Embrace your Hufflepuff!

You thought there were lots of photos in my previous posts? They were nothing.

When I took a quiz on what Harry Potter house I was in I got Hufflepuff. And then when I drew out of the sorting hat at Nikki and Justin's engagement party I got Hufflepuff again.. Derrick, of course, got Gryffindor both times. He is seriously the worst. 

JK..love you forever...but seriously.

And if you haven't gotten that this post is about Harry Potter yet you should just stop reading because you're obviously a slytherin and don't care about anything awesome. 

Our AirBnB was less then 10 minutes from THE set of the Harry Potter films. The actual studio where the films were made with the actual sets, costumes, and props. We visited on Tuesday evening after the tournament and spent almost 3 hours there. It was amazing!

Before we even got into the studio the line featured tons of cast pictures and even the cubbard under the stairs!

 The great thing about this tour is it's completely self guided. They let groups of about 100 in every 10 minutes or so and you can move at your own pace. There are a lot of people there but it's so big that it really doesn't feel too crowded or rushed. The only guided part was the very beginning where we watched a short video about the making of the films and then we were guided through the castle front doors into the dining hall.

 

Inside the great hall! No magical ceiling...that's all animated.

 

A costume display that includes Cedric Diggory's clothes from the Goblet of Fire!

 

I don't remember the house points looking like this in the movie. I'm going to have to keep my eyes out next time we watch.

These were cool models of some of the teachers and characters that included their height and typical wardrobe.

After the great hall it opened into the main studio. It was huge! There were full sets inside this building.

Ron's dress robes.

There were a ton of wigs for characters I didn't even know used a wig in the movies..like Arthur Weasley?

 

This was cool, it showed Harry's clean outfit and then dirty outfit after one of the battles.

 
The dormitory for Harry Potter's year. Is said that the beds were only about 4.5 feet long but they never made them bigger so in the later movies they had to scrunch up to fit in them.

The mirror of erised!

This was the secret passage between Hogwarts and the Hog's Head. In the movie it looks about 40 feet long but it's just a set and camera trick. In reality it's only about 8 feet long.

The Gryffindor common room. They said this set became a favorite among the cast and they would lounge here when it wasn't being used for a scene.

Dumbledore's office!

 And the sorting hat!

 

The potions room.

One of my favorite parts was seeing all the animals that were used for filming. There were 8 or 9 separate boar hounds used for Fang!

Hagrid's Hut.

The Gringotts vault door. The set designers made all of these things functional so this actually has all of the moving parts that you see in the movie.

The Burrow!

 

Ugh...Umbridge's office.

 

There was an entire train station at the studio!

 

 

In the very back of the train there is a half car so they could shoot the straight on scenes in the train. The train was pretty tight on the inside so this is how they got around that.

This part of the tour was very cool. It showed all of the animatronics and artistry that went behind creating some of the more fantastical characters.

 

You can see to the left in this picture how this costume was worn. A man would put the head piece on his shoulders like a backpack.

Diagon Alley!!!

This was also amazing. They built models of every building they created and made full model cities to see the scale they needed. They also did concept art of all of the characters before building them.

The grand finale was spectacular! It was 1:24 model of the entire castle. It was still massive but they used this for all of the panning and long range shots of the castle. They just put green screen around it.

 

The tour was amazing and well worth it if you're ever in St. Albans. It's kind of crazy that our AirBnB was literally 10 minutes from this place where it all happened! It was definitely a highlight of the trip!