May 4th 2018
A Magical Day Out
Year 4 visited the Harry Potter Studios on Tuesday. Our English topic this term is ‘Creating Imaginary Worlds’ and the trip certainly inspired the boys to use their imaginations. It gave them a fantastic insight into the world of set design and film production and they learnt how the impossible can be made possible by the use of a ‘green screen’ technology.
We started by watching a film about the making of the Harry Potter, which finished with Harry, Ron and Hermione walking through the doors to the Great Hall. Suddenly the screen itself lifted up and there were the actual doors to the Great Hall! At the Studios this summer, the theme is ‘The Goblet of Fire’ so in the Great Hall we saw the actual Goblet of Fire and it spat out a piece of burnt parchment on it for someone to catch – pretty cool!
In the main area of the Studios we saw the Griffyndor dormitory, including Harry’s bed; the Potions Dungeons; the flying Ford Anglia and we learnt how they filmed those scenes with a real car. You could ride a broom in front of a ‘green screen’ so that it looked like you were playing Quidditch. We also saw the Hogwart’s Express and got to go inside the carriages.
We then went outside where we saw the iconic crooked bridge, as well as Privet Drive, where we could go inside the Dursley’s house.
There were also rooms full of Basilisk skeletons, dragon heads, werewolf masks and suits; don’t forget Buckbeak! We saw the Knight Bus, Hagrid’s motorbike, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid’s hut, the Tri Wizard Cup, the Philosopher’s Stone, Neville’s Rememberal and the Golden Egg. There was even a room where all the castles and buildings were designed!
Two of the best bits were seeing Diagon Alley with all the shops, including Olivanders Wand Makers and there was a death eater standing creepily down a side alley. The other top notch moment was walking around a corner and seeing a giant model of Hogwarts Castle. The filmmakers used this model to film the sweeping aerial shots, like Harry flying away from the Dragon in the 4th film.
It really was magical and we felt as if we had entered Hogwarts for the day.
