Review - Harry Potter: Page to Screen

Hey guys,

I recently got very lucky and was able to get my hands on the Harry Potter: Page to Screen book. I had been lusting after this book for a long long time but couldn't justify spending over €70 on a book (plus my mam would have killed me for spending that kind of money on it). Luckily, I had been scrolling through Donedeal (which is an Irish website selling secondhand goods) when I came across this book. It was less than half the price of a brand new copy but had barely been read. I knew I had to have it.

I'm currently still in the process of reading the book from cover to cover but I'm almost finished so I'm sure I can give a pretty accurate review. I have one word. Fantastic. This book is so much better than I had expected. It has such in depth descriptions of the making of all the movies, the sets and characters. There are so many interesting things that I love finding out too. I hadn't realised that Daniel Radcliffe had to do six months of a scuba diving course in order to film the second task in the Goblet of Fire. It really shows the amount of work that the actors put in to their films.

One thing that I found so interesting was the fact that their were two Hagrids! Yes I know I was surprised too. The actor chosen to play Hagrid in the films was Robbie Coltrane but he wasn't as tall as the Hagrid from the books so another actor was brought in. This was Martin Bayfield who was almost 7' tall. He wore a prosthetic head and a body in order to give Hagrid his appearance as described in the book. I love finding out different facts about the films.

The book is split into two main parts. The first is the Making of Harry Potter which discusses the making of all eight films. This takes up about a third of the book. The next part is The Art of Harry Potter which discusses characters, location, creatures and artifacts.

The main thing about this book is that it shows you all the small details that really tied all the movies together and connected with the books. This book is definitely not a book to read while travelling because it is the heaviest book ever. It reminds me of one of the books that you would see Hermione reading for some "light reading".

These are probably my favourite illustrations

The illustrations in this book are absolutely fantastic. So much work has gone in to the production of these films and you really see that in this book. There are even architects drawings of the Hogwarts castle. The photographs and drawings really add to this book and the colours are so beautiful.

I would recommend this book to anyone with a huge interest in Harry Potter - there's a lot of reading so if you don't love Harry Potter, I would advise you not to buy it.

What's your favourite Harry Potter book or film?