The clever tricks that made Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the ‘darkest’ in the franchise-Laura Harman-Entertainment – Metro

The Hogwarts world expanded for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Picture: Warner Bros)

Twenty years ago, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released and fans were absolutely blown away by the third film in the hit franchise.

Much like the book, the film marked a notable change within the Wizarding World, filling a darker and more adult space.

Fans lapped it up and it has since become revered as one of the best of the series, coming only in second place to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Azkaban has a very respectable 90% on the aggregator site, and is praised for its ‘delicate balance between technical wizardry and complex storytelling.’

Once again starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint as our magical adolescent heroes Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, it sees them facing a harsher world while going into their third year at Hogwarts.

Unfortunately for Harry, now aged 13, his world is turned upside down once again as he goes on a journey to uncover his mysterious past, and his links to escaped Azkaban prisoner Sirius Black, played by Gary Oldman.

And of course, the film, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is known for featuring the incredibly ominous Dementors, the ghost-like prison guards chasing down Black, who cause a real headache for Harry throughout.

The third film out of the eight-strong franchise included a lot more peril, drama and adult themes as the young characters became teenagers (Picture: Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc)

It also starred the likes of Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, Michael Gambon in his first outing as Professor Dumbledore and Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney, the Divination teacher at Hogwarts.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban will now be shown in select UK cinemas from May 31 to mark the 20th anniversary, for those who wish to relive the intense but brilliant third installment of the saga.

Shedding light on how such dark eerieness was cast over the film, Gary Tomkins, the Senior Art Director of all the Harry Potters, told Metro.co.uk about clever tricks he used to make it look so much darker than the first two – and it was all about the set design.

‘There were lots of really cool new sets and action sequences, the Knight Bus, for example, is a very memorable thing,’ he said. ‘And it just felt like a little bit of more of a grown-up film. That was reflected in the sets and how we built them.’

As well as it being a more adult venture, it was how Hogwarts transformed for this film that really helped audiences get stuck into this deeper, edgier world.

‘The dark tone of the story and the darker tone of the film was reflected in the Hogwarts Castle miniature that we built,’ he explained.

‘We repainted it in a slightly darker tone, just to, you know, make the whole thing slightly more moody.’

Tomkins added that for this film – his favourite of the franchise – the layout of Hogwarts had to be changed to include the wooden bridge, the standing stones, Sirius Black’s prison tower, the courtyard and the grand clock.

Hogwarts Castle was changed throughout the films, being made to look darker and moodier, an effect that really worked with audiences (Picture: Warner Bros)

The Shrieking Shack was another new set for the third film (Picture: Warner Bros)

‘Stuart Craig, our fantastic production designer, would often come up with some slight tweaks to the design that he thought would be better. And you know, that’s, that’s why it developed.

‘So there are probably no two films where Hogwarts Castle remains the same, always develops and grows.’

He then rebuffed any possible complaints about the continuity of Hogwarts from movie to movie.

‘And if anyone questions it, we say, well, this magic, of course, it changes!’

Tomkins added that predicting what the Wizarding School might have looked like when they began production would have been impossible as the books weren’t completed at that point.

‘Of course, when we started on the first film, the last few books hadn’t even been written. So we couldn’t include all the things, even if we were trying to second guess what might come up in terms of other architectural elements of Hogwarts, there was no way we could actually know what was in store for us, but it was great.

‘It kept us busy for 10 years.’

The production began on the first film in September 2000, at which point the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, had just been released in July.

The Knight Bus was another new addition (Picture: Warner Bros)

Gary Tomkins was the Senior Art Director on the Harry Potter movies (Warner Bros)

Tomkins also happily shared his fond memories about the cast members, including the late great Rickman, who lives on in the Harry Potter world as Snape.

‘I think I’m pretty sure it was on Azkaban when very often we’d be in a coffee bar at Leavesden,’ he said, referring to the Warner Brothers Studio where primary filming took place.

‘Alan Rickman would come in wearing the full sort of Snape costume makeup and almost still in character and order his coffee.’

He joked that the actor, who died in 2016, was still rather intimidating in his costume, and cast members would insist he took their space in the queue: ‘We would be all like “OK, You first, you first! I can wait!”’

Alan Rickman starred as Professor Severus Snape in all eight films in the franchise (Picture: Warner Bros)

The film is the third in the franchise and was shot from February 2003 until November 2003 (Picture: Warner Br/Everett/Shutterstock)

He laughed, adding that there wasn’t a division between cast and crew: ‘Often you work on a film and there’s a great separation between us. And the actors are all squirrelled away in their caravans. But because we were the only film in Leavesden, all the actors knew that anyone they would bump into around the studio were people working on that film. 

‘So they were quite relaxed. It’s not like they would bump into someone that would, you know, embarrassingly ask them for their autograph or something,’ he said.

Tomkins recalled that he would often find Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint borrowing supplies from the art department because, of course, they were still children during filming.

‘They had an education department within the studios. So when they were filming, they were educated a certain number of hours per day. Very often for their art homework, they’d come up to the art department we’d lend them paper and pencils and that kind of thing. ‘

He added: ‘If we could we could lend Emma Watson some colouring pencils to do her homework then that’s what we did.’

The late Rickman is fondly remembered by the cast (Provider: Warner Bros)

Gary Oldman made his first appearance the Prisoner of Azkaban as Sirius Black (Picture: Warner Bros)

‘To see them grow from pretty young 11 or 12-year-olds, and then all the way up through to proper adults was quite amusing.’

Tomkins explained that it was like a ‘big family’ on set, adding: ‘Leavesden studios when we were filming was a kind of bubble within which it was a safe space. Everybody knew everybody else. And going back to that cliche, it was like a big family.’

The Art Director revealed that his favourite set from the third film was the Divination classroom, divulging that it was built from the same set pieces used to create the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

‘One of my favourites is actually one of the new sets that we have, at the Warner Brothers set Leavesden for the Return to Azkaban feature, is the divination classroom. It was just an absolute delight. The amount of beautiful fabrics that Stephanie McMillan our set decorator included on it. 

‘It was actually a revamp of defence against the dark arts classroom. So it’s something that we often did to save money really is revamped on set into something else and they were both in the attic space of Hogwarts.

The Divination Classroom at Leavesden Studios is part of the new feature (Picture: Dan Wong Photography)

‘So there was lots of new tiered seating put in and as I say, all of the fabrics, luscious silks and velvets that were put in it was such a colourful set, it was really quite atmospheric.’

In celebration of the Prisoner of Azkaban’s 20th birthday, the Warner Brothers Studio in Leavesden has introduced a new feature, Return to Azkaban.

Fans will now be able to see the Divination classroom set, a full cross-section of the Knight Bus’s interior and even the original antique four-poster bed used by Harry at the Leaky Cauldron.

Return to Azkaban is a special feature running fromMay 1 –  September 4 at Warner Brothers Studio in Leavesden.

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