One of things I was most excited about at Universal was to get our magical moving pictures made at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It isn't one of the more widely known products that are available, but I've been wanting to do it ever since I saw my friend's video a couple of years ago.
Located in Diagon Alley, you can make an appointment or just walk in. Even though the parks were almost at capacity the day we were there, we only waited about 15 minutes for our turn. We were taken back into a studio, and then the shoot itself took about 10 minutes. While you get a preview immediately, they ask you to come back and pick up your finished disc about 30 minutes later.
Even the camera is decorated to look magical:
They provided robes for us to wear, but Max used his own wand; they'll offer you a wand to borrow too, if you need one, but didn't you buy an interactive wand already anyway? 😉
First we did a few posed green screen shots; casting a spell, and a lumos pose… we didn't choose to buy any of those pics, but they looked great if you're into that sort of thing.
Our photographer, Taylor, did a great job of directing us and Max to get really great shots and she helped up our acting game for the moving pictures too.
You really need to just let go and be silly with this; we found that it helped to make noise while we were going, as you'll hear in the video below. Taylor was giving us instructions, and we were laughing and playing along as we did the indicated motions.
Check out some of the before and after magic, as well as our whole finished video, below:
