Feb
19

Ahead of next week’s Oscars, Vanity Fair has been publishing a series of articles examining the ‘most visually enticing’ nominees. This week they looked at Stuart Craig’s fantastic work with the production design for the Harry Potter series, and spoke to him about the Hogwarts exterior, the Room of Requirement, Gringotts, Diagon Alley, the Boathouse for Snape’s death and more. You can read some excerpts below or read the whole thing at this link.
“In the early days, every time you saw the exterior of Hogwarts, it was a big miniature, a physical miniature,” Craig says. “In the final film, for the battle, our first miniature was scanned and that became the basis of a new digital model. It was retextured in fantastic detail so that the camera could get into it much, much closer.”
“The consequence of filming real locations was that we were obliged to incorporate the locations into the model of Hogwarts. Often real places are disappointing. They’re not of your choosing. So, the skyline of Hogwarts was not as I would have wished in the early films, and I really did care about that—I was struggling with that,” he says. “As time went on and the books required a new space that we’d never seen before, like the Astronomy Tower that Dumbledore dies from, then I would grab that opportunity with both hands to change and improve the skyline of Hogwarts. I felt happy about it in the end, and most happy about it in its ruined state, actually.” Get the whole story »
Feb
12

The BAFTA film awards took place tonight in London, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 picked up the award for Special Visual Effects! Congratulations to the team: John Richardson, Tim Burke, Greg Butler, David Vickery and all the others who contributed to bring the books spectacularly to life.
Unfortunately, Deathly Hallows Part 2 missed out on the other awards it was nominated for – Production Design, Makeup & Hair, and Sound. Get the whole story »
Feb
05
Congratulations are in order for Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig and his team.
Over in Beverley Hills last night he took home a much deserved prize in the fantasy film category at the prestigious Art Directors Guild awards for ‘Excellence in Production Design for a Feature Film in 2011′, for his work on Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Update: The brilliant people behind the Harry Potter films were also recognised by the Guild with a special award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery! The press release names David Heyman, David Barron, Chris Columbus, Alfonso cuaron, Mike Newell, David Yates, Steve Kloves, Michael Goldenberg, Stuart Craig, Neil Lamont, Stephanie McMillan and JK Rowling as the recipients.
This should boost the film’s chances in this category at the Oscars in a couple of weeks time, although it faces tough competition from the other big ADG winner, Hugo.
Although veteran Craig has won three Oscars in the past (1982, 1988 and 1996), none of them have been for Harry Potter even though his work is probably the standout feature of the whole production. We hope that can finally change!
The full list of ADG winners for the feature film section is below. You can also see the TV winners right here.
Get the whole story »