The Model Of Hogwarts Castle
Sometimes you forget it's a model
Turns out I was only looking at a model of the model though. The reason we had been slowly rising became apparent as we entered the next room, coming out onto the second floor. There, spread over at least 15 square meters was the most complex, elaborate, and bewildering model I have ever seen. I think jaw landed somewhere on the lower floor, and even though I was with my daughter I could help but let out an expletive in the style of Robin from the ’60s TV Batman show. The thing is monumental, built to a 1:24 scale and it has a bigger footprint than my house. Every brick, tree, boulder and bush is either a real piece of rock or shrubbery, or has been lovingly hand sculpted and painted by the team of 86 artists over the course of 8 years, all based on the original concept art produced by Stuart Craig and his team. It was built for the first film and has been used in every one since. Most of the times you see the castle on screen, it’s this model. Parts of it were deliberately made to look like the locations used for some of exterior filming, such as Alnwick Castle and Durham Cathedral. Other parts of it were never seen directly on film, such as the boathouse which looks very different when it finally makes its appearance at the end of the saga. Around the edges of the walkway there are several interactive touch screens offering facts about the model’s construction and close up photos of parts of it. The whole thing is so incredible that I had to walk around it several times just to take it all in.
Some of the 3,000 wand boxes
The last part of the tour is a fitting tribute to the crew and cast of the most popular film franchise of all time. A, much tidier recreation of the interior of Ollivander’s Wand shop, with over 3,000 wand boxes lining its shelves – one for every single person who worked on the films. Visual Effects Supervisor John Moffat is right next to Daniel Radcliffe, Transportation Driver Adalberto Da Silva is just above Gary Oldman. I know a couple of people who worked on the films at various stages, but unfortunately I couldn’t find their boxes – there were just too many! It’s a great way to finish off an incredible ode to the amazing creativity of the UK film industry.
Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans
Of course, that’s not the end though. You have to exit through the gift shop, and a very well stocked shop it is too. Prices are comparable to those in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida – that is to say, expensive! Replicas of the main characters’ wands are £25, official wizard robes are £75 (for something you can get on Amazon
The Making of Harry Potter makes a wonderful day out for any fan of the books and films, and indeed, any fan of the movie-making process in general. Warner Brothers says the tour should take about three hours to wander around – we were there for four and a half and I could have stayed much, much longer, there was just so much to see. As soon as we got home, we had to dig out the box set
Here’s the slideshow of my photos from Flickr and I also took some panoramnic photos of the dortmitory, common room, Umbridge’s Office, The Burrow, Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts model. The lighting wasn’t great for them but they’re still quite fun.
Thanks to the good people at Warner Brothers and Emma, Stu and Gemma at Romney Davies for arranging our preview tour. Find out more about the Warner Brothers Studio Tour at http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/ or on their YouTube channel
