Harry Potter Wand Illusions

We’ve been a bit behind lately with our EveryChusDay videos this month due to other projects and the end-of-year school exams… but last weekend we all needed a comic relief break and managed to pull together a fun Harry Potter special effects sketch just in time for Halloween!

Both girls absolutely love the Harry Potter series, and we had planned several Potter-related activities for our summer holiday back in the UK this year. So they were bitterly disappointed when all that was shelved during the pandemic travel bans. However, we have quite a few HP props and costumes around the house (Miss Chu had a pretty epic HP-themed birthday party a couple of years ago) so we dusted it all off and put it to good use for some DIY illusion videos, including a behind-the-scenes explanation to show how we pulled it off. 

Chroma-keying is one of the main techniques moviemakers use to create special effects, and although we certainly don’t have enough space or lighting gear at home for a professional studio, we’ve been experimenting with green screen for a while and gradually getting better at working within the limitations of our DIY setup. 

We’ve got a couple more fun ideas for this series but for now the kids have to hit the books again for one more week before their final exams are over for the year. Too bad they don’t have a spell to sort that out!

Meanwhile enjoy the video…