Hayao Miyazaki last made a feature-length motion picture a full decade before making this one, and he ended up leaving retirement to spend seven years directing this deeply personal WWII-era epic. Since that essentially makes The Boy and the Heron an ultimatum of Miyazaki’s legacy in cinema, the animation techniques are much more advanced and up-to-date now. That includes a new installment for Studio Ghibli: Dolby Cinema, a technology that better distinguishes the highlights and lowlights of the movie’s image. Yet the skill of the animators remains tremendous, particularly when animating the heron, who appears grotesque in the most uncanny of ways.
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The entirety of the movie includes a similar contrast of beauty against darkness. The story is indeed grim, but the magical score helps keep the experience from being too overwhelming; the music complements every emotional peak of the story perfectly and even presents a wonderful new song, “Spinning Globe.” The fact that such an emotionally delicate work of animation finally got recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures is a big deal. Not only is it the first hand-drawn animated film to win Best Animated Feature since Spirited Away twenty-one years ago, not only is it the first international film to win since then, but it’s also the first ever PG-13 movie to win in that category. Therefore, this important Oscar win is guaranteed to change the entire animation industry forever.

As director Greta Gerwig made the creative decisions for this ambitious blockbuster movie, she refused to go with what the adult in herself would’ve wanted, but rather what the little kid in herself would’ve wanted. Sure enough, her vision led to the set and costume designers using more shades of pink than anyone ever thought could exist. The sets resemble life-size Barbie houses- all authentically artificial and built to scale with the actors (the car Barbie drives is 23% smaller than an actual car). For the fun sequences of the bridge between Barbieland and the real world, scenes are depicted in various locations, all with moving background canvases and multiple layers of artificial set pieces that move.
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Every Barbie party outfit ever sold is referenced in the dance party scene, and even the brand’s more forbidden dolls are included in the cast, such as “Growing Up Skipper” and “Sugar’s Daddy Ken.” Makeup tests were done as well on Margot Robbie to make sure she looked as perfect as a stereotypical Barbie doll—a process that took approximately a year. This huge movie would be nothing however without the brash musical score and hit songs, which demonstrate what happens when filmmakers don’t take themselves too seriously and just have some fun. Yet these filmmakers balance that fun with a loving critique of the Barbie brand’s legacy, which is why Barbie will soon change future tentpole movies forever.

To capture the big emotional rush that a finale deserves, the designers and VFX artists behind this highly anticipated eighth film give it their all. Starting with the battle at Hogwarts, the biggest action set piece the series has ever created, stone statues come to life, giants and spiders are spotted within the chaos, and a large amount of stunt choreography with teenage extras went into these sequences. To make things a bit easier while filming these very complex shots, many of the broken stone bits on the battlefields were made of a lightweight substitute. Though it’s not just Hogwarts, Gringotts is also revisited with an updated design to fit the darker, more realistic tone of the film compared to the first movie it was seen in.
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The filmmaking style also pulls no punches in capturing exactly what moviegoers during the 3D boom of cinema at the time wanted. Elements are constantly flying through the air, thousands of objects multiply inside a vault, a stark white set depicts an empty King’s Cross Station, a giant dragon flies through the sky, and even the approaches to filming a ghost and a snake are utilized in efforts that justify seeing the movie in 3D. So despite feeling incomplete as only the second half of a book adaptation, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2 sets the gold standard for how a series finale should be handled.

With it being the beginning of the end, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 1 was part of the production crew’s final exam about everything they learned from the past decade of making a revolutionary cinematic saga. The scene of the seven Potters alone demonstrates how far the effects in the series have come, as six of the actors transform into Harry Potter with the power of motion capture. Then Daniel Radcliffe had to match the movements and mannerisms of every one of them as he played them in separate shots that were all combined into one.
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But that’s just a couple of minutes of screentime, another major difficulty for the set designers was the Ministry of Magic set, which got destroyed two movies earlier and had to be entirely rebuilt again. Other effects had to stretch the imagination of the VFX artists, such as by putting an LED suit on a dog to create the light of a CGI Patronus, while other scenes took weeks to plan, such as one taking place in Piccadilly Square that was full of over 500 extras. However, this film overall still feels incomplete as just the first half of a story, as one could argue that the last book was split into two movies to rake in more money. Yet this penultimate film in the series did what it needed to get done to get audiences pumped for the true finale.

​As the series nears its end, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince establishes just how much darker the journey of the title character can be. Now, that isn’t to say the artistic quality ever improves, because this movie, in particular, suffers too much from awkward love subplots and a lack of chemistry between the teen actors. However, the dramatic spectacle is a massive improvement from the five preceding films, starting with the destruction of the Millennium Bridge. From there, each scene is its own contained showcase of miraculous designs married with groundbreaking visual effects. One of the standouts to demonstrate the VFX work and design work coming together is Fred and George Weasley’s joke shop, which is packed full of delightful detail after delightful detail.
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The costumes also are constructed with much care and attention to detail to make everything about the wearer’s personality instantly recognizable. Those types of costumes are most apparent in the wardrobes of Professor Slughorn and Luna Lovegood, who ironically are the film’s two most impressionable characters. To add to the escalating challenges of filming these movies, much of the cast, particularly Rupert Grint, had to go through more physical training than ever before. With the cast and crew’s toilsome efforts to create something truly special, the two-part series finale now has a glorious red carpet rolled out for its entrance, in turn setting the stage for the standard all other tentpole blockbusters must meet.

As the Harry Potter movies continue growing darker and more mature, each one proves to be a grander technical achievement than the last. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hooks in the audience early on with the spectacle of the Order of the Phoenix flying on broomsticks over London, and every element used to generate this sequence comes together seamlessly without a single giveaway of a green screen in sight. These types of effects look even better though in the Hall of Prophecies, an environment made entirely on the computer. Among the CGI creatures that contribute to the film’s tremendous visual effects include thestrals, dementors, patronuses, centaurs, and a giant.
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The effects with the wand fights are likewise an improvement from the previous four movies, as they were arranged by a dance choreographer, and the wands were made out of rubber so they wouldn’t break while filming. The designs are also unlike anything seen throughout the rest of the Wizarding World up until this point, particularly the enormous Ministry of Magic set, which took twenty-two weeks to build and looks like it was built with 100% authentic materials. So no longer is this Wizarding World limited to just gothic-inspired designs, now it’s stepping into the look of a Churchill-era London. Thus, despite the messy plot, this fifth installment to the series continues proving just how much of an impact it left on the art of blockbuster filmmaking.

In the fourth cinematic installment of the legendary Harry Potter series, another new director, Mike Newell, comes on board with a different approach to the Wizarding World. That includes kicking off the film with the immense spectacle of the Quidditch World Cup, which features a campsite and a larger-than-life colosseum. Then from there, the French Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and the Northeastern Durmstrang Institute are introduced, providing greater context to what the wizarding community is like in other parts of the world. Yet that’s still at the start of the movie, virtually every other scene is a showcase of incredible technology and design work merging harmoniously.
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The Black Lake sequence was perhaps their most daring sequence yet, as Daniel Radcliffe had to spend six months learning how to dive, and then had to spend long days shooting underwater in Europe’s largest water tank. Aside from the fact that filming this kid underwater was challenging enough, the use of underwater bluescreens also proved to be groundbreaking. Equally as impressive are the icy silver designs for the Yule Ball, all topped off by gorgeous dresses and lovely accompanying music to demonstrate the incredible work of the set and costume designers. While Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire may be considered by most to be the worst of the saga due to its disloyalty to the book, it still proves how technologically innovative the series continues to be.

The Harry Potter series takes a darker turn from the first two installments, and with the visionary director Alfonso Cuarón now taking control, he brings the blend of practical and digital effects to the next level. Numerous magical objects are rigged inside the set to move on their own, some of which were even consulted by real magicians. Other visual effects tricks included the hippogriff, which had both CGI and a mechanical figure used for the actors to interact with, as well as Professor Lupin’s horrific transformation into a werewolf. Also, the dementors were originally going to be puppets filmed underwater and then reversed, but this ultimately didn’t work out and was just used as reference footage for the CGI animators instead.
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The Hogwarts castle also looks much different from before with more detail, particularly in how the moving paintings are utilized. Plus, with this being an Alfonso Cuarón film, there are many long takes stitched together to look like an even longer seamless take. Yet the greatest symphony of practical effects in the entire film, or in all of cinema perhaps, is Aunt Marge blowing up, which was done with almost no CGI. This isn’t to say that the quality of the script or acting ever got better compared to the first two movies, but the wild magical tone marks Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the most ambitious movie in the series yet.

The legendary Harry Potter series continues its reign with this second adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s bestsellers. Just like in the first movie, this one knows how to intentionally place every design element to give crucial information about Hogwarts’ dense history and the people who walk through its walls, while also being genius showcases of imagination. Yet it’s the special effects that shine, right down to the digital backgrounds that make the miniature models of the school feel much bigger. There’s also plenty of effects choreography in the sequence where the flying car gets caught inside the whomping willow, which imaginably had to take weeks to film.
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Yet that’s still child’s play compared to the creatures that were all made with a mix of digital and practical effects: pixies, mandrakes, ghosts, giant spiders, a phoenix, a basilisk, and of course, the ever-lovable Dobby. There are even mechanical effects used to create these enchanted objects that perform household tasks in the Weasley’s home. However, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is still guilty of all the narrative problems that came with the first movie and does nothing to fix them. Even so, this proved that The Sorcerer’s Stone was not just a one-hit wonder, all of the books J.K. Rowling had plans to write were officially about to see the light of day in cinemas, and in turn, influence the franchise treatment of all modern blockbusters.

Even with a problematic screenplay void of much any logic, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is still a fine textbook example of designing an immersive fantasy world onto the silver screen. When it came time to figure out what Hogwarts would look like, J.K. Rowling herself was brought on board to draw a layout of the whole campus as a reference. Then the production crew visited universities throughout England for design inspirations, meaning many places within Hogwarts were filmed at real historical landmarks across the UK. Among the sets built for the movie included the Dickensian aesthetic for Diagon Alley, which didn’t have a single vertical line in the architecture.
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As for some of the special effects used to bring this Wizarding World to life, it’s populated with a sorting hat, a dragon, a troll, a centaur, a Cerberus, and many ghosts. But one of the most clever effects in the movie is Hagrid, who was realized with a body double wearing a mechanical face; everything he touched and interacted with in specific shots had identical props, sets, or costumes of a different size for other shots to sell the illusion that Hagrid was enormous. The efforts put on by the production crew to bring J.K. Rowling’s creation to the visual medium resulted in a whimsical, magical experience—an excellent start for the cinematic series that went on to influence all other cinematic franchises!