Starting when Sam and Andrew were 8 and 6 years old, we read the entire Harry Potter series aloud to them. This followed in a tradition as Christine and I read the series out loud to each other on long road trips before the boys were born. Before we left San Diego, we started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to Thomas and Adam - then ages 7 and 5. We knew we were going to visit the Warner Brother's Harry Potter Studio outside of London, so we wanted the youngers to know enough of the story to appreciate the tour. The plan worked - all four of our boys were excited for the opportunity.
Doesn't this look like a movie poster?
and how the picture above was taken!
You hear about movies having million dollar budgets - Sorcerer's Stone cost 125 million and each Deathly Hallows ran 250 million - but it is hard to understand how this amount of money can be spent. After visiting this studio, you can see the extent of the work that was done and how many people had to work to make the final product.
They actually made 38000 rubberized pieces of treasure for one scene. Incredible! And so many scenes were built for filming - the Dursley House, Diagon Alley, Hogwarts Great Hall, the Forbidden Forest, Platform 9 ¾, the Knight Bus, and so much more. You could easily revisit this over and over and discover new things each time.
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| Our Goblins and Theirs |
One of the most impressive parts of the tour was their model of Hogwarts. According to the docents, this model was used for all exterior shots of Hogwarts in the movies and CGI was added on top of the actual film. It took a crew of 70 people 8 months (or so) to build it! And because the filming was so delicate - having to be done in very slow motion to match to movie apparently - they had to move the model away from an underground train tunnel because the vibrations of the train caused havok with the movie taking. Such an amazing visit!
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