The Props
The Props
Experience and witness the unforgettable props used during the filming of the movie that shaped most of our childhoods. You might spot some of your favorite props while on a Harry Potter Studio Tour.
Delores Umbridge’s Office
There might be few people who can truthfully answer that they don’t hate Professor Umbridge equally or even more than Voldemort. Her pink disaster of an office in the Ministry of Magic included her collection of plates portraying various moving kittens, which received a lot of attention to detail. For the office, almost 130 plates were developed, which required filmmakers to photograph and film real cats wearing crystal balls, witches’ hats, and balls of wool.
The Potions’ Classroom
Professor Snape’s domain was a most dreaded part of Harry’s Hogwarts years, and the classroom depicted the dour mood and aesthetic of the character. A great deal of detail and effort went into creating the classroom probs including over 950 potion jars lining the walls, each containing a different item, such as baked animal bones from a butcher shop, dried leaves and herbs, and shrunken heads created by the props department. MinaLima, the graphic design pair, created each jar’s label by hand.
The Memory Cabinet
Headmaster Dumbledore’s office was a truly fascinating set to be witnessed on-screen but the memory cabinet was especially memorable and integral to the movie. For the cabinet in Professor Dumbledore’s office, about 900 memory vials and labels were created and the Graphics department created each label by hand before sending it to the Props crew, who applied it to each bottle. Characters such as Argus Filch, and Professor McGonagall appear in some of the memories in the cabinet.
The Puking Pastilles
Anybody that has watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will remember the eye-catching Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes which sold everything from Extendable Ears to fireworks, was built to look like an 18th-century storefront and took more than three months to complete, with much of that time devoted creating the 20-foot mannequin above the main entrance.
Concept artists created 120 various products, each with a homage to Fred and George’s cheeky sense of humor. Head Propmaker Pierre Bohanna devised the Puking Pastilles dispenser, which can be seen at the Harry Potter Studio Tour, to be both funny and unpleasant at the same time.