Lumos Maxima.
With Potter, I got asked the board this train that had already left the station.
With Fantastic Beasts, I got to build the world from the ground up.
I was thrilled David Yates wanted to do it. He understands the world and the
material so well. And David Heyman you know, he was there right from the beginning.
I couldn't really imagine doing it without him.
I was really excited about going back into Jo's universe because it's such a great playpen.
You're very privileged when you get a chance to work in this world and you
get moved and you get pulled in and you get inspired by where she's taking her universe.
We learned on the Harry Potter films that the successful
formula was, if at first the sets seemed totally believable, familiar, credible and
the magic grows out of that, then the magic is very effective.
Stuart is all about grounding even the most magical of designs in an architectural reality.
He's looking for truth and authenticity. It's not unhinged and let's just create anything.
There's a real root and foundation on which to build.
[inaudible]
Usually there's a mix of a couple of big sets and then lots of small ones.
We seem to have big ones and big ones and only big ones.
We're in Cartington in the biggest hangar, I think, on planet Earth.
It's enormous. Something like three times as big as the biggest sound stage anywhere.
It's just awesome.
When I started doing this film, I thought that it was going to be green screen.
I thought it was going to be a world of green and blue curtains and what
Stuart's done is create the entire world.
They've just created this visual universe that's so detailed.
I mean, right now we're in the subway and it's so gritty and grimy.
In the Attic, for example, it was very easy to feel like a
kid in a candy shop because it's stocked with actual stuff.
So you're just in there and you want to rummage through things and it just made us feel really
excited and curious, just really good time.
Nothing about a bank is a muddled environment so
lots of beautiful night fittings. There's also dressing pieces and things like that to make it [inaudible].
Then we also had the vault and a massive
challenge of producing all of the cabinets, burst open.
There was probably about three thousand doors to put in there. Each panel was broken up and
designed to later cut it all out of aluminium and then gold lacquer it
to give the brass effect.
With all the detail that's there, it makes it easier. Feels like giving a real speech.
It's just like green screen and then there's five guys in the front...
Like "yeah we'll add them in later", then it's like okay.
It is true that my father owns
the largest newspaper in this state.
There's a 50-foot poster of my face.
The first couple of days, I really just assumed they must have had some great
printer or whatever. And then the second or third day, I looked at it, and I was like
"That's really incredible detail". So I went to David and I was like, "did someone paint that?"
And he started laughing. Yeah, someone hand painted my face 50 feet.
It's huge. My mom would like it.
Every corner of every set, of every setup is just filled with detail.
It just makes it so much easier to lose yourself immediately in the scene and
just connect with the actor opposite you, you know.
I was on the set and I picked up an inkwell and later on I found my hands were marked because the inkwell
was filled with ink. A lot of danger in going into that set.
I was opening drawers in the newspaper office and there were archives of a
made-up newspaper with news articles all the way through that they'd actually
written out. Like this is the level of detail. Something that the camera will
absolutely never see. Inside a drawer.
It was just created to just fully flesh out that part of the world.
That's really admirable and really really cool.
Thank you for all of the support you've given our film.
It's a privilege to be a part of this new era of magic.
We all hope that you have a brilliant time celebrating
and reliving the magic of Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts.
It sort of makes me want to be a wizard.