Stuart Craig On Making Harry Potter Movies

[Thursday, May 13th, 2004]
Stuart Craig, production designer of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the follow-on Harry Potter 4, says it was a challenge working on the movie series. "The reality was that for Sorcerer's Stone, we had no standing sets," he told Sci-Fi Wire. "What we built for Sorcerer's Stone became the standing sets for Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and now Goblet of Fire."

"When we did Sorcerer's Stone, nothing was there ready to be reused or reinvented as something else. Everything needed to be created from scratch, so it was an enormous building list. Inevitably, some things got done well, and I'm proud of them, and I think everyone is. And other things, we did what was expedient at the time."

Craig says they constantly assessed what was necessary for the movies. "Once or twice we wished it could have been different," Craig said. "Indeed, especially with [Azkaban director] Alfonso Cuaron, we felt free, liberated by him to make changes. And, where necessary, we did. Hogwarts, after all, is a magical place, and it's not too big a cop-out to say, 'Well, things shift around a little. The next time you look at it, guess what? It'll appear slightly different.' For example, I think that Hagrid's [Robbie Coltrane] hut has been improved spectacularly in Prisoner of Azkaban."

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