We visited New York and did a scout there and there is remarkably little of
New York 1926, in New York today.
There are bits of New York where 1926 still is
in evidence but as a totality it isn't.
And we realised pretty quickly that it
would be much more useful to build New York, rather than go to New York and film
bits of it and then try and change it.
So it was easier and more controllable,
more manageable for us to build it here on the backlot at Leavesden.
And we can create it as we wanted.
We had 15 weeks to build it from start to finish.
We got up to a hundred and four carpenters, 90 or so plasterers,
40 painters, 30 riggers, scenic artists, sculptors.
It was a big, big crew.
We had a lot of street lighting to do.
We had a lot of signage to do, an enormous amount of signage that we had to make.
A lot of dressing elements for windows, manhole covers and on, and on.
An enormous part of what we've done has been for that set.
We've very deliberately designed to give us a sense of whole neighborhoods.
But also what was possible always to drop in a green screen and extend that environment.
If you were in the tenement world,
you were able to extend the tenement world, before transitioning to the other look.
And so it makes the canvas huge.
It's pretty mind-blowing to me.
I was having a moment earlier with Dan, standing up the top of the steps of the bank
and looking down and the scale of extras, the scale of set... the detail
of the set it felt like... with all the kind of manholes fuming, it felt
like an old-aged Hollywood here in Watford.
It's incredible. There's all these amazing period details and all the
beautiful signage that used to be all over New York it's really wonderful to
experience the time warp of it.
I still get just gobsmacked by the level of
detail and how the past is literally dragged into the present, you know
physically by the rendering of these incredible, incredible, sets.
The background is part of the story and the palette that sort of sets the tone for the principles
in the world. You see it even if it's subliminal. It's also a really fun part
of the design process because sometimes you can do stuff on crowd that you
cannot do on the principles.
David Yates wanted an authenticity of the period.
He wanted a real feeling of the
frenetic energy of New York and a real feeling of the texture of people from
all over the world coming together in making the city.
You've probably heard before how the sets and the costume do a lot of the work for you
but they really really do. I have a personal reaction based on how the clothes fit, the cut of the clothes,
the look of a sets, and it begins to right you or wrong you.
It informs where you move.
We were on one of the little golf buggies that you travel around Leavesden on
and we were going out to see that New York set and I'm chatting to the person I'm
with and we turned around a corner and I saw New York.
And I had this complete all-over cold feeling of "my god".
You think that was an idea.
I remembered where I was sitting by the window at home when I had that idea. And now look.
It's unbelievable.
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 wanna be a wizard.