Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Cinesite returned to the world of Harry Potter, delivering just under 100 VFX shots including environments of prohibition-era Manhattan, set extensions and the creation of a magical dinner. Cinesite worked on all eight of the Harry Potter movies so the team led by VFX Supervisor Andrew Morley were well equipped to bring J.K. Rowling’s imaginary world from script to screen with production VFX supervisors Tim Burke and Christian Manz.

The team’s scope of work included the preparation of dinner in the Goldstein apartment, the suitcase that Newt uses to transition into different worlds and various CG environments of Manhattan.

The dinner culminates with the ingredients of an apple strudel descending in front of Jacob; the fruit is wrapped in layers of pastry, before the whole strudel is cooked to a brown crisp and descends hot and ready to eat onto the centre of the table. The shot was built with custom FX. Heavy animated texturing, shading and displacement work was required to give the appearance of cooking whilst the strudel floats through the air. Extra blend shapes were also added to allow the whole pastry to appear as though it shrinks down a little as it cooks.

• Studio: Warner Bros.
• Director: David Yates
• Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander
• Colin Farrell as Graves
• Samantha Morton as Mary Lou