Category Archives: WB Studio Tour

Vanity Fair looks at Stuart Craig’s production design on Harry Potter films

Ahead of next week’s Oscars, Vanity Fair has been publishing a series of articles examining the ‘most visually enticing’ nominees. This week they looked at Stuart Craig’s fantastic work with the production design for the Harry Potter series, and spoke to him about the Hogwarts exterior, the Room of Requirement, Gringotts, Diagon Alley, the Boathouse for Snape’s death and more. You can read some excerpts below or read the whole thing at this link.

“In the early days, every time you saw the exterior of Hogwarts, it was a big miniature, a physical miniature,” Craig says. “In the final film, for the battle, our first miniature was scanned and that became the basis of a new digital model. It was retextured in fantastic detail so that the camera could get into it much, much closer.”

“The consequence of filming real locations was that we were obliged to incorporate the locations into the model of Hogwarts. Often real places are disappointing. They’re not of your choosing. So, the skyline of Hogwarts was not as I would have wished in the early films, and I really did care about that—I was struggling with that,” he says. “As time went on and the books required a new space that we’d never seen before, like the Astronomy Tower that Dumbledore dies from, then I would grab that opportunity with both hands to change and improve the skyline of Hogwarts. I felt happy about it in the end, and most happy about it in its ruined state, actually.” Get the whole story »

New pictures reveal more sets/props to be included in the HP Studio Tour, including the Knight Bus

Some great new pictures have hit the web today that give further clues as to what will be included in the WB Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter, the amazing new attraction opening at the end of March at Leavesden Studios, where all the Harry Potter films were made. The photos show parts of Privet Drive, what looks like the Potters’ house in Godric’s Hollow, part of the Hogwarts bridge and the Knight Bus. Here is a statement from Warner Bros. via Magical-Menagerie:

The iconic, triple decker Knight Bus today rolls into Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter, which opens 31st March 2012. Taking its place among the many authentic sets, props and costumes from the eight Harry Potter films, the Knight Bus debuted in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban™ and was one of the most complicated pieces to create in the production.

John Richardson, Special Effects Supervisor, said: ”The Knight Bus was not a CGI Creation as many people thought but in fact a real-life working bus. It was constructed by cutting up two iconic Routemaster buses, reworking the structure and bolting it all back together to provide one bus with three decks. One interesting challenge that arose during the shooting of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was that we could not drive the vehicle across London due to the number of low bridges in and around the capital.  This meant that we had to transport the bus in two pieces between locations and put it back together as required for filming.”

Get the whole story »

Tom Felton to voice HP Studio Tour Digital Guide

The Warner Bros. Studio Tour : The Making of Harry Potter studio tour is opening in March in London and we just learned from hypable.com that Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy, will be the voice of the digital guide you can purchase on the tour!

The Studio Tour’s official website describes the digital guide as this:

Our handheld audio-visual guides bring the Studio Tour to life in a completely new way. It contains fascinating facts about the sets, costumes and props, as well as newly produced interviews with filmmakers and never before seen behind-the-scenes footage. It is available in eight languages and can be pre-booked with your tickets. This is available to hire for just 4.95 pounds.

Currently we are unsure if Felton is the only actor on the Digital Guide or if others will join him.