Stuart Craig & Pottermore Explore the 1920s in ‘Fantastic Beasts’
Feb 09, 2017
Crew Interviews, Fantastic Beasts Movie, Film Awards, Films, Interviews, Movies, News, Pottermore
Stuart Craig designed sets for all eight Potter movies, as well as Fantastic Beasts. He’s a creative genius and is to thank for much of the beauty we see in these films, and The Telegraph interviewed him on bringing J.K. Rowling’s visions to life, and on his BAFTA nomination.
Craig shares how his interest in Production Design began at aged 13, and as he progressed in the arts he saw special effects develop beyond his imagination, until he found himself working with digital illustrators on Fantastic Beasts:
“Although most scenes in Fantastic Beasts were digitally enhanced in some way, many of the cascading brick walls and subterranean eruptions in the film were created by a live physical-effects team. Nevertheless, as a result of advancements in CGI, I am working in such close collaboration with digital illustrators now that it is often difficult to distinguish where my role as a set designer ends and that of the digital animator begins.”
“The street complex we built for Fantastic Beasts stands as a fine example of this. We had toyed with shooting in New York but, wary of bringing the city to a gridlocked standstill, we decided to build a pocket of Manhattan at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire instead. “
Fantastic Beasts has nominated for five BAFTA awards (including Production Design) and whilst this may not be a surprise to most of us, Stuart Craig was shocked:
“Despite it being one of the most challenging sets of my career, I was shocked when I first heard about this year’s Bafta nomination. Occasionally, you do think to yourself, ‘I might stand a chance at a Bafta,’ but, even after three Oscars [for The English Patient, Dangerous Liaisons and Gandhi], 15 Bafta nominations and 50 years working in film, it was still a surprise to see my name on the list of nominees.”
Read the full piece on Stuart Craig here.
As part of their weekly celebration of Fantastic Beasts, Pottermore also recently took a look at the setting which shaped the film, exploring how talkies revolutionised Hollywood in the twenties, helmed by Warner Bros – of course – and bringing sound to the film industries and baffling audiences:
‘We do not want now and we shall never want the human voice with our films.’
“So said director D.W. Griffith in 1924. History can make a mockery of us all, but in Griffith’s case it only took three years to be proved wrong. The 1927 release of the Warner Bros. picture The Jazz Singer heralded the coming of the talkies, and the first words spoken by Al Jolson as The Jazz Singer’s Jakie Rabinowitz essentially killed off the silent film industry. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet! Wait a minute, I tell ya!’ says Rabinowitz to an audience waiting to hear him sing.”
Pottermore tells how Warner Bros was also the first studio to release the first talking feature film (The Lights of New York) in 1928. They lament the loss of actors who fell out of fashion due to the introduction of talkies, and celebrate the adaptation of others to the times – Charlie Chaplin, for instance, found success once again in his later role as a sound film director.
Read the full fascinating feature here!
