Leavesden Film Studios, Hertfordshire (London)
Harry Potter Film Prop
circa 2004
This is a brilliant trompe-l’œil used in the third make of the Harry Potter Warner Bros. film series. It depicts one of the Leaky Cauldron’s corridors above the ground floor pub which, as one can see, shows a few of the doors that lead off into the separate lodges. Apart from the fact that this prop was crafted entirely by skilled hands from its start to finish, the additional fact that it is an illusion intended to fool the eye both on and off the screen adds to its marvel as a work of art.
In true form, when one stands at the widest end of this prop (its height being around that of an average human), one’s perception wavers strangely between the sense of realism taking place peripherally throughout the museum (from jabbing tourists to hyper-energetic children bobbing up and down all over) to the sense of surrealism radiating from this falsely-receding hallway that sits in one’s direct view. The height of the wooden chair at the far end of the corridor is, in truth, less than a metre. The portion of red carpet on which the miniature chair stands is also tiny - its width being no more than half of that which stretches forwards and outwards along the panelled corridor. Even the stucco- and wood-beamed ceiling shrinks according to how much space is put between the viewer and the farthest end of the hallway. Everything from the tussled, crooked carpet; the walls which seem to groan and shift with some mysterious force; and the dramatic lighting peering out from the left-hand space that no one is meant to truly see - all of these careful details are what crown this creation as not only a prop featured in the filmed version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but also as an eternal attestation of the different kind of magic that can resonate and be inspired from J.K. Rowling’s wonderful story. And to think that this piece saw only a few seconds’ worth of camera time throughout the entire set of eight films...
