Vacation photos part 1: Harry Potter sets tour
One day on our London trip we had the opportunity to catch a train up to Leavesden to tour the Harry Potter movie sets.
It was so much fun. I had been feeling lukewarm on HP, but as soon as we pulled up to the studios I started to get excited, and when it turned out that they had not only sets you could walk through but also costumes and wigs and prints and statues and items like the Triwizard Tournament trophy and the locket/horcrux that Regulus Black stole, things turned into allcaps. SIRIUS AND REMUS'S COSTUMES! THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK FAMILY TAPESTRY! THE MARAUDERS' MAP! SNAPE'S CLASSROOM! LUCIUS MALFOY'S WIG! THE BRIDGE FROM CUARON'S POA!
All in all, we spent about four hours there including a stop in the middle for sandwiches and butterbeer. (I had not known butterbeer was not beer. It was cream soda with a butterscotch-flavored foam topping. deelaundry ordered one and let me try a sip. She is such a world traveler that she has now had butterbeer at both locations it is officially offered. :) The other being in Orlando, FL.)
In addition to the above, picture collection includes:
- The Great Hall
- Duplicate Harry outfits
- A beautiful display of different characters' wands
- Green screens used for animated portraits
- Rigwork for a flying broom
- Knight Bus
- Animatronics for things like dragons, Dementors, thestrals, Buckbeak, baby resurrected Voldemort, Lupin as werewolf, and the mandrake
- Beautiful schematics and concept art
- Beautiful paper models
- Diagon Alley
- The finale, giant model of Hogwarts
Sorry not to be willing/able to share photos of us imitating the giant chess pieces from Chamber of Secrets, donning Ravenclaw robes in the gift shop or hanging off the back of the Knight Bus.
This link takes you to a slideshow version: http://s83.photobucket.com/user/moony2/slideshow/HPtour
If you'd rather page through each photo, they are below.
It was just astounding how much time, skill and money went into creating the visual version of this world.
Our only issue besides the difficulty of obtaining tickets -- word to the wise, plan further ahead -- was the gift shop. It was big and fun and colorful and all that, but they lost a major opportunity to make money off us when they didn't offer many print items. They had a few lovely prints in frames, but they were signed limited editions and quite expensive. No Marauders' Map, no prints of the concept art (permissions issue?), no acceptance letters or tickets to Hogwarts, no Umbridge proclamations, etc. I'm sure they had their reasons, but *shrug*. The merchandise was mostly clothes, candy and trinkets, heavily skewed toward Gryffindor, with a few luxury items like jewelry and really nice reproductions of Lucius' cane and a Firebolt broom and whatnot.
But that was minor, really, and there's always Etsy.
I was thinking about it again yesterday and concluded that the only world it would have been more personally thrilling/fulfilling to step into was that of Deep Space Nine. Am still bitter sad the Las Vegas attraction closed before I was able to visit it.
Anyway, hope that was enjoyable for some of you. It certainly was for us.
It was so much fun. I had been feeling lukewarm on HP, but as soon as we pulled up to the studios I started to get excited, and when it turned out that they had not only sets you could walk through but also costumes and wigs and prints and statues and items like the Triwizard Tournament trophy and the locket/horcrux that Regulus Black stole, things turned into allcaps. SIRIUS AND REMUS'S COSTUMES! THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK FAMILY TAPESTRY! THE MARAUDERS' MAP! SNAPE'S CLASSROOM! LUCIUS MALFOY'S WIG! THE BRIDGE FROM CUARON'S POA!
All in all, we spent about four hours there including a stop in the middle for sandwiches and butterbeer. (I had not known butterbeer was not beer. It was cream soda with a butterscotch-flavored foam topping. deelaundry ordered one and let me try a sip. She is such a world traveler that she has now had butterbeer at both locations it is officially offered. :) The other being in Orlando, FL.)
In addition to the above, picture collection includes:
- The Great Hall
- Duplicate Harry outfits
- A beautiful display of different characters' wands
- Green screens used for animated portraits
- Rigwork for a flying broom
- Knight Bus
- Animatronics for things like dragons, Dementors, thestrals, Buckbeak, baby resurrected Voldemort, Lupin as werewolf, and the mandrake
- Beautiful schematics and concept art
- Beautiful paper models
- Diagon Alley
- The finale, giant model of Hogwarts
Sorry not to be willing/able to share photos of us imitating the giant chess pieces from Chamber of Secrets, donning Ravenclaw robes in the gift shop or hanging off the back of the Knight Bus.
This link takes you to a slideshow version: http://s83.photobucket.com/user/moony2/slideshow/HPtour
If you'd rather page through each photo, they are below.
It was just astounding how much time, skill and money went into creating the visual version of this world.
Our only issue besides the difficulty of obtaining tickets -- word to the wise, plan further ahead -- was the gift shop. It was big and fun and colorful and all that, but they lost a major opportunity to make money off us when they didn't offer many print items. They had a few lovely prints in frames, but they were signed limited editions and quite expensive. No Marauders' Map, no prints of the concept art (permissions issue?), no acceptance letters or tickets to Hogwarts, no Umbridge proclamations, etc. I'm sure they had their reasons, but *shrug*. The merchandise was mostly clothes, candy and trinkets, heavily skewed toward Gryffindor, with a few luxury items like jewelry and really nice reproductions of Lucius' cane and a Firebolt broom and whatnot.
But that was minor, really, and there's always Etsy.
I was thinking about it again yesterday and concluded that the only world it would have been more personally thrilling/fulfilling to step into was that of Deep Space Nine. Am still bitter sad the Las Vegas attraction closed before I was able to visit it.
Anyway, hope that was enjoyable for some of you. It certainly was for us.