Hogwarts Will Always Be There to Welcome You Home (Day 3)

This was the day I had been waiting for since we booked our tickets in March. I think we may have booked these tickets before we did anything else. WB Harry Potter studio tour in London(ish). The Making of Harry Potter is at Leavesden studios, which is about 20 minutes outside of central London by train. The tour website said the tour lasts approximately 3 hours but is mostly self-guided so you can go at your own pace. Clearly, we knew this meant it would take way more than 3 hours, since I raced through the Harry Potter exhibition in 1.5 hours when it was only supposed to take 45 minutes. (I'm gonna switch tenses a lot. Sorry. I'm exhausted.) We arrived at Leavesden via double decker shuttle bus, which is decorated on the outside so there's no doubt it's the HP bus. Very cool. Our entry time was noon, and we got there around 11:30, ready to go. I picked up my digital guide and souvenir guidebook that came with my deluxe package (it's got to be done right, right?) and we queued to enter, beginning with Harry's cupboard under the stairs outside he main entry. It's actually even smaller in person than one might expect. Upon entering, there is first a video in which David Heyman, the producer, and some other film people talk about bringing the books to life and the phenomenon that has touched millions around the world. I had tears in my eyes right from the beginning. This is my childhood they're talking about. David Heyman is a pretty awesome guy. He sure cares about the books a lot. The next room was a theatre with another film, this one featuring Dan, Rupert, and Emma, talking a little bit about what we're about to see and what it was like for them to grow up at the studios, where they spent ten years of their twenty-something lives. A little bit of me continues to mourn their rule of only casting British actors. I still remember how angry I was at age ten that I couldn't audition for Hermione. And then the screen goes away, the doors to the Great Hall appear, and we're about to begin. The set is still there in its entirety, flagstone floor, wooden benches, Dumbledore's owl podium, the fireplace, and various costumes from each of the houses. At the front stand the costumes of many teachers, including Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid, Flitwick, Trelawney, Moody, and Filch. We eventually had to leave that room because the next tour group was coming in, but all I wanted to do was sit down at a table (RAVENCLAW) and stay forever. From the Great Hall we enter the rest of J Stage, where tons of sets can be seen, all with informational placards and more audio and video on my guide (the battery will die before I finish). Tom Felton narrates at each stop and then there are additional video clips and galleries of concept art or behind the scenes photos as well. I look at, listen to, and read everything. There is a scale model of the ceiling, a 1/8 which is the largest version of the ceiling that ever existed - there was never a real vaulted ceiling above the Great Hall, the model was used and then CGi magic was added. There are dozens of wigs and bits of facial hair from the makeup department. Tom Felton had a wig but for some reason still had a 3 hour appointment every week to keep his hair freakishly blonde.  The directors each talk a little in a video about what being involved in the movies meant to them and what it was like at their particular stage of the series. There's a Yule Ball table and a table of chocolates and cakes and ice cream from a feast in Chamber of Secrets. One of the best things about this tour is it celebrates all the unseen work of thousands of people who made the movies possible, from the art department to builders to set decorators to makeup to the creature shop. And I loved the opportunity to stare at the detail and intricacies of all their proudest work. Costumes showed four versions of the same outfit Dan wore in Deathly Hallows, a jacket, tshirt, and jeans, in different stages of destruction during the battle of Hogwarts. I know not everyone cares about all the details as much as I do, so I'll try not to ramble on too much. Sets: Gryffindor common room and boys' dormitory, bits of the leaky Cauldron, Dumbledore's office, a cage full of props, a display of wands, defense against the dark arts and potions classrooms, a portrait gallery, the Burrow, the Ministry of Magic, Umbridge's office, Hagrid's hut, and so many bits and pieces of things. There was a sp evil effects and visual effects area that showed how a lot of the green screen bits came to life. By the time I finished this part (rushing through the last quarter because based on someone's estimate of the second half I wasn't going to finish in time for the last bus at 7:30), I had already spent over 3 hours in the tour. Yep. Outside on the backlot were vehicles: the Knight Bus, the Ford Anglia, and Hagrid's motorbike. We took pictures in all of them, after a brief rest for sandwiches and butterbeer. That's right, I've now been to both of the only places in the world that sell butterbeer. Also on the backlot were two Privet Drive houses, Tom Riddle Sr.'s grave statue, and several chess pieces from the first movie. They're massive. From the backlot we moved to K Stage, which started with the creature shop. Tons of masks of individual goblins, mockups of infieri, a life size Buckbeak that moves, models of Dobby and several of the actors (for times when they're dead-like, I suppose, such as in the second task of the triwizard tournament). Warwick Davis (Flitwick/Griphook) leads several videos in this area that explain how lots of prosthetics and animatronics work. It's amazing how much stuff they built so that it could be digitally scanned and manipulated, and so that the actors had something real to work with as much as possible. (Things you would never expect are green screen, like shots of Harry walking alone in the snow outside Hogwarts, and yet there is a real Basilisk and hippogriff. Right.) Next came one of the hardest rooms to leave: Diagonal Alley, a set still so complete and lit that you could essentially still film on it right then, they said. Again here the detail was unreal, and it wasn't too hard to imagine really walking through the shops. One of he signs had the quote from the first book about Harry wishing he had about eight more eyes. Well, that was me. I wanted to look at everything and be everywhere at once and never leave. There was a crooked scale model of Gringotts, and a full size everything else, with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes at the end, the 20 ft. Fred of George still perpetually lifting his hat. Both my mom and I had a really hard time moving on here too. This was another place where I teared up. Because the thing about being in the sets, as someone so devoted to the detail of the books, is here outside of the films, there were no incorrect plot points or changing of lines to ruin things. I got to just be in the world I had grown up in in books for so long and always wanted to visit. It really was a dream come true. The next few stops were displays of concept art and architectural drawings and white card models of all sorts of things. It was kind of interesting, but nothing compared to seeing real sets, and it was getting late, so we moved on pretty quickly and finally came to the grand finale: an incredible full scale model of Hogwarts, used for all those sweeping shots of the grounds. I got to walk all the way around it, see the layout in detail, study the bridges and stairs and grounds and just generally marvel at the majesty of the whole thing. One more teary moment. It was so breathtaking and so real, to be able to see the whole thing, knowing that in the minds of the filmmakers and of course JK Rowling and now anyone who sees this, Hogwarts isn't just cobbled together shots at Oxford and Cambridge and castles in Edinburgh and green screens and sets. It exists as a structurally sound, realistic place, and I can picture it now. It was like coming home, like seeing a childhood best friend who is al you remember them to be. And that's why Harry Potter will always be important to me, and always keep my inner child because "The stories we love never truly leave us. Whether you return by age or by screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."