I’ve found a routine that brings me to some semblance of functioning as a normal human being. 400mg Ibuprofen, 1000mg Tylenol, and 30mg Codeine 3 times a day, though I offset them a bit so that I’m always on some kind of pain reliever. If I take the tylenol/codeine right before bed I can actually fall asleep! I also roll out my back on a foam roller twice a day which is beginning to show signs of longer term improvement. Despite all this, I still go most of the day as if I’m walking through a swimming pool.
Robin’s family has come to visit and we went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour and the new Harry Potter play. It’s interesting to see in Harry Potter a combination of a story about magic and a cultural force that for all I know has actual magic behind it with such a large influence on so many people. The sheer number of people and scale of the undertaking necessary to bring the books to life in movie form is unbelievable.
The Studio has many of the sets from the movies still intact and thousands if not millions of props all over the place. The sets are filled with props, small details all over the place. Things that you almost certainly can’t see in the movies. In the dormitory rooms there are wizarding comic books strewn about. Hundreds of potions around in the classrooms. So much detail. I was wondering why all the sets needed to be so elaborate, to have so much detail, and then the tour answered my question. Filling the sets with tons of detail allows the directors and cameramen to shoot the scene from any angle without needing to worry about whether the set will look interesting from that angle. By putting in the extra work in set design, it gives them so much more freedom to find just the right shot when filming.
Throughout the tour I kept thinking about how much fun it would be to work on these things. To imagine other, magical worlds and to bring them into being. I yearn to create art. This is something I’ll prioritize when I return from my travels. Art is a form of magic.
I think for the rest of this post, I’ll just let these pictures speak for themselves:
Edit: Will update with better quality photos when I have a better internet connection
