Stuart Craig talks abt HP in New Interview

The full audio of the interview can be watched via this link, while a complete transcript can be found right here.

LC: in reference to when you're doing all of these projects you've got the producer and the director, and in the case of Harry Potter, you've got the author, how does the involvement work? Who gets called in first? and how do you figure out the process and the collaborate of all those people together?

SC: the promise was made by the producer David Heyman to JK Rowling that we would be faithful to the spirit of the books, but she understood that we could never include everything that there would have to be huge omissions, and think she was very brave in allowing the films to be there own separate entities, she quite accepted from the beginning that books and movies could be separate and so we consulted her initially and she literally gave me a map of Hogwarts, a map of the world, where she did the drawing the first meeting in a hotel lobby and that became a massive aid direction help starting with her--so we consulted her throughout the series. When there were questions, the director producer relationship…the production designer would always address the director first. The initial conversation with the director to understand his priorities, and then i would prepare a sketch a model in the art department and go back to him and show it and then at that stage maybe introduce the producer to the idea so that they would obviously be in on what was happening, so it's really that dialogue between the director and the designer which is essential and which is …you follow that path wherever it leads…

LC: and so this after the script has been written and you're reading over the script. do you go back and whether it's Harry Potter or other movies you've worked on based on books or novels, do you read the novels over and over and over so you get a sense of some of the elements of novel or do you try to stick strictly to the script that's written--the screenplay.

SC: no. i think the background information is important as well. so quite early on the Harry Potter books were issued as spoken books as CDs so that helped. I would read the novel and then listen to it in the car on the way to the studio several times on the way to the studio.

LC: Oh, yes, they have such a life those tapestries so beautiful and very joyful which is a really nice element to those pieces…so in terms of the Harry Potter movies, has there been something where you've done everything and it's been filmed and you look at it and you realize it wasn't what you were after and you have to go back and change something?

SC: One big thing in the beginning the Sorcerer's Stone or The Philosopher's Stone, we were obliged to use existing locations quite a lot because we didn't have the time or the money to build the entire world. When we then would cut to a big exterior of Hogwarts those real places Gloucester Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, Christ Church College at Oxford all had to sort of be incorporated into the complex which was Hogwarts School. and this gave i must say not a very satisfying silhouette and i was at pains in subsequent movies fortunately the script had different demands and required different geography. If we had had all seven books from the beginning, then certain of those early decisions would not have been made those early choices didn't fit with the action in the later books. we didn't have that, so we used bits of cathedrals, bits of Christ church college, and then when obliged to make those changes in subsequent movies, i did take that opportunity to improve the silhouette of Hogwarts just to make it more magical. It was confused. and although it was always huge and complicated, it progressively get more elegant. nobody seemed to mind. they seemed to accept that it was part of a magical world and

LC: always changing

SC: yes things did change from film to film

SC: ..... The Lovegood house is a tower, JK Rowling says it's a black tower, in an empty landscape and that's exactly what it is, but i again take great care over the sculptural shape of that tower.

LC: but the interior is fantastic and crazy

SC: yes! and luna and her father both have eccentric tastes, we asked Luna--Evana, the actress to actually help us with this, she had painted, decorated the interior with painted decorations on the walls little murals and stuff so that was great!

LC: the actress actually painted that?

SC: yes, well she designed she proved herself very good at this, was it in Harry Potter 6 where she wore the lion's mask and she designed that, and we thought ah! we'll harness this ability again this talent again and ask her to do these wall paintings so she designs for them which we then reproduced.

Stuart Craig talks abt HP in New Interview