The opening of the WB Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter at Leavesden Studios is now less than a month away. Those with tickets to the tour will be extremely excited to see these new pictures and video released by Warner Brothers today, which show the beautiful scale model of Hogwarts used throughout the whole Harry Potter series, and visitors to the attraction will be able view this with their own eyes.
Even if you are not fortunate enough to be able to make it the Tour, we’re sure you’ll love these pictures no less.
As we’ve heard before, Leavesden Studios has had a big refurbishment which meant the sets had to be dismantled into smaller chunks, put into storage, and then put back together again ready for the tour. The time-lapse video below shows them putting the pieces of Hogwarts back together:
They revealed some fascinating information in this press release, via Mugglenet:
The Hogwarts castle model is the jewel of the Art Department and was built for the first film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone™. It took 86 artists and crew members to construct the first version which was then rebuilt and altered many times over for the next seven films. The work was so extensive that if one was to add all the man hours that have gone into building and reworking the model, it would come to over 74 years. The model, which sits at nearly 50 feet in diameter, has over 2,500 fibre optic lights that simulate lanterns and torches and even gave the illusion of students passing through hallways in the films. To show off the lighting to full effect a day-to-night cycle will take place every 4 minutes so visitors to the Tour can experience its full beauty.
An amazing amount of detail went into the making of the model: all the doors are hinged, real plants are used for landscaping and miniature birds are housed in the Owlery. To make the model appear even more realistic, artists rebuilt miniature versions of courtyards from Alnwick Castle and Durham Cathedral, where scenes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone™ were shot.
You can click on each of the images below to get to our gallery, where high resolution versions are available:
Stuart Craig - Production Designer
Stuart Craig - Production Designer
