HOGWARTS IS MY HOME
The Making of Harry Potter tour lets fans experience the magic behind the movies
WATFORD, ENGLAND It’s six months since the dragon began its rampage of destruction, hurling flames in all directions and reducing one of the Harry Potter saga’s most iconic landmarks to rubble. It’s the latest addition to an attraction that offers an astonishing behind-the-scenes look at how a groundbreaking film series was created.
This year’s arrival of that fire-breathing dragon and its target of carnage, an impeccable recreation of the Gringotts Wizarding Bank, is one more reason why a former Rolls-royce plant in a drab industrial area north of London has become a mecca for Harry Potter fans. Since March 2012, more than 13 million visitors of all ages have made the pilgrimage.
The attraction’s title may be cumbersome: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London — The Making of Harry Potter. The cost of getting in — and also of the merchandise being hawked once you enter — may make you wince. And even in the winter, you’re urged to book three to four months in advance.
It would be easy to dismiss this attraction as no more than another cynical cash grab, but to do so would be grossly unfair. This is not some kind of theme park happening. It is a celebration of artistic achievement — its focus, the look and design of the Harry Potter films.
The April arrival of the wizarding bank of Gringotts, complete with wizened goblin tellers peering down at you from their desks, provides dramatic insight into the care and attention that went into the visual look of the films. You find out about the challenges facing the props department — designing the right kind of inkwells, quill pens and ledgers for the goblin tellers, and meticulously creating more than 200,000 coins for the final two movies alone.
The wonders continue as you visit the vaults where the Sword of Gryffindor and some 7,000 Hufflepuff Cups are among the 38,000 separate items on display. Finally you’re back in the bank hall, but this time it’s in ruins. And every 10 minutes a digital dragon roars into view to burn the place down again.
This newly 16,500-square-foot extension is but one amazing component in a tour that continues for hours. And although the dragon has quickly become a hit with visitors, don’t assume its digital origins apply to most of what we’re seeing at Warner’s Leavesden Studio where the Potter movies were filmed.
The emphasis here is on old-fashioned craftsmanship — on the real sets, props and costumes that fans saw on screen. To be sure, there are exceptions: We see how Ralph Fiennes’ nose was digitally removed for the role of Voldemort, and we learn that Gringotts Bank had to be specially recreated for the tour because its scenes were originally filmed amid the soaring splendours of London’s Australia House.
By and large, however, the world of Harry was brought to life the traditional way.
So when we’re welcomed to the “one and only Great Hall of Hogwarts” with its flagstone floor, discoloured walls and battered oak tables, we know we’re in the very same place that Daniel Radcliffe and his pals were occupying following the set’s construction 19 years ago.
It may seem a risky proposition to take fans so deeply into the processes of creation — a potential spoiler for a film series engulfed in magic. Yet the magic endures. These are largely the sets, props and costumes we experienced in the movies. Visitors can marvel at the table settings in the Great Hall at Hogwarts and check out the checkered tablecloth in the Weasley kitchen. They can walk the cobblestones in Diagon Alley and experience for themselves those towering bookshelves in Dumbledore’s office. They can get close-up looks at Harry’s broomstick and Hagrid’s motorcycle, explore the Forbidden Forest, and through video get the lowdown on how those Quidditch stunts were filmed.
Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint may show up on elevated screens to welcome visitors, but ultimately it’s the behind-thescenes people who are being celebrated because their creativity is on constant display. So through video, the most important guides to what we’re seeing are people like construction manager Paul Hayes, head prop-maker Pierre Bohanna, and — especially — the franchise’s brilliant production designer, Stuart Craig.
In total, some 4,000 people worked on the films over a 10-year period, with the style and look of this world being set by Craig and his gifted team of artists, costumers, draughtsmen and illustrators.
Noel Coward once memorably said that he had no apologies for taking light entertainment seriously.
The success of the Harry Potter films may constitute a box office phenomenon, but here they are the springboard for a serious exploration of the processes that made the world of Hogwarts possible on screen — processes that constitute a triumph of popular art.