LONDON DIARIES: Day 4

We were planning to go to the Warner Bros studio outside London on Friday, 30th September. The whole day in Hogwarts. I can’t tell you how excited how excited I was. We went through our normal morning routine and went to a bus stop near King’s Cross, where a bus to the studio was waiting (the starting point was not a coincidence). We arrived at the studio by 1:00 and had lunch in a hall with a giant model of the dragon from the last Harry Potter movie. We then started our tour. I had high hopes and I was not disappointed. 

The dragon

The tour started with a model of the Privet Drive sets and the Cupboard under the Stairs. We saw a small behind the scenes video and then the huge Hogwarts castle doors opened to reveal a giant set of the Great Hall. It had dummies of Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape and of course the main trio, Harry, Ron and Hermione. The ceiling was adorned with hanging Jack O' Lanterns and the tables were filled with fake food and utensils. 

The Great Hall

We saw the Gryffindor common room, Slytherin common rooms, dishes used during feasts in the movies and the big cake that had been made for the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournament in the Goblet of Fire. 

We saw how Quidditch scenes were filmed. It turned out that the actors just had to sit on model broomsticks and act as if they were flying. The computer would add backgrounds of flying over London, the sea or Hogwarts.

Then we saw giant sets of the Burrow which had dummies of the Weasley family, and sets from the Ministry of Magic, such as the Magic is Might sculpture and Umbridge’s office. 

A few of us kids were also shown some cool wand moves and we practiced them against 'Death Eaters'.

The Ministry of Magic

Then we moved to a hall which had all the dark parts of the series such as a table like the one in the beginning of the 7^th movie where the Death Eaters met. We also saw the Forbidden Forest which had moving and lifelike models of Werewolves, Hippogriffs and Spiders. 

  

We came out and saw a set of the Hogwarts express, with different cubicles, complete with a cubicle which had dummies of Harry and Ron eating candy.

Ready for departure

So ended the first half of the tour. Yes, just the first half. There was a café selling ‘Butterbeer’. Of course, it was just a Caramel Soda with creamy foam on top, yet I enjoyed it. We also ordered Fries and we dug in, hungrily.
The second part of the tour started with a lot of dummies of creatures such as Giants, Hags and Goblins. Then we entered a room with a lot of masks shaped like Giant and Goblin faces along with one of Hagrid. All of these had been used in the movies. We saw a cast of Dobby and models of dragons both life-sized and shrunk. We also saw the different liquids used in the movies such as troll booger, unicorn blood, and how they were made.

The Magical creatures

 

 Then we came to the Gringotts section which was one of the most amazing parts of the tour. There was a giant set of Gringotts which was made of marble. We saw a short realistic video about the giant dragon crashing around Gringotts in the last movie which had been made with a mix of props and animation. We saw some vaults that were filled with actual cups and plates. 

Gringotts

 

Then we went into the set of Diagon Alley, which had Ollivander's, Flourish and Botts and, of course, Weasleys Wizard Wheezes.

Diagon Alley

 We walked down a corridor with pictures of Magical creatures and came to the final set- Hogwarts.  We walked around it and watched a video which described how the actors worked on the set. While the scenes of Harry walking on the Hogwarts ground were amazing, it turns out that in those scenes poor Daniel Radcliffe was just walking on a treadmill in front of a Green Screen. The set itself was only ever built in miniature. All exterior shots were zoomed versions.

Hogwarts

We took a few rounds around the set and finally sat down, taking a break and finishing of a packet of jellybeans Amma had gotten that morning. After some time, we went to the souvenir shop. I look a lot at what to spend my 20 pounds and finally settled on a poster with the most famous quotes from the series.    

We came out of the studios in a good mood. It was raining, but we ran to the bus stop thinking the bus would be waiting. We found 20 other people waiting in the wet bus stop, all of them in a bad mood. We got into the crowd and waited for almost half an hour till the bus. We got to King's Cross in a bad mood one hour later. We bought some food from a store in the station and took a metro back to Wembley. Safely back in the comfort of our flat, we finished off some yummy pasta and fried chicken while watching the King's Speech. Thus ended a great day, our fourth in London.