WB Studio Tour Hosts “Meet the Animal Actors”
Hosted in time for the Half Term holidays, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter recently ran a week-long event, offering visitors the chance to meet the animal stars of the Potter films.
For those on Twitter this Sunday, you will have noticed that MuggleNet was, once again, on hand to report on the events of Animal Week. From watching kitten training to being snuck into the Gryffindor Common Room to meet Mrs Norris, the whole event was a blast and as magical as our first trip there. The animals on show covered almost all the non-magical bases from Scabbers the rat and Trevor the toad in the aforementioned Common Room, to an incredibly lazy Fang dog and a keen to please Crookshanks showing off some routines outside Hagrid’s Hut.
Yet more secrets were revealed as various staff were able to talk you through how they turned Sirius’s owl black using specialist dye from China, the process of training owls to pick up parcels, and revealing the metal contraption that a tiny eleven year old Daniel Radcliffe had to hide under his robes to help support the weight of Hedwig.
Over by Umbridge’s office, trainers were walking the Twitter Litter through shooting the images for Professor Umbridge’s infamous cat plates.
Easily the best photo opportunity of the day was with a snowy owl sat atop the Privet Drive sign and, after a brief walk through the making of the magical animals, even more owls were perched outside Eeylops Owl Emporium in Diagon Alley.
Yet again the Studio Tour proved that the magic of these films wasn’t just the original story but the exceptional team of people working behind the scenes in every field imaginable. Each special event held by the Studio enables a particular team to show off and reveal their expertise, which all the animal trainers present on Sunday, led by Julie Tottman, certainly did. We can only look forward to what they have in store for the next event!
What special feature would like see the Studio Tour host next time? Would it entice you to go again? Or perhaps to attend for the first time? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
