In this episode, I break down my visit to several filming locations in England. Enjoy!
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In this episode, I break down my visit to several filming locations in England. Enjoy!
Topics:
Having anything you want to hear or say? Click here for a voice submission or here for text.
ThePotterDiscussion@gmail.com
@thepotterdiscussion on Instagram
Sign up for The Quill and Ink Newsletter
thepotterdiscussion.com
Welcome to the Potter discussion.
Welcome back to the Potter discussion discussing Harry Potter. Fantastic beast and the whizzing world fandom. I am your host Oscar and welcome back. Finally. Finally, finally, finally, it has been far too long since I have been at the mic, but we are finally back recording and there is some great stuff in store here.
You've seen the title, you know what we're talking about? And now you finally know where I went to, where my vacation slash business trip was. Um, I went to the UK, London specifically stayed in Chelsea. It was awesome. I had some great food. I met some really awesome people and it was an overall amazing trip made all the more, better by my.
Uh, several Harry Potter outings, which was awesome. So over the course of my trip, I took two guided tours in, uh, some, some, you know, buses, some coaches, and we went out and one of them was not Harry Potter specific, but we did pass some Harry Potter locations that I will touch on very briefly at the beginning of this episode.
And one of them was a full on Harry Potter tour. We went to Oxford and the Harry Potter studios, which. I mean, absolutely. The highlight. That will be the vast majority of this episode. Uh, so make sure you stick around because there's some really great stuff coming your way, and I will try to make this just a single episode, but it might be pretty long, you know, right now I do not know because you see how long the episode is, but I mean, Let's do it.
Let's just do it. There's there's there's nothing else to say. So let's get straight into this episode. All right. So the first location we have on the list is a wonderful little town called lake. So lake is a, uh, a rather, like I said, a boy rather, a small town, uh, about an hour or two outside of London.
And it is the site for many, many. Uh, like old, tiny films and not meant like, I mean, Harry Potter was filmed. I think that's, that's what we're talking about it, but, uh, there are no power lines. There are no street, uh, lines. It is cobbled. It is beautiful. Uh, it is very old too, so that really adds the whole feel.
So if you take all the cars and, you know, close all the windows, it turns into a film set and it is used so often by so many. Um, it's been used by Downton Abby. A ton of stuff was filmed there. And of course it has been used by Harry Potter and the Potter house is there, the house that Harry was born in and I saw it, I went there and I saw it and someone lives there, which I think is kind of strange because people are just standing outside her window.
It's uh, old woman, I believe. Uh, they're just like taking pictures of our house. So it's, it's a bit strange to live there, but it must. Pretty cool. But so this is the, the sets for the Potter house. It, it is a real house. Like I said, someone isn't it. And it is, it was awesome. I mean, it was like a, a blast from not that long ago cuz I watched Harry Potter, uh, in, in preparation, but it was so bizarre to see such an often shown film location in real life.
It was like, like the world turned upside down. It was so, so strange, but it was so awesome. And I mean, lake cock by itself was. So, so cool. It was old and it was sunny that day. And I bought like a, like a bar of like, not a bar. When I say that a jar of homemade Jan from a stand, it was, it was really amazing.
Um, so if you are ever in town, I would definitely recommend that you, uh, check that out down the way in and on the way out, we saw the lake cock Abbey, which is a huge Abby. rather small as the abbeys in England go. But, uh, the lake Oak Abbey, it was used for some corridors in the, uh, in the movies. Actually, I think the, the, I, I think some of the SORC stone philosopher stone, um, filming locations were in lake ABB.
So I think that was really cool. I got some, some, some good pictures, so that was awesome. Um, and it was just a really like, Interesting and just like, like amazing place to go. And there was this room. Well, I shouldn't say room. It is like a bar type place, but it was like, I think it was like, it was hundreds of years old.
I mean, everything in England was hundreds years old. It's it's, it's not the same, like almost anywhere else. Um, but this, this place was used as a farm stand and the like people will like set up shop inside there and then they. Sell things and give a 10th of it to the church, which was also in lake. I mean, it was like right there too.
You saw the Potter house and then you turned and you walked a bit down, like their driveway. And there was the church. I mean, it was a, it was a pretty, uh, small town. And I mean, if I , if I ever move, I am moving there because that. So awesome. Uh, you have to rent your house from the, uh, I think it's like the federal historical society, which bought it.
It was, it's actually a, it's a fascinating story. I won't tell the whole thing, but there was a, a family that owned this town, but then they, they couldn't keep it up cause of the taxes and all the debt they were in. So they sold it to this society. I think it was like in the sixties or so, or it, I mean, Not I in the 1860, I don't know.
I, I don't know exactly, but it was a family. It was, it was a very interesting, I, I encourage you to look it up, just look up the lake cock story, whatever it is. Um, so that was fascinating, but the Potter house was an absolute pilot. It was so awesome to, to walk there. And I mean, it, it was picturesque. The sky was, was blue.
The clouds were in the fluffy. Um, there was like, you know, it was like, The birds and all the, all, all the bugs buzzing around and all the people kinda wandering in their huge sun hats and stuff like that. So it was an awesome place and I'm definitely raring to go back if I ever, ever can. I'm I suspect I won't for a while, but that is gonna be in my memory for a long time.
And that. Some of those pictures are going to be, and actually, I think I'll make a video of those to post on Instagram, um, at the Potter discussion on Instagram. If you wanna check that out and I'll make a, uh, post of the Potter house, the, the, the photos I took and just kind of a comprehensive, uh, post of everything that I saw.
So, uh, check those out. I think they're, they will be posted by the time you are listening to this, um, at the pod discussion on Instagram. That was the, the whole lake cock thing. It was fascinating. It was awesome. It was old. It was beautiful. And now I'll talk about these second filming location. And moving on to our second filming location.
I, I should say locations because this is not one building. This is not one place. This is a, a whole campus, but the place I'm talking about is Oxford university. This is a, another, uh, very old place. I think this is almost a thousand years old, one of the first, right? Maybe it's the first I, I, the torque I told me is very, very.
Uh, this place, one of the first universities in the world, which is absolutely Cray Cray. Um, I don't know why I said it like that. Uh, but this was on my Harry Potter tour and it was, I mean, an absolute success. It was like pick GRE. Cause when we got that, it was raining, but not in like the pouring, like get your socks wet and like the uncomfortable way, but it was like kind of drizzling and the, the clouds were kind of gray.
So it was like, like the, the, the, the cobble stones were, were kind of like glistening and like the, the, the. The rooftops were, you know, kind of dripping. It was, it was really, uh, uh, a great time to go there. I I'm one who likes a bit of a bit of rain. I think it adds to the mood of the place, but, uh, that's just my opinion.
I know rain's not for everyone, but it was a, an awesome trip, saw so many, many awesome things. And although I couldn't visit. All the things, all the family locations in Oxford, there were definitely a couple that I, uh, saw at least through the windows. Uh, there were some library scenes. The restricted section of the library is the Oxford library.
And that scene where Draco gets turned into a ferret that is in Oxford, too. It was awesome to see. Um, but actually saw the branch off that Draco was sitting on because people kept climbing up. Climbing on it and, and sitting on it and Oxford was like, no, just stop . So they cut it off, which was, I, I thought was funny, but also kind of sad, cuz we could never see that tree again, but I know I now I'm gear up.
Um, we also walk through radcliff's square or not. It's not a square. We saw the Ratcliff building, I should say. Uh, not deemed after Danny Ratcliff. I will point out that that's what I was like. Oh, NA Ratcliff. What, how that's amazing. Uh, not Danny named after dating Ratcliff. Uh, we also saw not, not a Harry Potter thing, but the inspiration for the line, in which, in the wardrobe we saw the door.
That inspired all the characters and a lamppost that like was the lamppost. So I personally have not read the Narnia books and I've not seen them movies too many times, but from what I can recall, one of the characters hides behind a lamppost at the beginning, and we saw the lamppost that was inspired by that.
So that was really cool. We saw Blackwell books, which was another amazing location. Uh, that actually has another good story. I'm not sure exactly when this is taking place, but it was. Fairly recently as in terms of history of England, but, um, a bookstore open called Blackwell books. And it was just in one spot, you know, there's like different building, you know, there's 41, 42, 43, there's one spot and people thought, oh, it's never gonna, you know, expand it's it's not gonna do well, but then it's still open today.
And I think it's in the four, uh, it bought out the three, uh, stores around it and is now this huge compound of books. How I am. Walk through it's it's, it's, it's very modern. It's not like an oldtimey bookstore, but it was very modern. And of course the Harry Potter stand, I saw right up front. Um, and there was like, apparently this like secret staircase.
If you go, if you go in like this back room and you go like under the ground, there's like a staircase you could walk under. Then you like come up in this like SP book cellar of some sort. And I could not stop thinking. I wanna go down there and I wanna call it honey Dukes. That thing was like, I, I was, I was, I, I am, I should say I am convinced that that is what inspired the passageway from the, the witch to the Hondu seller, cuz that is just, I mean too much of a coincidence.
Um, so this, this was a, another very, very. Fun place to go. And, uh, I could, oh, actually a really funny thing to happen. So, uh, we, we had a bit of lunch time to, to spare. So I got, I, I went to an Italian place, which was delicious and I saw a student walk by and their robes were billing cuz in, uh, in Oxford, the tradition is in certain like graduation and in like your induction and in like certain tests.
I, I'm not sure you wear this, this traditional garb and the robe is part of that. So I saw the student walking by and their robe was like billowing up behind them. And I was like, oh man, it's Hogwarts, it's Hogwarts. Everything here was just so Hogwarts esque, which is funny because that is exactly what inspired this, this kind of architecture, because in hog.
Um, and of course England has some, some, uh, really, really beautiful buildings and old buildings and, uh, some, some really cool sites. So I think, uh, Oxford was one of the places that heavily inspired, uh, not only the author to, to make, to, to describe Hogwarts as it is, but also to filmmakers. Uh, I know Christopher Columbus visited Oxford and I think David Haman eventually did too.
And they saw. Um, just like how, how much of a, uh, similarity they could draw between Oxford and Hogwarts. So they used a lot of the old buildings and there's a lot of, uh, really cool stuff that I saw some, some similarities in terms of like the, the windows and the rooftops and like some, some TURs and stuff like that.
And, uh, especially the, the, the rack lift building was actually a library. The first circular library. If you didn't know that, uh, was another thing that I saw quite, um, often referenced in the Harry Potter films, which I thought was interesting to see in real life. Another like step back from, from reality moment, seeing how, uh, how, how much is, uh, similar between the real world and the films.
Uh, I mean, besides Oxford, I could definitely see just walking around London. How many things were so similar to Hogwarts? I, I didn't, I don't have this in my episode plan, but I just wanna touch on it real quick, because there were some places that I was like, I was convinced were Hogwarts. I mean, I could see how Hogwarts see it all was.
And specifically I saw this, uh, in parliament square, which is the square with, I. If you couldn't guess parliament and big Ben and Westminster Abby, and a bunch of old buildings. And in one of them, I think he was like the very back of Westminster. I saw Hogwarts. I saw like this absolute re. Incarnation of hog ORs right there.
And I think it was in the windows and like the, like the border, the trim, I saw this like intricate carving of stone, like little mini stone spikes, kind of coming off. And I wish I got a picture, but, and I, oh my gosh, I forever. I forgot what the building is called, but I think it was next to the, uh, church just outside of Westminster Abbey.
And it was this, it was like the first parliament building or something like that, like where they used to keep all the files and some of the crown jewels, there was some, some, some history for sure, but, um, Like in and around, you could walk by, you know, this modern like building, and then you walk by, you know, like the, the , the bridge, and then you see awards and there's west Iowa, and there's a big way, you know, like you're immersed in the architecture of, of Harry Potter whenever, like almost wherever you go, because everywhere they have some preserved buildings, um, I think they're called like, Like grade a classified one preserved buildings.
And basically what that means is you cannot change the exterior or interior of the building. Um, so you ha you, you can't do any renovations. You have to leave it the same. And that that's just to preserve the history. There's a lot of that in bat, as well as a, which another place I saw. Um, a lot of the buildings are preserved completely because they wanna preserve the history, which is a very cool thing.
And I saw like these, like the, the serving quarters and the master quarters, which is kind of weird, but you know, it was, it was history and then, and the Roman bath and all that. But, um, actually speaking of bath, I saw the bath, Abby, which again, so much history. I encourage you to look everything up. Um, but to Beth a, I thought.
So much like Hogwarts, there was these, the, the front doors that were, I mean, almost identical. I mean, so, so you know how that, like the, the style of like, like multiple arches, you know? So, so there's like the doors that kind of are like a, like a, like in a half circle to kinda like really long half circle.
And then there's like the first arch and it's like the second one to throw it. Like they were. 20 arches over the store. It was like stretching up so far in the building. And I went inside that Abby, which was, I mean, awesome. I mean, every Abby I went into looked so cool and it was so old and I think. In maybe it was one of the ABIs, like one of the very first ABIs I visited.
Oh yes. It was in the, uh, south work Abbey, the south, that's hard to say south work. Um, but I think the borough market or, okay. It was buy and market, it was open to the public. It's called it's the, the, the, the south war AEY. Um, they were playing the organ in the south work. A, which was, I mean, awesome. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that I was walking through the halls of Hogwarts.
I mean, I am, I'm taking some creative license here. I'm imagining there's an organ in Hogwarts, but if I close mind, I can imagine I was walking through the quarter of Hogwarts, hearing the organ on a nice summer day. You know, the, this sun was beating down a nice cold glass of pumpkin juice in my hand. Um, so it was, it was a really magical place.
Um, all these, all these cathedrals and abbeys and old, like places preserved and all these amazing places in Oxford. I mean, every single building in Oxford is hundreds upon hundreds, even more than a thousand years old. Really, really, really cool places. Uh, and not sure that I saw. And, and like I said before, it is this, I mean, expanse, and it's also very jarring.
If you are in kind of the, the, the section that I walked through at one point where I got my lunch, I, you, you turned to the left and you saw this, like these shops, these. So many Harry Potter shops, I mean, telling you so many Harry Potter shops, and then you see like restaurants and like little, like little mini things.
And, and then you turn, and there's like hundreds of years of history in the university of Oxford. You know, it's like, it's this really jarring experience if you don't know what to expect. And I think. I do not know what to expect, but it was very drawing, but I, I got over it. Um, there were some really, really great, um, like recent stories actually.
Uh, some presidents of the United States actually visited Oxford to some, to some, uh, like the, uh, uh, a secret restaurant, almost like through a corridor, like, like through an alleyway. Uh, we didn't go down there, but , it was this like, like drag, I would say dragon nest now, some kind of like secret restaurant bar gambling place that, that a lot of people go to.
And so that was fun. There was, there was an Archway, like an arched bridge, which was, which was really cool. Um, that I, that I got a picture of, which was a very interesting part of the architecture. And there was just so much stuff to take in and there were people mulling around there and. Imagine like living there just seems like, I mean, not only a dream come true, but just a fairy tale because living in a place with so much history and so much old stuff is just, I mean, stunning.
It, it is just absolutely stunning to be immersed in all the different schools and buildings and just amazing things that Oxford has to offer. And there are like 38 schools, I think in Oxford, like you, you can't go to Oxford university. You, you, you have to go to, um, like, like, like one of the schools, which is a very interesting graduation process.
And like getting into Oxford is, is very complicated. Cuz there are a lot of different things you have to apply for and stuff like that. But, um, a, a lot of fun things I saw in Oxford that was, um, really awesome, but I mean, Harry Potter was there for sure. The spirit, the spirit was alive for sure. And I saw, um, so many, so many awesome things, but I think it is high time that we move on to the thing that I want you to talk about the I 20 minutes already.
Oh my gosh. I just said 20 minutes of my recording. I wanted to get this done in at least. Oh my, okay. Okay. We're moving on because this next thing is going to take a long lot more time. So let's move on to the Harry Potter studios. And now the thing you have all been waiting for the topic that is going to be the most fun to talk about the eighth wonder of the world, the Harry potters studio tour sound stage K sound stage day in Louiston, south.
East England. Yeah. Woo. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now finally, you're getting into this, this, the, the topic that I was planning to talk about far earlier, but somehow 20 minutes passed when I was trying to talk about the Oxford and Lakehawk. Um, but for good reason, so now we're moving on.
We are in the Harry Potter studios. And let me tell you this was. Awesome. If I was gonna choose one thing to see again, it would 100 bajillion, gazillion percent be this, because this was, I'd say the highest, well, I, yeah, the, the, the highest concentration of Harry Potter in the world, and there was so much here, there was so much like just to take in.
There was so much to see. There were so. Sets and costumes and original props and, and green screen effects and, uh, and models and doors and staircases and alleyways and co and sets. And I sang all this over and over again to see. I am shocked. I got through it in less than, I mean, six or seven hours, which I think four hours I had there.
So I had to make that count. I went through it and I mean, that was, I mean, top 10 experience of my of, of my life. For sure. So that's that that's going up there. This was, I mean, I am going to lead it up to you to, uh, come up with more descriptive words, but this was just phenomenal. This was the absolute highlight of my entire trip.
And I am definitely willing to go back. Uh, I'm not willing. I want to, I, I actively want to, I got back like not, not, not like a couple days ago and I'm already ready to fly out. So I am just, I was so thrilled to go here and let me tell you that my, my excitement was absolutely put in the right place, because this was fantastic bit of a disclaimer.
Before, before we get into this stuff, it is out of order. It is, I I'm excluding things because. I would get a lot longer to talk about it than just a couple more minutes in this show. So I think I'm gonna definitely this, this is gonna be a longer episode. Um, but I'm definitely not talking about everything I absolutely want to, but I'm not gonna do another like 20 part series like I did with the reviews of the secret done war.
So I think we are. I'm I'm just gonna cover the highlights. I'm gonna show you some of the, well talk about some of the things that I enjoyed the most, some of the absolute best parts, some of the AB absolute most interesting parts, uh, special effects, how they did stuff, how they made stuff, and just kind of in general, how this was all done.
So let's, uh, start from the us starch from the beginning and we are not going to stay at the beginning. Let me tell you about let's. Let's just start at, at the beginning. Basically, what are the Harry Potter studios? Well, the Harry Potter studios in Louiston are the, the original places where they filmed Harry Potter.
These are, I was walking in the great hall in the great hall. It's not a recreation. They, they didn't move this set. I was walking where the cameras were. I was walking where the characters, where I saw original props, I saw the original tables. Cups for, for crying out loud and plates and forks and everything.
The original headmasters chair, the, the table saw a Hagrid costume, snake, agonal, uh, qual flip Vic dumb door. And I mean the gray hall alone. So that that's, that's the first thing you, you see, um, you first enter and you go into this lobby area with the, uh, dragon in the house part one or two, um, that, that I used to.
Craig gots hanging from the ceiling, which is pretty cool. And then you start walking through and you start in this kind of, uh, like, like set of rooms that are showing like the different posters of Harry Potter and you see, um, kind of the, like the, the, the. Promotional posters and you see the original film, film things and stuff like that.
And you, you also see the cupboard under the stairs, which is the first original site. You see the cupboard under the stairs and the, the stairs, the, the, the stairs himself, which was, I mean, that, that was the first thing I could just see. Bet's hand opening the, like opening the thing, wrapping down the door.
I could see uncle Vernon and slamming, and I could see Harry sleeping in there. And when you got your turn to kinda walk. It was like, kinda like sneaking through the room. And when you got like, like the closest you would ever see, you could see the original thing. You could see the horse Harry had, you could see the, the, the light switch, you could see everything, which is awesome.
Then you, you move through the, uh, the, the kind of sneaking of rooms. You see all the. Um, some, some pictures and stuff like that. Then you get into this room where it has a bunch of like a, kind of like a screen, um, up on the, uh, like the upper part of the wall. And you watch this video kind of introducing this, the studios and James and Oliver Phelps are the ones who introduced to you, which was, uh, a very nice touch and.
Then you get a nice speech from the person who is kind of guiding your, your group for the first part. And then you get into this, uh, mini movie theater and you see kind of the, the introduction of the entire studio. And that is with, um, Emma, Rupert and Dan, they, they tell you the whole spiel of what to do.
And then I thought, which was a perfect introduction to this. Um, they were kind of, so, so. They were standing in front of the, uh, doors to the great hall and what they did was they were like, okay, great. Uh, we'll see you inside. They, they opened the doors and they walked through, uh, I think, uh, Ruper and M one first and the Dan came out and he was like, oh yeah, just like have fun, make sure.
But don't, don't touch anything. He went through the door. They close the door and then the coolest thing happened. I'm not gonna, well, I have to spoil it if you're going and you want the surprise skip 30 seconds, uh, right now. Okay. Now you're alone. But what happened was the screen rose up and the screen rose up in the ceiling and behind the screen was the door to the grade hall that they were just standing in front of and behind those doors.
Was the great hall. And they, they called someone up, uh, I think it was their birthday or something like that. And they opened the doors and we walked in and it was really cool. It was a really, really great entrance. The ceilings were, I mean, I mean, vaulted beyond belief, it was this huge ceiling and it, it was, it was, um, a, a flat ceiling.
I, I probably shouldn't have said vaulted. I meant high this, there was a very high ceiling. It was a very large room. Uh, unfortunately there was no magical sky. Think that might've been an effect, unfortunately, but it was, it was still a really great place to saw the windows, the, uh, bras with the fire.
Obviously there it, the, the, the real bras with real fire were not there. Uh, and that would've been dangerous, but the, the tables were there, the tables were there. The. Cups the, the, the goblets, the pitchers, the platters, and some original costumes too. We saw, uh, Cedric, uh, tri wizard costume there. We saw like, like I said before, all the professors, so that, I mean, the great hall alone was this, this, this amazing experience that I'm definitely happy that we saw first, because that was a great introduction.
And I think, yeah, I mean that, that, that was that that's all I can squeeze out of this great hall. Then we move on, you know, actually, you know what, I'm gonna do this in order. I'm gonna discard everything that I wrote down because. I wanna go and order here, it's gonna take a lot longer, but let's do it.
Okay. So we get out of the great hall and we go into this room kind of the, the, I, I will say kind of the main part of the first section of the tour and the main part, I mean, is. Pretty much the whole thing. It's, it's kind of this like sneaking way, I'm saying staking that so much, it's, it's pretty much this kind of winding path.
I mean, that's huge. It's this huge room that that's kind of lined with all the sets and all the, I mean, exhibits for lack of a better bird that we are going to be pretty much seeing throughout the entire tour. And they started off in this kind of, uh, little rotunda. Of kind of the, the, like the, the director's place.
And we saw some, some videos playing of Christopher Columbus and the some, some producers and, uh, David Haman talking about how they really loved working on the, the, the movies and all that kind of stuff. And then we, we move into kind of the, um, try wizard. Uh, section where we see, we see the, the baths that hair were used and we see the, uh, Madam max seams, costume and flares costume, I believe.
And Victor's costume and Victor. Yeah. I said Victor already. And car crops, costume, which was pretty cool. And then we see the owl. Stand that dumbed or used to talk, which was, I mean, that, that was cool. Cause that that's a pretty big part of the, um, of the entire series. And I, I saw the candle that he used to put out and, uh, restore when he said the quote.
Even if the Dr. Zis happines can be found, if one of the members would turn on the light. I am blew through that. Um, which I just am. I imagine saying that so much, that was funny. And then we, we move kind of further in here and we see that there is, uh, a, a, a staircase in front of us and the staircase is the one of the moving staircases of the whole thing.
I mean, really? So, so that there's. There's some great stuff there. And then we kind of get into the, the main part here that I'm not gonna go and order now anymore. I'm going to kind of, um, uh, move through it. As I wrote down. I know I am. I, I am I'm defecting back here. So let's start with the, let's do the green screens.
So this is in the second part of the tour. We are, uh, skipping this, uh, a bit of the place for now and the green screen. Was actually a very fun section. It was the second room in the second part. Ha. And basically what this was, was a, a representation of how they did some of these special effects and some of my favorite parts here.
Actually, I have, I have three that I, that I enjoyed wa one of them was a what I'd call the DBI track. So the DBI tracker was a camera and a screen, both three, I should say three cameras and three screens never set up. You would stand in like the, the, the era that it told you to, and then the camera would track your movements as you would move around.
And this, this kind of 3d model of DBI would also move around, which is cool to kind of see how, how they did it. And it wasn't accurate, but it was still cool that the camera just could like analyze your body and kind of see where you were going generally. And it. Definitely got at tracking motion, not, not really like fine motor function.
My hand was flipped around the wrong time, the entire time. Uh but that was, that was a very cool part. There's also, um, it was very, very small thing on the wall, but it, it was a, a kind of like a Dementor, um, exhibit pretty much. And it, it, it showed the. Outside of the Dementor with like call the cloth and all the black stuff and all the stuff like that.
And then it showed the underneath the shell that was a, uh, blue kind of, uh, form, uh, that was just a head and neck, a little like kind of di for the mouth and, uh, a rib cage pretty much. That was it. Um, but is pretty cool. That was another one of my favorite parts of the green screen. And then there was also a dragon head, which was the Dr.
The Hungarian htel head of the trio tournament, which is cool. There's a lot of trio here, and I think that's, that's what they used to kind of model the special effects on, which was another cool thing to say that, that, that was the original analyzed part of this and kind of moving on. Now, we are going to the.
Uh, last exhibit of the of the first section. So this is, I, I mean, Tim is less confusing. There were different, uh, kind of sections. Uh, there, there were two different section and there were different parts of each section. So this is the last part of the first section. And that is the Hogwarts express. This is the actual downstage that they use to, uh, show platform nine and three quarters.
The original, how, how works express was there. And we could go on, we could go on how express and there was steam coming out of it and everything. I saw the tracks, I saw every single thing. It was fascinating. Absolutely amazing. And we could go on, like I said, so you, you could, you kind of wait, wait in line, you go on.
And what the set design team did. Was they recreated a, a train car for each of the years. The first year there was Ken, not the second year. There was like books and quills and we saw scabs and, and one of them in the six, there was the L and R for Lader and Ron, the heart in, in the, the window kind of. Up and actually in the third one, it was cool.
We saw the frozen bottle of water and we saw a, uh, hand print of, of, we, we, we saw Rupert's hand print on the window, which, which I thought was cool. And you, you kinda moved through that and got off. And that was the kind of section. Now that was the Hogwarts expressible, which is really cool. I mean, it was it's, it's a, it's a real trade.
It's a real big train that is. I mean the, the real train, which, I mean, again, again, the Howard express, I cannot get over the fact that that is the actual Howard express that was used to film Harry Potter, which is, I mean, I cannot wrap my mind around that, but that is cool. That is amazing. And now I kind of wanna talk about the outside area.
It, the, in the middle of this. So actually this is right after the how's expressed you, you, you walk outta the room with the how's expressed and you come into this kind of cafe restaurant area. You can get butter beer, you can get food. I didn't need that. But I went out to the outside area, which is, uh, some more sets.
And there were a couple here that I definitely wanna touch on that were really, really cool. And so there was the burrow, it was a, a mini version of the bur. For kind of, I think it was like for, for CGI purposes, um, kind of like the model of Hogwarts I will get into later. Um, and there was, so the borough, there was the, the ninth bus, like the ninth bus and there was a section of the bridge that the, like the, um, bridge that Harry Lupin talk on this, the section of the bridge that the trio ne genian Luna meet on, uh, at the end of the order of the.
And I walked on it. You can walk on that bridge and you can also walk on the night bus. So, um, I, I walked in the night bus. I saw the bed to the chandelier. I went a bit up the stairs and you can kind of see the, the, the upstairs floor. Uh, so that was cool. And, uh, the bridge was really fun to walk on what I did.
I, I had to, I had to, I mean, okay, first of all, it's, it's surprisingly uneven. I mean, it is like warped and abandoned and all that kinda stuff. It's like, again, the, the original. So I had to, uh, do the, um, hairy and, and, and, and looping thing. So I kind of like, like lean out over the edge and it was really brooding and mysterious, you know, , which was fun because then I was like, I was part of that.
Um so that was really cool. And another one of the highlights was. For priv drive. So this was again, the house, this was four P drive. This one, actually, they, they did have to move, um, all this stuff outside. They had to move because they didn't just keep all this stuff outside. Um, so they, they, but they transported the house.
It was, it was just like, like a mile away. So like that they, they transported four and five P drive cause they were connected and you could, you could go inside for poor, poor period five. For perfect drive. Unfortunately, the upstairs area was blocked off, which was really disappointing cause I really wanted to see it.
Um, but you, you walked in the front door and you saw the stairs to your left were blocked off. You saw the cupboard under the stairs and there was the living area. The. So you, what, what you walked through was the greenhouse, the kitchen, the, you saw the dining room and the living room. And of course there was glassed off.
You couldn't go in. Um, but there were letters kind of hung on strings to kind of show all the, the letters kind of flying around in, in the living room. There were some original pictures, you know, like, like literal pictures, uh, frame pictures on, on the mantle piece. And in the dining room, it was the scene from the person of vascular band or Harry blows up on Marge.
And we saw the costume for, for, um, aunt Marge. She was kind of blowing up and going off the table, her the, she was grabbing the, the table cloth. We saw deadly's costume, uh, petunia and Vernon Vernon's costume. We walked through the kitchen. Winter was cool. We saw all the pots and pans. We saw the place where Harry put all the dishes and stuff, the windows, the, the.
Drapes everything. Oh, no, we didn't walk through the greenhouse. Sorry. We, we, we saw the greenhouse and we, we walked through the back door in the house and we got out and that, that was for drive that's that's the outside area, which was really cool. Uh, just to, to be in there, to be in for P drive. I mean, it was absolutely amazing, but again, the upstairs area, I really wanted to go to the upstairs area, but oh, so we did not get to, and now, again, moving on, we're going to the practical effects.
This is in the very first section, uh, the first room of the first section. And there are only two things in this. Well, actually technically three I'm I'm counting it as two though. They're two practical effects here. Um, one of them was the green guts cart. Again, they're they're, they're like, so. The, the Greeno cart that the trio wrote on the wheels were moving.
It was kind of like twisting up and down. It was going like that. So that was a, so a practical effect is pretty much an effect that is done with machines and stuff, not using, uh, computers. That was one of the special effects the wheels were turning. The cart was kind of moving. And the second one was the wing.
I saw the contraption. It was like, so they had the, the car, the, the blue car, and then the, the whoing Willow branch that pretty much was like, like a, like a, a, an, an arm. It was, it was on an arm, it was attached to this metal thing and it would kind of make like, come down and then it wouldn't touch the car, but it would be, it would some really close and the car would kind of.
Tilt back to kind of mimic the, the being hit part of it. And there there's a sound effect that played that is kind of, you know, adding to the effect, which was awesome. And then the third one that was, it was to make hacker look bigger. It was kind of in this like kind of like this table setup, the, the, the trio, which.
Sit farther back from Hagrid, farther away from the camera and Hagrid sit closer. So it would look like they were a lot smaller than him, which is a good camera trick, which was, which is really cool. So that was the practical effect section. Uh, and oh, actually there was also a, a letter box that was the, uh, letter box used to shoot the letter to the front door.
And, um, the, the worker there told us that, uh, the. Production designers actually made like, like hundreds of not hundreds thousand. Like I think it, it was like 10,000, uh, prints of the letter that Harry gets. And they basically loaded up in, into this like letter shooter that, that they used to sort letters in the post office, cranked it up to max and just sent it through the door for that effect.
And we saw a demonstration of it. I got a video. I'll be, be posting that too. And it was, I mean, another really, really cool thing to, just to. Uh, to get a peak behind the curtain, just, just to see how, how it was done. Um, and that, so that was the, uh, practical effect section. And that one too, the forbidden forest, this was kind of the, um, uh, transition point between Neha was express and the first section, well, like the first.
Uh, huge room of the first section and in the forbidden forest, there were some pretty, pretty cool things. So I'll, I'll kind of go through them. Um, so the, the first thing you see is a kind of a model of hair, a kind of the body model of Harry, and so wearing the original costume that had Daniel Rae was wearing as he went in, into.
Forest to get killed. We also see Voldemort's costume of that and we see Hari's costume, um, of the, all of which are in the death hollows. And then we walk a little further and we get to this place that has this kind of lever that says day and night, you can change the, the lighting. So it is either, either nighttime, you know, kind of bluish or daytime, which kind of like, like orange and.
And, uh, there's also a statue of forensic, which is pretty cool. And then you move farther in, and again, this is a bit of a, um, not a, uh, fun thing to hear about if you are, uh, not, uh, a fan of the Iraqs. So if you fewer spiders, just skip ahead maybe a minute or something like that, but then we get, okay. No like you, okay.
Moving on. So now we get into the spiders and we have the, the, um, like Aero, gogs kids kind of hang from the ceiling. And then like every so often, like musical play and lights will flash, you know, kind of like come down on the wires. It's really, really creepy. And also. You don't see it when you walk in, which is why it's so scary, but there is a model of a Gog behind you and it'll make a loud, like flash and music.
And there'll be like, like the, like the spider, like, like, you know, and a Gog will kind of stand up through a machine, like kinda like peer out you and like kind of like come out and move towards you. So, um, one of the people I was with, uh, does not like spiders. So when air got came out, they were gone, which was.
Kind of kind of funny. Uh, so moving on from the spiders, we get into this, uh, little statue of a, I think it was like a Scottish hound, something like that. Uh, the model that they used for the pet, Patrones what they did was they put the, uh, like a lot of light packs, like, uh, on, on the, on the, on the dog. And they would kind of.
Sends it out there and they would turn on the lights and you could do, you could turn on the lights. You could like kinda wave your hand in front of like a sensor. And it'll like, lights will flash go like B and then the music of the patronist will turn on, which is really cool to see how, how they did that.
There's actual little section on the, the trees cuz they were, this is, this is an actual. Like forbidden forest. This is the forbidden forest. Um, and all, and actually before the forbid forest, I forgot to mention there the, the, the, um, the, the gates, the gates, the hog horse, but the wing de bores, uh, which are pretty cool.
Um, so, uh, the, I mean, the, the forest is, there's just a section kind of carved out for you to walk through, but there are actual trees and. Bushes and mushrooms. Well, not real, but as in, you know, , they're, they are modeled after real trees and stuff, and you can see, you know, the trees and all the, all, all the plants and stuff.
And there's little section at the end, kind of talking about how the art department, uh, looked at real trees and modeled these ones after, um, like ones from different like forests around the world, just to make them really big and really scary and really ominous. Uh, uh, so that was cool. No, that, that was the forbidden forest.
And now moving right along from the forbidden forest, we have the. Concept art. Yes. The concept art. So again, now we are skipping ahead to the second section. This is the walkway from the it's. It's kinda hard to explain. So, so, so this is, this is the walkway from the, the, the model of something that'll get to later and something else.
Which I mean is, is, is, is pretty cool. But the concept art is this long haul of all the concept art that was used in the, um, the, the, the film, not like on screen, but it's is what the CGI artists used to create the different things. We saw a lot of really cool ones we saw. Dementors house sells Quidditch world cup stadium.
We saw the derm string boat. We saw the Bo bath bone carriage we saw a couple of hog Gores. We saw some of Harry, we saw some of the battle of hog Gores. We saw some of actually one that was really cool of Harry being held up. By a Voldemort's cloak in their battle at the very end of the deathly halls park two, when they're in kind of like the, the SkyBridge cow walks, uh, Voldemort kind of like levitate hair up and his cloak kind of gums out and like grabs him and like hair grab grabs hair and kind of brings him off the floor.
We saw some concept outta that, a lot of really cool things that was awesome. The content art, and I see you on the way out. There was a recreation of, uh, one of the set designers desks, which was cool. And it was like, there was like tea, the real tea in the cup. There was, uh, books everywhere. And there was like drawings and pencils, which was, uh, really cool.
That was a very fun section of this. And now I wanna talk a bit about two things that I saw that. Are among of my favorites. I'm gonna say actually, okay, now, now I'm gonna count down. I'm gonna count down my three favorite things that I saw. Uh, and they're all huge sets. I will say, cuz I mean obviously how can those not be your favorites and number three?
My third favorite thing that I saw. Um, was Dagon alley. So there was a, a section that was the Dagon alley. We saw the wi we saw wizard. we? My gosh. Okay. We saw Weasley wizard, wheezes. We saw Aders, um, a ton of stuff. We saw gr goods at the very end. And this is all scaled down scuff. This, this is just used for again, model filming.
Um, just for, you know, when Harry is like walking and then they have a cut tuba store, they could use this just to make it seem bigger. And it worked, I mean, it worked, they all, they all seem huge. Um, so that was really cool. And the lighting I thought was, was, um, uh, pretty, pretty cool. It was like all blue and stuff.
And. Oh, oh, yes, yes. I am remembering now in the 20th anniversary documentary, I think one of Dan's entry scenes is him walking through Dagon alley. So if, if you want to see Dagon alley, just look at that and you will, um, you will see, uh, which is, is, is, uh, pretty cool. Actually. I think they're sitting in the Griffindor common room, which I, which is another thing that I saw, um, the, you know, the Griffindor common room of.
That was pretty cool. Uh, the, the Dagan alley was definitely my third favorite thing that I saw, uh, enjoyed that very much. And now the second favorite thing I am, I am combining two sets into this because they are the same thing. Uh, the first, so it is, it is GRGE gets, and it is the original green gets hall that was actually used.
I. I am saying this over and over again. I am sorry if, if this is your pet peeve for this episode, I am saying the original side, because I just cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I was walking in the green gets hall. I was, I was seeing the Goins, the costumes of the goblins. I saw the chandeliers, I saw everything and , I took a funny video of the dude at the counter.
Um, uh, when, uh, Hagrid walked up, he was like, um, you know, They the, you know what, in involve 713 or, oh, oh no, I've got the line wrong. I, I, so in, in the video I went up to the Galvan. I said the, the, the, you know, what involves 713, but I think the line is the, the, you know, what involved, you know, which, so I'll be posting that video too on, at the bottom discussion on Instagram.
Uh, so that was fun. And it mean it was. It was, none of it was fake. It was all high ceiling. Um, except for the, the stone. It was not a real stone. Um, the, actually there was really cool video that was showing a, a bit later in the, the tour of how they made the, the marble columns. They pretty much dye huge pieces of paper and like washed them with like plaster and paint and like different kinds of stuff and kind of.
Glued them around these, um, like wooden columns to make them look real. And they, they look so real. If you knock on them, if you, if you feel them, they are very real, not, not stone, but they they're very solid obviously, cuz the building is standing up and I'm also in the, if you, you, you, you can't go there.
But if you, you kind of walk out of it, you can see around the partition and you can see. Stairs leading down to the vaults, um, which is actually another cool thing in the 20 year anniversary that I think, um, Helen bottom Carter and January Radcliff are, are kind of run running around. And so that is, that is another cool thing.
And kind of the, the second part of this green gets set was the, um, kind of dragon part of this. So if you walk a bit farther into the second section of the tour, you will get into this. That you can walk around in, but it is pretty much the remains of green gets after the dragon ruined it. So the columns are on the ground.
The goblins are sprawl, the tables and chairs are everywhere. The stands are, are like crumbled and they kind of a smoke coming out of it to kind of like mimic the, the, the dust of all the fallen columns. And there's a video playing of the dragon. And if you stay there for the, for the beginning, so first it's silent and then you're like, okay, this is.
And then you hear like a boom and then another boom, and then a boom, boom, boom. And the dragon bursts out of the floor like this, this is a video. So this is not real. The dragon burst out of the floor and it lands and you can like, feel vibration. The sound is so loud and the lights are like, like on the dragon it's it's like all like bright, like green and gray.
And you can see like it's all modeled and stuff like that. And the dragon sees. And it runs towards you. It's, it's like it's scary. And the dragon breathes fire and the lights like shoot red and orange and it's like flashing and all on all this stuff. And it was really cool. And then the dragon flapped swings and leaves and holding resets, it is, it is really stunning.
It is a really amazing piece of, of art really. Um, so that was my second favorite thing. And now. Favorite thing of the entire studio tour. This would be the last thing on the list. My throat is dying. If you cannot tell her talking this long, we're almost an hour, this is the longest episode of the pot of discussion we've ever had onto my absolute favorite part of the tour.
It was the model of Hogwarts and fortunately hog war. Doesn't really exist. So they had to find a way to make the castle feel real, to feel huge, to feel big. Really. So what they did was they created a model. Now I will say this model is GI Gtech. It almost took up the entire room and it is not big as big things go, but I could see the detail.
Every blade of grass was a. Like, like swipe of a toothpick. Um, every detail there was like the, the forbid floors, every tree, every, every leaf, there was little lines and every leaf and this thing was, I mean, I, I think my, I, I'm not gonna say anything cuz I think my, my memory might be, um, uh, expanding this spit, but I'm gonna say upwards of about 20 feet.
I mean 20 feet by about 20 feet. Pretty, pretty big. I mean the, the detail on this thing and of course the, the castle, there was um, every turret, every little window had a little light behind it. I saw the trees, the, the bridge. Um, the, the courtyard, the greenhouses, the, the divination tower, the astronomy tower, the everything, the Quidditch pitch, everything was so cool.
And the hour too, which is, uh, uh, fun touch the hour was, was right. There, it was like up on a hill, you could kind of see the path that was kind of, uh, like you could walk up, uh, across the bridge up a mountain and to the hour, which was, um, really cool. Um, and the lighting here was really cool. It was all blue and kind of like moody and mysterious and mystical and magical.
And it was just this really awesome experience to finally. See Hogwarts to finally see what you , what, what the whole thing is about. And I mean, especially combined with, with things like the grade hall, um, kind of comparing those two and getting a feel for how big Hogwarts is. I mean, Reading the books, you can only get a sense of really how, how large the castle is.
Um, but here you, you really know because the great hall, I mean, is, is the, the largest room there, um, of, of just one exhibit, of course, besides the, the, uh, the nine platform nine at three quarters. Um, and just seeing that, and then seeing the model of how it works and seeing how small the, the great hall is compared to the model is just.
I mean crazy just to see like the, the little, like the little, little cube of light that is, that is the great hall. And then remembering how large the great hall actually is. That was, I mean, just amazing. Amazing. So fortunately, that is all I got. I wish I could come on. I wish I could continue this series forever, but unfortunately we are an hour.
My gosh, we're nearing an hour. This is the longest episode of the Potter discussion we have ever had. And I know I did a season three highlight reel that I do know like a while ago. I'm gonna see if that was, uh, longer than, than what I did hear, because I mean, let me tell ya, this is, is, uh, pretty, pretty crazy because doing an hour long episode just feels like.
Almost like, like, like I'm doing something wrong. I'm like, I'm going too long. And yet I, I have it here. The season three highlight reel is only 40 minutes. Wow. I remember I seen, remember it being a lot longer than that. Um, so there you have it. This is the longest step episode of the pilot discussion ever.
And I, let me tell you, it's the one I enjoyed the most, for sure. Um, so thank you so much for sticking with me. If you're hearing this, uh, you must care a little bit about what I have to say. So for that, I am forever grateful to you. Um, if you are ever in, uh, London you're ever in it, or I should say around London, go there at Potter studio, you will not regret it.
It is, it is a bit expensive for us for a ticket. Um, but it is a hundred percent, a bajillion percent worth. It is beautiful to go in there. It is. It is the Harry Potter fans dream. So absolutely go to the Harry Potter studios. If you're in the UK. I know I have some friends in the UK, uh, make sure that you go there.
I know, um, it's, it's a, it's a bit of a Trek if you're not around there. Um, but if you are E. Even if you're not okay, I am, I am revising my advice no matter where you are in the world, go to the Harry Potter studio. I am not endorsed by them. This is not sponsored. Go to the Harry Potter studio, please.
It'll que my, my what are even saying anymore. It will make me so happy to know that I, I inspired someone else to go to the, the Harry Potter studio, which is, I. Again, the absolute best place I, I have ever been. I mean, top 10 experiences of my life, like I already said in the UK, I know, uh, it's a, it's a I'm most of my listeners are like a good portion of my listeners are from the UK.
So make sure you go and okay. I am going on way too long. I'm going way too long where I was an hour. I have to. Wrap this up. I just wanted to keep talking to do prolong this episode, but I think we have to, it is, it is time. Uh, if you have any questions or comments about this episode, if you wanna hear some more about the, the studio Micha, you sending me an email, me email is the pod of discussion, gmail.com.
That is the pod of discussion@gmail.com. And I, like I mentioned before, in this episode, if you wanna DM me. Um, I will be posting a lot of my pictures from the studio on Instagram and my Instagram is at the pod of discussion. We've got a cool link coming out again finally soon, uh, this Wednesday for listening, uh, in real time, do not worry cuz another cool Inc is just around the corner.
And when you sign up, you get the ultimate guide to wait. Perfect. Harry Potter marathon that gives you two Easter eggs from each film that now I know where they come from. Ah-ha uh, that to, to make your watch experience just that much better. Thank you for listening to this again, I am grateful that you've decided to spend your hour of your life again, hour.
That's really long, uh, an hour of your life with me. Uh, so I hope you enjoy this episode. And as always remember that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times. If one only remembers two turn on the light, I'm gonna drink a water and I'll see you later.
This Potter discussion.