My So Called Parisian Life: Harry Potter Studio Tour

Talk about an amazing behind the scenes experience of one of the greatest stories of all time! The amazing Warner Brothers London backlot is only a 15 minute train ride from the center of London. So we get to the train station and a big Harry Potter bus was waiting to whisk us away to the studio. I think it was like a 10 minute bus ride or whatever. So we get there and everyone is like squealing because everyone was so excited.

We walk into the big main room and all around the ceiling there was big blown up pictures of the cast when they were little and when they were older. They looked like babies! They were all so cute! So we walk to the other side and right there was the cupboard under the stairs. After we saw that, there was a big room that they herded us all into where a guy talked to us about how popular the series was. Then after that room we went into another room with a big screen and we watched a little promo video with Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint welcoming us to the set and the backlot. When the video was done the screen went up and the entrance to the Great Hall was right there! IT WAS SO COOL. They had two of the big long tables. The Great Hall was a hot set, which means that the set was fully dressed with all the props. Along the sides of the hall were the robes from all of the houses and Quidditch uniforms. The floors of the hall is made of the same stone that a lot of the castles are made of because they needed to stay strong because of all the movement of people and heavy equipment.

The next room was huge and had so many sets and props from all of the movies that I don't even know where to begin. They had the Gryffindor common room, the mirror of erised, the burrow, the moving staircases, costumes, and Dumbledore's office just to name a few. I think the coolest part was the Burrow because the way they have it set up, is there were 4 screens to touch: the iron, the knitting needles, the pan, and the knife. When you would touch the knife, the carrots would start to be chopped, then when you touch the knitting needs, the scarf would start to knit. It was unbelievable to see what technology could do.

After walking through that set, you go outside into the back lot. Out on the backlot was a place to get butter beer, Hagrid's motorcycle, the Knight bus, the Weasley's flying car, Privet Drive, and the chess pieces. Butter beer is sooooo good! It tastes like cream soda, but its really thick and dense. Of course, I had to sit on the motorcycle and get in the car. After wandering through, you go into the next building. At first, you see all the creatures and dummies used. I think Dobby was my favorite. There was also Aragog, Buckbeak, and a whole slew of other creatures used in the movies. What I didn't know was that for Hagrid's character, in order to make him really large, the body double would wear an animatronic head that sits on top of his shoulders.

After the creature's room was Diagon Alley. It was really fun to wander the street. It wasn't that big, but it had a lot of the shops, including Gringott's and Ollivanders. Once you walk through the alley, there is a small room filled with sketches of set design and characters. Then you walk through and in a glass case are all the buildings used in the series. They are detailed on a small scale, but show the full building. The best room in the lot was next.

The whole room was Hogwarts. The model was huge and showed every detail of the castle. The lights would get brighter and darker in the room to show how the lights inside the castle would turn on. It was just amazing to watch the expressions of the people as they were coming into the room. Everyone just stared in amazement. The castle was actually used to do the pan around shots in the movie.

The last room was the inside of the wand shop. There were thousands of wand boxes. Each of the boxes were hand drawn on and there was a box with every person that worked on the movies. Then it was off to the gift shop that had every Harry Potter thing you could think of. Of course, we all had to take a picture wearing the house robes. I learned so many things about Harry Potter that I never knew before. So I obviously had to find out what house I would be sorted into so I took the test and at first I was sorted into Hufflepuff, which clearly is not a good house, so I took it again and got into Slytherin. I suppose that will do!