Please listen to this while reading the post. It will greatly enhance the experience. I promise.
I'm kind of intimidated about writing this post. Why?
Think of a part of your childhood or growing up. A part of it that lasted years. Maybe a person, experience, book, place, etc. Just something you grew up loving. You still love it. It influenced your life, without a doubt.
Now imagine that you, as a grown adult, get to experience it again, as if it were the first time. But that's not all. You get to experience it in a much more REAL way than ever before. Something that was make-believe or just pretend, is now tangible. Something that was just magic, it's all been real.
Laugh at me all you want, but the Harry Potter books and movies were a huge part of my growing up, and on my third day in london, I got to tour the entire Harry Potter studios where they had every single original set, costume, prop, and special effect that was used in the films displayed. Every. Single. One. I'm a nerd, I loved it.
Here's how it worked. We were each given an iPod that had the self-guided audio tour and headphones. After the initial presentation (more on that coming) they released us into the whole museum and we'd be on our own. This was the only thing our group had planned for today. We were told multiple times by our tour director to "soak it up" and "enjoy every minute" and "take our time" so that we could fill the day and get our money's worth. I didn't have to be told twice. I was psyched out of my MIND for this.
After waiting in line for a bit, they took a large group of us into a theatre and showed us a film. This film had actors Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), and Rupert Grint (Ron) standing in front of the entrance doors of the great hall talking about how incredible it was to make the films, how hard everyone worked, and how magical it all was and how excited they were for all of us (aka me) to see how life-changing it was for them. I was crying. I'm not kidding. After the movie ended, the lights slowly came back on, then the screen was raised up AND BEHIND THE SCREEN WAS THE ACTUAL ENTRANCE DOORS TO THE GREAT HALL WHERE THE THREE OF THEM WERE JUST STANDING IN THE MOVIE, YOU GUYS. More crying ensued.
It was incredible, everyone. I was IN THE GREAT HALL. Here are more pictures, because there are no words:
The audio tour began after they ushered us out of the great hall. It had so much information about the producers, directors, writers, composers, and logistical aspect of the movies in general at the beginning, which is fine, because I love learning about movies anyways, so I listened to everything and read everything. Because why wouldn't you?
This picture for example, not only does it have a lot of awesome information, but behind it, there are tapestries casually hanging that were used for decor in the castle. They're just THERE!! The TAPESTRIES! GAHH!!
Ok these pictures below are cool: there was a hallway they built that was designed to look 25ish feet long, but in real life, it's about 8 feet deep.
^^Invisibility cloak #greenscreen
This is the Potion classroom below. ALL of the bottles were labeled cleverly, and all of the cauldrons were stirring themselves.. cleverly.
STOP EVERYTHING AND READ THESE BELOW:
Do you realize what this means? Every painting, every portrait you see in the films is HAND-PAINTED. All of them. I asked an employee to make sure that I interpreted that correctly, and she said that none of them were copies or prints. They were all hand painted. You guys.
Below is The Burrow, aka the Weasley household. If you'll look closely, there's a cutting board with a knife cutting carrots on a counter in the middle of the room. By itself. Casually. There is also a frying pan being washed in the sink. By itself. Casually. There is also a scarf being knitted on a yellow armchair in the corner. By itself. Casually. I was freaking out, obviously. By myself.
I had been alone for most of the tour. People were more or less going at their own speed. Later I learned that people kind of stuck together in small groups, but I was too engrossed in the magic that surrounded me to be aware of very much...
Horcruxes:
Then we stopped by King's Cross for a train ride:
At this point I had met up with two other girls (Aleisha and Sarah) who had been going at about the same glacial pace I had been. We stopped at their cafe for lunch, where I learned that Butterbeer ice cream is not as good as the regular drink and that London hamburgers are terrible.
Outside we went....
At this point, we went back inside where we learned all about the different creatures, and how they created them. People are so smart, and talented.
Okay, you guys, we need to talk about Hagrid. Did you know, that they made a Hagrid helmet/mask thing? A whole harness that this huge guy wears for certain shots. Most of the time it's the actor, Robbie Coltrane, but for some shots, this guy put on the harness that had a technological hagrid face that moved and blinked. It was SO REALISTIC.
ALSO, Buckbeak, the Hippogriff was chilling inside the tour, sitting, moving, blinking.... by himself. Casually.
DIAGON ALLEY NEXT:
A very interesting thing happened at this point. Whilst in Diagon Alley, Bro. Barrus, a wonderful man who was in charge of our group's affairs in London randomly finds the three of us. We hadn't seen anyone for hours. He delivers the news that EVERYONE else had finished the tour over an hour ago and had been on the bus waiting for us. OH and he told us that we should continue to take our time... WHAT? I was so surprised. You'll recall that I told you at the beginning of this post that this was the only thing we'd planned for the day and we were spending all day, and were to take our time. But now that everyone was waiting on the BUS, I clearly felt the need to speed up my tour.
So I did. Because I still wanted to buy things at the gloriously enormous shop at the end. I ditched the audio tour, I quit reading every single sign and plaque, I glanced at things instead of staring, I hurried, I ran, I rushed UNTIL---
I turned a corner and saw this:
It was the end of the tour, the crowning jewel of an already-unforgettable experience. Whereas I was stressed and rushed before, I come in this room and it had a whole different feel than the rest of it. Nobody was talking, it was dark, there was music from the soundtrack playing and everything felt reverent. I definitely spent some time in here.
After THIS, I went to the gift shop and ended up impulse-buying more things than planned because I was stressed about getting to the bus. Which I did.
When we went back to the housing site, I took a walk around the temple grounds with a friend in the group named Shandl. We ended up going into the visitor's center for the temple and I talked with a lot of the missionaries there for quite a while!
Anyways. As you can see, I was really excited about this day, and I only posted a VERY small amount of the pictures I actually took. At first, I was kind of afraid that learning about the movie and how they do all the magic and special effects would kind of ruin it for me... But it didn't at all. It made it more magical and real learning about all the people and work and technology and skill that went into everything. So much detail. So much care was seen throughout.
"All these people saying they never got their Hogwarts letter: you got the letter. You went to Hogwarts. We were all there together." -JK Rowling
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