Leavesden is a quaint little town about 30 minutes outside of London, and for some bizarre reason Warner Brothers has a studio and backlot there. It's where all the Harry Potter movies were filmed, and thank the geek-gods above they've turned several sound stages and a backlot into a walking tour of all the remaining Harry Potter sets, wardrobe pieces, creature designs, etc.
One quick note before we get to the pictures. None of my photos do any of these sets justice. The set pieces were gigantic and extremely intricate, and the photos I took with my phone in constant low lighting are just not very good. But luckily they gave us a sweet little book with professional photos of essentially every piece on the tour, so we're good.
The tour started by queuing next to Harry's cupboard under the stairs. Ok, pretty good place to start. Now remember, this isn't some crappy recreation; Daniel Radcliffe sat in that very piece while Chris Columbus directed him.
Then we were sent to a theatre where we watched a video that ended with the walls of the theatre raising into the ceiling to reveal we were really sitting right in front of the door to the Great Hall! Except the walls were broken and we had to awkwardly file through a small door, around a corner, and then there was the Great Hall. Everything can't work all the time, I guess. But still. The Great Hall!
This blog post could quickly become the length of Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix, so let's just put it this way. We saw the Hogwarts entrance gates, the Gryffindor Common Room, the Burrow, Dumbledore's Office, Tom Riddle's grave, the Ministry of Magic, the Hogwarts Bridge, Privet Drive, the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitories, Hagrid's hut, the Potions classroom, Diagon Alley......you get the picture. They told us the tour would take about 3 hours. We were there for 5.
The tour ended with an absolutely breathtaking (don't worry, I heard how stupid I just sounded) GIGANTIC scale model of Hogwarts and its grounds. They used this model for all the exterior shots of the castle for the films. The model was the size of half a basketball court, they were piping the HP score in through some speakers, and there was constantly changing theatrical lighting on the castle. I literally wanted to cry when I saw it. Instead I took a hundred pictures.
It was an incredible tour that was so full of detail I think I could walk through it again and look at completely different things. If you ever take a trip to London, go to Leavesden.
One quick note before we get to the pictures. None of my photos do any of these sets justice. The set pieces were gigantic and extremely intricate, and the photos I took with my phone in constant low lighting are just not very good. But luckily they gave us a sweet little book with professional photos of essentially every piece on the tour, so we're good.
The tour started by queuing next to Harry's cupboard under the stairs. Ok, pretty good place to start. Now remember, this isn't some crappy recreation; Daniel Radcliffe sat in that very piece while Chris Columbus directed him.
Then we were sent to a theatre where we watched a video that ended with the walls of the theatre raising into the ceiling to reveal we were really sitting right in front of the door to the Great Hall! Except the walls were broken and we had to awkwardly file through a small door, around a corner, and then there was the Great Hall. Everything can't work all the time, I guess. But still. The Great Hall!
This blog post could quickly become the length of Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix, so let's just put it this way. We saw the Hogwarts entrance gates, the Gryffindor Common Room, the Burrow, Dumbledore's Office, Tom Riddle's grave, the Ministry of Magic, the Hogwarts Bridge, Privet Drive, the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitories, Hagrid's hut, the Potions classroom, Diagon Alley......you get the picture. They told us the tour would take about 3 hours. We were there for 5.
The tour ended with an absolutely breathtaking (don't worry, I heard how stupid I just sounded) GIGANTIC scale model of Hogwarts and its grounds. They used this model for all the exterior shots of the castle for the films. The model was the size of half a basketball court, they were piping the HP score in through some speakers, and there was constantly changing theatrical lighting on the castle. I literally wanted to cry when I saw it. Instead I took a hundred pictures.
It was an incredible tour that was so full of detail I think I could walk through it again and look at completely different things. If you ever take a trip to London, go to Leavesden.
2 comments:
OH, too fun to look through these. Brynn said the piece of pie (quiche?) at the tapas restaurant looked like a burnt rat....hopefully it didn't taste that way =). We're looking forward to the rest of your posts about your trip. I'm sure it's crazy hard to even begin putting it into words or to even hope that the pictures will do anything justice. But we'll enjoy your attempts!
I don't know if I'm dead or dying. Words cannot express how badly I need to jump through my computer screen and land at Leavesden Studios...and then never leave there. The pictures are (tom)marvolos(riddle). Goodness I hope you realized I was cleverly saying marvelous. So stinkin' jealous!!
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