The story of London’s VFX industry CASTING A SPELL and the Harry Potter movies
The 16th of November 2021 marked 20 years since The Boy Who Lived made his on-screen debut in Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone. The film smashed box office records for highest opening weekend ever and is today regarded as an iconic moment in movie history.
Harry Potter continues to hold its place as a pop-culture phenomenon and the films have since inspired millions of people across the world to fall in love with the magic of the Wizarding World. In significant part, that world has been brought to life for the screen by a number of London-based visual effects houses; in doing so, establishing the city as an emerging major player. This, then, is the story of that creative adventure and how the early Harry Potter movies in particular cast their spell over the capital city.
Key to the burgeoning London digital effects community in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the work produced by MPC and Framestore (previously CFC) for the first three Harry Potter movies. Both effects houses continued to work on the film adaptations, but those earliest movies in the saga arguably established a particular creative sensibility and were also key to fast developing a viable visual effects industry in the UK.
With its emphasis on a fantasy environment rich with giants, goblins and dragons, J.K.Rowling’s first novel, and its subsequent adventures, required a rich palette of visual
