5•26•23

Today was our last day in London, we spent the entire day at the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour. The set is located outside of London Leavesden, near Watford, England. It is situated on the same site where the Harry Potter film series was produced. When we first arrived, our group split off, with some people going into the tour right away, but some of us went to the café before we started the tour of the studios. 

 

Once we entered the studio, groups were shown a short film about the making of the Harry Potter book written by J.K. Rowling. At first we learned that the book was not very popular and often stayed at the bottom of the shelf in some local bookstores in London. Shortly after people started to purchase the books off the shelves rapidly. An estimated 120 million copies are sold around the world  and many have been translated into several languages. 

 

After the film, the audience was welcomed into the tour where we entered  the Great Hall. We then followed the tour through and through to the Forbidden Forest, Platform 9 ¾ , Office of Dumbledore, and Diagon Alley. We saw many set pieces including Emma Stone’s actual makeup desk, where all her belongings were still there. We saw several wigs with tags labeling when they were used and by whom. We saw tons of clothing throughout the tour worn by the actors in the film. We saw several scenes from the movie along with the set pieces used. 

 

My favorite part of this tour was the “creature room” where we viewed the different masks used for creature like the Centaurs, Dobby, Hippogriffs, and Basilisk. This room was truly amazing to me, because it goes to show how much effort the makers of these pieces put into each and everyone of the figures in the films. Every single prop, accessory, painting, map, and wand was specially handcrafted for each scene.