PRODUC T I ON . FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE
F antastic Beasts: The Secrets of reviews or the fall from grace of a certain Hollywood A-lister, we were nonetheless excited to see the trailer for the third Harry Potter prequel head back to Hogwarts. But even with the famous wizarding school in the picture, we know this wasn’t going to be a movie about academia – was it ever? No, this is a story about Mads Mikkelsen’s Gellert Grindelwald and his rampage to establish a new world order, in which witches and wizards rule over muggles; a story that’s not too dissimilar to Lord Voldemort’s supremacist vision in the Harry Potter series. Grindelwald and Voldemort share a lot of the same criminal traits, and as their powers increase and the wizarding world becomes darker, so do the visuals. After a coffee with Fantastic Beasts director David Yates, who was also acquired for the final four instalments of the Harry Potter series, DOP George Richmond was hired to take the film in a new direction. He explains: “They wanted to change the style, but what that meant precisely they didn’t know straight away. We started by looking at concept drawings – they were quite advanced in the process by the time I came on board, and these images of sets and other things they wanted to build were very beautiful. Dumbledore sees the series weave in the Potter lore we’re all familiar with. Chalk it up to plummeting I used them as a springboard, to pitch ideas to David about how it could come across, and we progressed with shooting
THE WIZARDING WORLD Director David Yates and DOP George Richmond work with an all-star cast to bring the third feature in the series to life, with Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) facing off against Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) again
makeup, taking note of the time of year you’re shooting and the orientation of sets as they’re being built – and whether you’re going to need hard or soft light.” A METALLIC WASH With the focus of the story shifting ever so slightly away from Eddie Redmayne’s
tests and developing LUTs before settling on a look that was velvety.” Richmond continues: “Of course, there were a lot of twists and turns along the way – deciding on the look for a movie, especially one as big as this, is a journey done in prep. It comes through seeing the different costumes, hairstyles and
SILKY SMOOTH DOP George Richmond describes the film’s aesthetic as ‘velvety’, which was developed over a lengthy pre-production process after considering the production design, hairstyles, makeup and costuming – as well as the story’s thirties setting. Anamorphic lenses were vital in crafting this nostalgic look
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