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Dermot Power: Most of the visuals I did for FB3 were written out of the script by the time the film came out, but the new york winter ones stuck, particularly this one of Dumbledore making his way towards Manhattan bridge.

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Queenie Goldstein & Gellert Grindelwald - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald & Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

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MuggleNet has received exclusive behind-the-scenes images of Ariana Dumbledore from the set of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

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Alison Sudol: Very early wig tests before we figured out Queenie

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It all started in December of 2018, with a sneak peek on social media from the author and screenwriter of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise, J.K. Rowling, who, after announcing the completion of her newest screenplay, posted the following phrase on her Twitter: “Rio de Janeiro had better brace itself.”

A month earlier, Rowling had already made a mention about 1930’s Rio de Janeiro in a tweet that led to curious speculation from Brazilian fans of the franchise: what did old Rio have to do with the creator of Harry Potter? 

In the following weeks, it was discovered that the author had set her newest film creation in the marvelous city of Rio. The project’s production team, following her lead, began to plan trips to Brazil in order to film certain older areas of downtown Rio and use them as backgrounds for the 3rd episode film of the film series. And Brazil Production Services was the Brazilian production company chosen to head the production unit in Brazil of this international mega-blockbuster. 

When Warner Brothers contacted BPS, the job at hand involved the mapping and scanning of dozens of buildings and areas in downtown Rio de Janeiro, where several buildings from the city’s colonial, imperial, and turn-of-the-century periods are located.  This material would then be used by the film’s visual effects team to digitally reconstruct the city circa 1930 by way of computer graphics. The idea was to do something big, exploring the city’s beautiful backdrop that could transport the fans to a magical version of Rio de Janeiro of that time.

However, the coronavirus arrived in Brazil in March of 2020, causing the production plan and the script to undergo dramatic changes. 

Actor Eddie Redmayne, in an interview, spoke about the final version of the film that was released worldwide in April 2022: “The whole section that is set in Bhutan was meant to be set in Brazil … we were meant to travel and go and shoot there. Then COVID hit.” The actor lamented the cancellation of Rio as a main location – and so did we at BPS…

And so, what was supposed to be an intricate shoot in Rio showcasing some of its most interesting architecture turned out to be a production with only one of these locations.  This location was a quick shot at an iconic location in Rio, in which the magical community of the city celebrates the victory of Vicência, a character played by the Brazilian actress Maria Fernanda Cândido. 

The location in question was none other than the big house at Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro, a world-renowned location with that also features Rio’s famous statue of Christ the Redeemer in the background. 

The beautiful house was scanned by the BPS team using LIDAR technology, which, according to the company’s Executive Manager Valéria Costa, is a tool widely used for building digital environments nowadays. The technology captures and measures properties of reflected light falling upon structures and, from that data, accurately documents a building’s 3D characteristics, providing the post-production team with high quality raw material to work on for the creation of digital backgrounds. 

Anyone who blinks might miss the lightning-fast appearance of Rio in the final version of the film, but at least it gave a taste, however small, of Rio’s beautiful scenery.  In short, after months of doubt as to whether or not Rio would be the setting for the film, the image below was what was left of the author’s original conception in the final form of the film.

Although disappointed with the shrinking of Brazil’s participation in the project, we look back on the experience philosophically affirming that one scene is better than no scene at all, right? 

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Waterston is full of praise for this film’s female-led creative team, implicitly contrasting their work with the Hollywood blockbusters she’s previously starred in. “If you’re working on a character that’s been poorly drawn, you have to do the most extraordinary mental gymnastics to deliver something that feels, on the page, quite dishonest,” she says. “But Alice Birch writes the most extraordinary, palpable descriptions: you can almost smell and taste the world she conjures. It’s almost embarrassing to me how little my imagination was required.”

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When I first saw saw the trailer for this movie, I was geeking out beyond belief and there's this shot at the end of the trailer where you look up and you go, "Don't Panic. There's absolutely nothing to worry about." And that didn't make it into the film. Can I ask did you shoot that shot for the trailer?

Eddie Redmayne: No, no, no. So we shot that because... What's interesting with these big films where there's a lot of special effects and post work, is that they have to start putting trailers out long before they've finished editing or close to editing, and that was a moment in... There's a sort of the film builds, there's a kind of crescendo to, there's quite a hardcore action sequence towards the end, and everything's got quite serious, and in the script it was something that read as a kind of a moment like in the middle of this frenzy, Newt has a sort of moment going, "Don't panic. There's absolutely..." But I think when they got to the cut, it felt a bit tonally wrong to have that moment because actually the stakes are too high at that point for him to have a timeout moment and be like, "Guy." So, you're right, well-observed.

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Alison sudol: It's wonderful to sort of dance with these characters. There was this lovely romance, but it's based on even though they are really warm, they are "people" people, they are very good with people, but they are also quite lonely, and they are from very different worlds, and yet they have a lot in common actually inside. They are very sweet people, good, kind, and they both love to bake and cook and nurture, and so seeing them come together, you just really root for these two people who aren't supposed to be together, aren't even supposed to talk to each other, and yet they find such joy in each other, and that joy is built over into us in those moments.

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"I can't speak for [J.K. Rowling's] intentions because those are her own, and she wrote this well before current events were happening," Alison Sudol tells Exclaim! "Although it is very timely now."

"It is well noted that loneliness really puts people in a very vulnerable position, and people who are in a vulnerable position are more likely to be brought into things that are more extreme. They're like lambs being led into the lion's den," Sudol says. "When you're vulnerable and lost and then suddenly somebody is kind to you and gives you love and gives you tenderness and takes care of you in some way, that creates a huge indebtedness. From there, the likelihood that you're going to follow them anywhere is much higher."

"As a woman, I'm in my 30s and I'm much more in touch with myself than when I was younger," she explains. "When you have something about you that is different and is unwelcomed by other people — it could be something quite powerful, quite good, quite special, but you don't think that it's so; creativity or your voice or an ability or whatever it is — if there's part of you that you feel you have to put away or compartmentalize, then you're not going to be fully in touch with your intuition, because you're not whole, you're not integrated.

"Queenie is always so busy listening to everyone else that I don't think that she's learned how to listen to herself," Sudol continues. "If she had a better sense of her intuition, I think that she would have made different decisions. She just doesn't quite know herself yet. Unfortunately, you have to go through a painful journey in order to learn how to listen to that voice. I know so many women that have, and usually it's not very pretty, but if you can use the hard rocky road that you go down as lessons learned, it's actually a very powerful journey to go on."

"I feel like I have a lot of authorship in her," Sudol says. "Of course Jo [Rowling] wrote her, but I just feel like there is a lot that I was able to bring to her that I might not have been able to if there had been a more concrete understanding of her from a book."

"I hope that when people watch this they remember that love is driving all of these things," she says. "For Queenie, the choices that she's making may seem out of character, but if you think about what she's been through — the fact that her sister isn't there for her when she needs her — I would hope that people stay with her as a character on her bumpy ride."

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“I went to a wildlife park,” he says, “and met people who care for animals and watched all the idiosyncrasies of both how the animals behave and how the people who look after them behave.”

“You realize he has great passion and qualities that don’t immediately seem heroic,” he says, “but a heart that’s quite heroic.” 

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These are all brand new characters that didn’t come from a book but from J.K. Rowling’s screenplay. Did you get to talk with Rowling for additional research?

In rehearsal, she gave me a nice hint. She said, “I love what you’re doing. Keep doing what you’re doing,” and, “I love Jacob’s character.” I was like, “Do tell.” And she said, “He reminds me of Ron.” That’s great because Ron, he gets to do everything. He gets to be the clown and the hero and he gets the girl. This is going to be fun.

Whenever [Rowling] came on set, she would give us little hints about our futures, so that instills you with confidence that she is formulating a repertoire for you. She told me where this character’s going, and man, it’s an incredible transformation.

He’s also the only nonmagic person out of the whole main cast. Why do you think that makes him special?

I think it’s incredible. He’s back from [World War I] and somehow, he’s been able to maintain a philosophy of compassion and kindness, and he’s running into the fray with these wizards, and he doesn’t have a wand. This guy’s really brave. I think those qualities make him a quite magical person even if he doesn’t know how to wield magic.

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Q: How did you approach him? Is he weird? Funny?

A: I think he’s a lovely guy. Who is this guy? He’s a brave dude, man. He’s a soldier. He’s one of the last guys back from World War I. He may not be the handsomest dude (laughs). But he’s been through quite a bit. He’s created his philosophy where he’s able to be kind and loving after all that, and that’s an amazing person, to be able to still want to pursue and follow your dreams. That’s an attractive quality, I think. And who can resist that mustache? Oh my gosh. That was a creature unto itself.

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The grand Dinning Hall shot was not in the original script, it was a late addition. As it happened, most of the texture artists on that shot were interns, (lead by Framestore’s lead texture artist). “The Interns were all coming onto their first production and they were incredibly keen to do a great job, especially as they knew it was a shot intended for the fans” he adds.

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HULLFISH: I loved the erumpant scene (one of the fantastic beasts) in the zoo. Tell me about building the suspense of that scene.

DAY: I really like that scene too. It has very good visual effects and the erumpant is a very lovable, flirtatious and fantastic creature which alongside Eddie Redmayne who plays Newt and Dan Fogler who plays Jacob makes for a sumptuous feast because it starts off slowly as Newt tries to seduce the erumpant back into his case with his slightly surreal dance, and then Jacob, with the aid of an escaped seal, spills the erumpant musk onto his protective armour (don’t ask, just watch the film!) and that’s when she smells him and the chase begins. This then builds and builds gradually into an almost musical crescendo which culminates on the Central Park ice rink as the erumpant gets closer and closer to Jacob with Newt in pursuance before she is recaptured into the case having narrowly missed out licking Jacob’s face.

Now that sequence obviously took quite a while to get right and I did numerous versions myself using part live action and part pre-viz to get the rhythm of the scene working and as you know, you try things out a number of different ways. Then David and I worked together on it over the months with gradually more and more sophisticated post-viz animation being supplied by the visual fx department and eventually it found its natural length and rhythm and played very well.

It was quite a bit longer originally because there was a lot more that happened within the scene. But it felt a little too long in the context of the whole film and so we also referred to our ‘filmed audience recruit screenings’ which Warner Bros provided us with in the cutting room (because we were unable to go to some of the test screenings due to the schedule, which is a shame as you cannot beat ‘feeling’ the vibe in the room with a live audience) and whenever we were unsure as to whether it was the right thing to do we would check out the audience to see if they were enjoying it or shifting in their seats and that was an incredibly useful tool to have as there was one beat in the original version in which the audience seemed to shuffle about a bit, so we pared it down until it felt like the right length.

HULLFISH: Let’s talk about temp music. I specifically noted a track in the score after the strudel scene where Newt and Kowalksi are having dinner in the girls’ apartment.

DAY: Yes, that’s right. When they first meet Queenie in the Goldstein apartment.

The source track ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’ was being played on a gramophone. In fact Alison Sudol who played the character Queenie (and it was her first day of filming) had that playing on set to get into the character and because it worked so well and we could clear it for usage I laid it on the scene when I was editing because I loved it so much and David agreed. It worked really well with her character. From there James Newton Howard segued into his lovely score as the apple strudel was being magically constructed!”

HULLFISH: This is a strange question, but where did the edit start? There were so many motion graphics and logos and stuff before we saw film….or did you have to cut all that together with pre-vis and post-vis?

DAY: You’re referring to the newspaper montage at the beginning. That all evolved during post production actually. Originally it was used later on in the film as scripted, however one of the producers had the good idea that we could use it at the beginning of the film, not only to familiarize people once again with the Harry Potter world but also it is a useful way of getting across a lot of expositional information in an interesting way which is what we needed to do. For example, it showed us the name Grindelwald (the protagonist in the film) a number of times which subconsciously lodges in people’s minds and gives the film a slightly darker tone, whereas in the original script the film started with Newt arriving by boat in New York and it was all quite jolly. Now we introduce it with this sinister character killing a number of aurors and we catch a distinctive glimpse of the back of his head (this turns out to be Grindelwald who will be played by Johnny Depp in the next film and we see him transform from the character Graves played by Colin Farrell near the end) which then segues into the newspaper montage ending up on an image of the Statue of Liberty, so instead of just this slightly eccentric British man with a suitcase arriving on a boat we have introduced a number of themes that will resonate throughout the film.

HULLFISH: Tell me about the fight with the obscurus at the end. The final battle had a beautiful, musical rhythm to it. I really love the rhythm of that scene.

DAY: Thank you, Steve, I’m really pleased about that. These things take time to get right and I did countless versions until we found the right rhythm. Having said that I do have pre-viz to work with whilst I’m editing and I intercut that with the live action footage of the main characters which gradually builds up the scene and then when we are happy with it, we turn that over to the VFX department who in turn work on the edit and they were giving us back quite sophisticated post-viz. Then eventually when we ‘semi-lock’ the scene that goes out to the vendor who work on the individual shots that we then start to receive over the ensuing months and in time they become these very impressive shots which are ‘finalled’ after many viewings and comments and incorporated into the main edit so it’s a very time-consuming process that evolves over the months that we work on the film. We also had the advantage of having the Credence character played by Ezra Miller who gave us some fantastic motion capture footage of him emoting and screaming which was incorporated into the obscurus visual fx and this gave it a unique, interesting and beautiful look.

HULLFISH: There was quite a bit of interactive lighting in the movie, was it difficult to maintain continuity with that?

DAY: That can cause problems sometimes obviously. For example, there was a scene in the Pentagram office when Tina (Katherine Waterston) shows up with the suitcase and interrupts the meeting. Philippe Rousselot (the D.O.P.) had used interactive lighting above the crowd that was following the dead body of senator Shaw (who had recently been killed by the obscurus) Now you know how scenes change during the edit and lines are excised or the scene is restructured in some way or another so there was no continuity to the lighting at all and we had to cheat it in the grade with the help of Peter Doyle our colourist and also visual fx helped out with some of it.

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Graves asks the MACUSA Aurors to come with him - The President and the Auror Featurette

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Some of the creatures, including large snail-like animals called streelers, were based on designs that didn’t make it through for the last film. But they had to reach a high bar. Writer and producer J. K. Rowling was hands-on with the production, at one point visiting the animation studios. One design, for a multi-headed dog, was too similar to Hagrid’s Fluffy in The Philosopher’s Stone.

“It’s lovely for the team, but you’re really nervous because you’re playing in her universe.”

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Another environment created was a recreation of the Brasserie Zedel in London. “Production wasn’t able to access the location because of covid restrictions,” said Laflamme-Fillion.

“There were full CG environment builds and then from that sequence we transitioned to - we were calling it - ‘white world’ - that is like the ethereal world of Dumbledore’s dreams or memories, and the set catches fire as the memories collapse.”