The wonderful and magical world of Harry Potter has captivated audiences of all ages since the books, movies and the fantastic merchandise were contrived from the imagination of JK Rowling. Worldwide Harry Potter stores, theme parks, exhibitions and musicals draw millions of people each day. But the one place to definitely explore is the Warner Bros studios in England to see the MAKING OF HARRY POTTER.
( spoiler alert to all those who are die hard fans). Obviously for me, no trip is complete without going to the studios, being a diehard fan and all. So off we went taking the London underground, the overground British rail and even a bus to come to the origin of the movies. The holy grail of movie magic.
We saw the sets where all the actors were filmed, the history of how the actors grew up while filming when they were just little kids. We saw the costume designs, the movie tricks of how magic was made into reality on the big screen and make the reality into magic in our hearts and minds.
We wowed at the intricacies of the masks, and the hard work to create the designs of all the props was quite evident. The magic was blown apart. My son who still has not seen the last 2 movies actually got a little upset as he turned to me and said “ well this is a horrible trip, I have not seen the remaining movies and this just ruined it for me”.
The giant spiders had to look realistic so they used coconut hair to depict the fine hair like structures. A green screen was used quite commonly to illustrate the characters flying. A tennis ball on a stick was Dobi the house elf, the rest was all CGI. Bah humbug ! Yet the human ingenuity to create these illusions were jaw dropping.
That is what got me thinking, as many of these experiences usually do. Each day we wake up and “live our lives” and then return back to bed and goto sleep, perhaps dreaming too. What which reality is real? The one that we wake up after dying or the one that we are in now? When we break the mindsets, doubts and the fears we break down the reality of our lives and realize the perceptions that held the illusion together so tightly. Just like in the making of the movie the world, the universe is nothing more than an elaborate collection of props made from quantum particles. Nothing is real.
Our bodies, as much as we are attached to them, are just a collection of cells, performing various programmable duties, akin to the robotic Hagrid. When we see past the concepts that we have created in our minds we are able to observe the mechanisms of a complex movie being projected on the big screen where we are the actors, directors, producers, stage hands, composers and audiences.
On the flight home, I scrolled through the inflight entertainment, and I came across Aqua man, the lost Kingdom that was being displayed. A few minutes of watching the movie, I aborted it, not because of it being a bad movie or anything, but because my mind was instantly able to pick out the tricks that creators were using to make the illusion. I could clearly identify what was CGI and what was fake acting.
An awakened mind cannot go back to sleep. Once the magic trick has been known the illusion is given up. Same with life. Yet it takes practice, and the willingness to understand the puppet masters and not be the puppet. Once we see the strings and those that hold them, there is no going back, whether in the fantasy of movies or the nightmares of reality.
Stay awake.
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I love you
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