something amazing around the corner, there was, is was a replica of the harry potter castle where they shot some cinematic scenes (b roll) cut scenes. It looked amazing and lifelike with the blue LED'S. That was a wrap, i made my friend cry however by blindfolding her before we entered the room (she is a big harry potter fan herself) so i really did her dirty ;) !

pictures are below.