Monday 25 June 2012

Yesterday the Slushpile, today the film, the theme park and the studio tour!

by Addy Farmer 

Indulge me on this Monday morning whilst I take you on a lightning scar whizz round the Harry Potter Leavesden studio tour!

  Just to think it all started with words. Words become a world and the world was Harry Potter.

Together with assorted fellow muggle parents and a good few over-excited children we queued and jumped about as we waited for the magic to begin.
See what can happen when you write a children's story!

Open the door already!
Strangely, The Great Hall looks smaller in real life. The candles were real in the beginning but they reverted to CGI when the wax kept falling on the actors
The gates looked real even close up!

Harry's bed is on the right. By the end of the films the boys' legs hung over the ends of the beds!
The Mirror of Erised - what's that I see? A best selling series of books and films...
The potions cellar grew bigger for the Half Blood Prince when Professor Slughorn taught in there
ah - magical
This door is a fully working mechanical wonder and not CGI as I thought
The Firebolt is very heavy and takes an amount of actorly skill to make it look effortless!
There we are, grinning like lunatics inside the 1959 Ford Anglia. It was Rupert Grint's favourite prop apparently. 


Here be dragons...

...and spiders...

...and mandrake plants
A Butterbeer break in Privet Drive.
The fabulous Diagon Alley
From word to small scale model to...
...large scale model to...
...the real thing? Well, why not? Write it and it could happen!
Your turn!

21 comments :

  1. Wow! Thanks for the tour - it was great! Just a question: how does Butterbeer taste? I've always wondered about that :)

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    1. disgusting! when we arrived at the Butterbeer stall in Privet Drive, the tables were littered with abandonned butterbeers.

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  2. Great, inspirational post Addy! Thanks for the tour.
    :)

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    1. It was great fun, Stephanie and actually was inspirational in a I-would-LOVE-to-see-my-book-on-the-big-screen sort of way!

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  3. A theme park of my book? I should be so lucky! Looks like you had fun!

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    1. Rescue Princesses?? It's made for a theme park!

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  4. These pictures look amazing, I SO want to go there! I'm sure I'm not the only writer out there who was inspired to write because of Harry Potter, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to fantasise about getting my novel made into a film one day. Like you say, the whole thing is just inspirational.

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  5. Okay - I really want to be there! Amazing!

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    1. everybody loved it, kids and grown ups. There were lots of little and not so little HPs and Hermiones wandering round without a shadow of embarrassment.

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  6. This looks fantastic! My daughter is a massive HP fan, I'd love to take her along, will have to look into it.

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  7. I wasn't sure about going, but maybe I will, if I can find a child my age to go with - it looks amazing!

    I wonder how many book deals are behind the mirror . . .

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    1. Not me! Where is it? It looks brilliant and magical and I want one! Back to editing with an increased sense of purpose. However, I'll probably need to throw everything out and start again with a theme park in mind.

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    2. I only need a child my age! Maybe a SCBWI get together!

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  8. Oh wow!! Oh wow!! Oh wow!

    And lots and lots of Butterbeer!! Oh wow!

    Take care
    x

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    1. Yes, the butterbeer flowed but not much of it went into peoples bodies - it was eugh.

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  9. It all looks so like the film sets, it's amazing.

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  10. Did someone say amazing? ... Well I can't improve on that; it was! Great piece of photojournalism, Addy!

    Alan

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