Year 10 Warner Bros. Studio Tour

48 Year 10 GCSE Computer Science students had the exciting opportunity to attend the Warner Bros. Harry Potter studios on Tuesday 29^th November. The day began with a talk in the educational department where the role of a Foley artist was explained as someone who creates all the sound effects for films, and the students were then given the opportunity to re-create sounds to add to various Harry Potter film clips. The students were surprised to hear that some very simple tools, such as frozen celery, are often used to re-create the sound of breaking bones - who would have believed that? The technical work was also explained on how analogue sounds are recorded and manipulated digitally before being added back to the video track. Then the gossip! We were told of some of the work currently in post-production at the studio and some of the pieces that were actually being filmed that day were mentioned, however, the students were all sworn to secrecy!

After that it was on to the tour, exploring the history of the Harry Potter films and how technology had evolved a huge amount from when the first film was made to the last - a ten year span. We saw some of the evidence of this with the green screen work, animatronics of animals, such as Aragog the giant spider and the mask for Hagrid worn by Martin Bayfield and the digital creations such as flying galleons and Dobby the house elf. The studio staff were fantastic at being able to offer extra secrets and lots of our students were praised for their thoughtful and insightful questions.

Overall, it was a really exciting and interesting day and gave the students a real insight into the huge range of careers within the film industry from accountants to set designers to editors to programmers and graphic designers.