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New Set Report from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

A new report from the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set has been posted over at the Leaky Lounge. Read more for some excerpts.

Hagrid's hut was a short bus ride away, it had been burned, even saw Hagrid's pumpkin patch though there were no pumpkins. They filmed it burning with a load of cameras (I forget how many they said) because they only got one chance to film it burn. A lot of the outdoor sets have camouflage nets around them. This is because the neighbours complained that the light was reflecting off them and that they were ugly.

I saw The Burrow both the inside and outside sets; the outside set had been burnt out in a Death Eater attack. The inside of The Burrow was amazing, the attention to detail. I climbed up the stairs to Ron's room, the bedrooms aren't there but the corridors have doors coming off them with pictures and ornaments. One of the doors had a picture of mushroom on it. Downstairs there were two clocks, one with the whole family's names on and scissors for hands, the other was smaller with a list of jobs to do. There were even postcards to Ron on the bookcase, howlers (or just letters like paper aeroplanes), a wizarding newspaper on a coffee table and children's painting of magical creatures framed on the walls. The guy showing us around said that it was the hardest set to build because nothing was straight or regular sized.

We walked around Diagon Alley. Ollivanders had been destroyed, all the windows were smashed and it was trashed. The shops had complete interiors in case the camera caught a glimpse inside by accident. Quality Quidditch supplies had a Quidditch equipment display, uniforms on dummies and drawers full of clothing. Florean Fortescue's had fake ice cream sundaes lining the walls on shelves. Florish and Blotts had hundreds of books inside the doorway piled up and on shelves. The large books in the windows are actually Watford phone directories covered!

But WWW stood out in bright orange with a curved front door. It was the most wonderful place. It was like every dream you had as a kid. There were skiving snack boxes, puking pastels, U-no-poo, sweets from floor to ceiling. It had a set of stairs winding up the middle and was three floors high. The detail was amazing; the shelves were crooked with brightly coloured goods on every surface. It was truly breath taking. At the end of our tour we watched them filming a scene there. When you see the scene where Fred and George are talking to Ron on the stairs, he asks how much for an item, they say '5 galleons', Ron says 'but I'm your brother' and they say '10 galleons'. Well I am standing behind the stairs (out of sight) by the door! It took eight takes just for that few seconds and I was told they only complete 2 minutes of film a day.

We saw Knockturn Alley but the lights weren't on so it was by torch light! Saw Borgin and Burkes that way. The vanishing cabinet was in the centre, it was dark wood with a slanted roof. There were lots of skulls and creepy looking objects – even creepier due to the lack of lighting. There were wanted posters on the alley walls for Bellatrix and the Carrows.

We were taken to the tank where all the underwater scenes are filmed. We went downstairs and there was a large window looking into the tank. It is the deepest tank in Europe and the smell of chlorine stung my eyes. The water was bath temperature and there were scaffolding towers inside the tank. Next to it there were a row of wetsuits and breathing apparatus. The scenes in the cave with Dumbledore and Harry were filmed here.

We couldn't get into moaning Myrtle's bathroom because it was locked. They filmed the Sectumsempra scene there last week. They told me Tom had to lie in the fake blood and water for hours. He had a prosthetic chest on which pumped out fake blood and for each new take he had to get cleaned up and dry his hair before starting again. There are some pictures floating about of the scene and they look like Tom is lying dead in a pool of blood, very freaky for his friends to see!

Well, it looks like they ARE having the Sectumsempra scene, but just not with Moaning Myrtle.