The magic behind the scenes of the universal Harry Potter Show

^{Additional reporting by Caroline Reid}

Anyone who has visited the Universal Theme Parks in Orlando will wonder at some point if witchcraft was actually used to create what they saw. From roller coaster seats that seem to float to a full-size replica of a London street, parks often leave adults speechless than their children. They keep the best until the end.

Theme parks are famous for their nightly shows. Typically featuring fountains and fireworks synchronized to a moving score, they are designed to be so spectacular that they keep guests in the parks until the end of the day and convince them to come back for a rehearsal.

Theme park operators have tried to outdo themselves by adding more fountains, lasers and even fireworks that explode into elaborate shapes. It created a more extravagant but not fundamentally different experience. Until recently.

< position="inread" progressive=""/>

In the past decade, parks have been the first to use screenings in their nightly shows, and this has been game-changing. Some shows already included projections on fountains that spread out in a fine mist, but this gives a weak image with a narrow viewing angle. It has been transformed by two breakthroughs.

The first was the development of high-resolution projectors that can broadcast bright, crystal-clear images over long distances.

The second was projection mapping, a technique that ensures that images are not distorted when projected onto uneven structures. This has been refined over time to produce images that appear to wrap around the surfaces on which they are projected so that they appear to be part of it. Universal uses it to cast a powerful spell.

The centerpiece of Orlando's Universals Islands of Adventure Park is a recreation of Hogwarts, the Harry Potter film village that looks like a scene from a Christmas card. The steep roofs of his chalets are covered with artificial snow and the windows are filled with moving models of the colorful creatures from the movies. The shops are behind the facades and the items for sale inside are even in keeping with the theme.

In Honeydukes sweet emporium you can buy specialties such as Chocolate Frogs and Fizzing Whizzbees while the Owl post office comes with its own stamps. The biggest draw is Ollivanders where, using a few special effects, children are selected by a magic wand (and usually end up buying a model). As we pointed out, this attention to detail is part of a magic formula that has cemented the position of Universals as the theme park's powerhouse.

Towering over Hogsmeade is an ultra-realistic replica of Harry alma mater, Hogwarts Castle, which actually houses a high-tech roller coaster hybrid and a simulator. Universal designers use all the tricks in their spell books to make Hogwarts look like it is hovering above the ground.

The dimensions get narrower closer to its turrets, so the windows at the top are only a fraction of the height of the ones below. It is an old theater trick called forced perspective and it is designed to make the castle appear taller than it really is. The only thing missing is the sight of the students in the caster windows, but the guests who stay until the end of the day receive this as a reward.

On certain nights, the rising structure is the backdrop to The Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle, a sound and light show that seems to give the building the hustle and bustle it has in the movies.

Attached to John Williams' sweeping score, the show presents the four Hogwarts houses – Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin to guests. Projections suggest that their shields are carved into the walls while magic bolts surround the castle. The windows shine and the rays of light seem to come out thanks to strangely convincing projections. It's hard to tell the difference between them and the real spotlights that shine in the sky behind the castle while the lanterns and string lights in the surrounding trees sparkle to the beat of the music.

The crescendo occurs when the projections seem to make the side of the tower transparent revealing the students climbing its famous staircase. Owls then seem to swarm around the turrets before the castle is covered with a golden glow at the end of the show.

A special version of it plays during the holiday season and is even more spellbinding. It uses projections to give the impression that the castle is in the middle of a snowstorm with white things that even accumulate on the windowsills. The images are so sharp that the snow piles look like molded pieces until they magically disappear when fairies throw garlands at the castle.

At one point, banners appear to spread over the rafters before Hogwarts turns into ice, giving guests a look at the students inside dancing during the Christmas ball. During the final, the students cast a spell on the castle to cover it with colored Christmas paper with glittering bows. It takes more than the wave of a magic wand to remove it.

Multiple projections from multiple areas bring the castle architecture to life and transform it into these scenes, says Deborah Buynak, vice president of entertainment at Universal Orlando. The development of the Christmas show took about a year to decide what we wanted to do to get it out.

There were around 75 people in the core team, which includes designers, screenwriters, producers, directors and technicians. We started by extracting the Harry Potter books and movies, so we worked closely with (author JK Rowlings) The Blair Partnership and Warner Bros. Once we had released the stories we wanted to bring to life to our guests, our writers started writing the show and it helped us choose the visuals and the music.

Universal made no compromises as new arrangements of the scary Williams score were recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra in the world-famous Abbey Road studios. Sometimes the visuals drove the pieces of music we wanted to find and sometimes the music drove what we wanted the scenes to be, says Buynak.

We did not need to film scenes for this because all the images are digital. We start with drawings and this goes to previs which is an approximate animation of the scenes. Its all digital 3D now rather than using physical models.

She adds that the most difficult aspect to develop is to adapt the visuals to the architecture of the castle because you have the turrets, the towers, the bridge and the various scales that go with it. It is not deformed at any angle. We have guests watching closely, we have guests standing near the back to go to Hogsmeade, so we need to make sure the visuals are perfect from all angles.

These are the guests who truly believe that they are in the Hogwarts courtyard watching what is going on in the castle. We make your eye and your brain believe that you see inside the castle and that is what makes it magical. You are made to believe that the castle opens and you see the students dancing inside.

Although the show is digitally designed, Buynak says the only way to be sure the end result looks correct is to see it in person. There is an aspect of trial and error, to try it out on the spot and get it right. There are many long nights where we spent in this courtyard to make sure it was absolutely

perfect. This is where experience is essential.

Buynak is one of the most respected figures in the themed entertainment industry and has earned this distinction over a career spanning almost three decades.

I have been here for 27 years. When I graduated from the University of Florida, Universal Orlando had been open for about a year and a half, so I thought I would walk in and kick my door. For 12 years, I progressed in the attraction group and I was assigned to the opening of teams, including Islands of Adventure, because I have participated in the opening of all attractions in 1999.

Then I got a call from nowhere asking if I wanted to help with the entertainment. I had worked a lot with the people there to create the Halloween Horror Nights program, as well as the Macys and Mardi Gras parades, so I had a relationship with the animation team. I have been there now for about 15 years and am responsible for all live entertainment on the property of the three parks and Citywalk. I really make sure that our writers, producers and operating crew have all the resources they need to bring entertainment to life.

As we noted, the Universals Volcano Bay water theme park is just as immersive as its two theme parks, but there is no nightly show. Universal Studios Park does it and it has all the bells and whistles.

When the lights go out for Universal Orlandos Cinematic Celebration, patrons find themselves watching an empty lagoon in the middle of the park. Then suddenly, rows of multicolored fountains come to life. Some unfurl in fog screens that rise up to 107 meters high and show scenes from classic Universal films.

The 20-minute experience is like watching one of the widest cinema screens in the world as the fountains extend over a 120-meter stretch of water. Universal makes full use of it when Fast & Furious cars pass through them and blue fountains launch into the air when a dinosaur crashes into water in a Jurassic World scene. This is just the start.

The images even seem to have depth because they are diffused on several layers of fountains as well as on the buildings of the theme park behind the lagoon. The projection map gives the impression that they have the same Hogwarts stained glass windows during the Potter scenes and turns them into a sci-fi fortress that seems to explode and collapse when images of Transformers are displayed on the fountains.

There are a lot of different elements. These are not just projections. We said lets make projections, fountains and special effects. We just decided to continue adding items here, so it probably took almost two years between thinking and installing, says Buynak.

To ensure that each spectator sees the show from the optimal angle, Universal has built a dedicated observation area in front of the lagoon. He enchanted the main theme park writers of Orlandos with Simon and Susan Veness saying that the show is a real cinematic show while the industry bible Attractions Magazine describes it as an epic cinema under the stars.

Like the Hogwarts show, all of the components were designed on previs software which even used sophisticated particle physics engines to model the characteristics of the water. This allowed to preview the show before installation and allowed the different divisions of Universal, as well as its partners, to see how it was progressing. Next comes installation, programming and tuning. Universal took advantage of it.

As we reported, during the extravagance Universals Halloween, a special version of the show featured images of horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein on the fountains. The buildings behind them were transformed into everything from a fairground to the New York skyline during the Ghostbusters scene.

The great thing that we discovered, and I don't know what we knew when we developed the lagoon show, is that we can turn it into different things. We did it for Halloween, and we changed it a bit for New Years, so now we think it's a nice palette to play with, says Buynak. She adds that the next version of the lagoon show could be festive.

There is no Christmas aspect yet. It is certainly a goal. It kind of wraps your day in everything you saw during the day of walking in the parks. We bring everything together to have like an end of day celebration. It really is a happy ending.

It is a game of thumbs and dollars. Get the latest sports news and analysis of ratings, signatures and hires, once a week in your inbox, from the Forbes SportsMoney Playbook newsletter. Sign up here.