MOVIE: Harry Potter Crystal Cave

Being a fan of fantasy and magic, I was mesmerized by the new Harry Potter & Half Blood Prince and thrilled that they included a wonderful Crystal Cave in the movie.

behind the scenes:

The objective to find and, hopefully, destroy the source of Voldemort's immortality and power sends Harry and Dumbledore on a perilous journey to an isolated cave set deep within a windswept cliff. Stuart Craig recalls, "When we were doing our location scouts, we found the Cliffs of Moher in the west of Ireland and immediately thought they would be spectacular for the entrance of the cave."

The filmmakers wanted the cave interior to seem vast beyond measure, "so there was no possibility of building that physically," Craig acknowledges. "Apart from the point at which Harry and Dumbledore first arrive and the island formation on which everything inside the cave happens, the set is entirely virtual, designed in the computer. We'd had our first totally virtual set on the last film, so we approached this one with a bit more confidence.

"The interior of the cave appears to be made up of geometric crystal formations, so Craig and his team began by researching various rock formations. They also visited a quartz crystal cave and a salt crystal cave to study the properties of crystal surfaces. "Reproducing salt crystals requires some major R&D and a lot of experimenting with synthetic resins," the designer remarks. "The challenge was to create something that was magical but credible at the same. It was also a challenge for Tim Burke and our visual effects team and also for (director of photography) Bruno Delbonnel. How do you light this glowing crystal island in the middle of a huge black void? Everybody was part of the process; it was an exciting collaboration."