The newspaper headlines in 'Fantastic Beasts' prove the impressive attention to detail J.K. Rowling puts into her wizarding world
The INSIDER Summary:
• Miraphora Mina designed all the periodicals in the "Harry Potter" and "Fantastic Beasts" films.
• Mina got a few headlines from J.K. Rowling.
• All of the other headlines and advertisements were up to her design firm, MinaLima.
"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" opens with newspaper clippings streaming across the screen, warning about the threat of Gellert Grindelwald, a dark wizard trying to expose magic to humankind. "IS ANYONE SAFE?" The New York Ghost screams on its front page. "HOGWARTS SCHOOL INCREASES SECURITY," The Daily Prophet warns.
Newspapers pop up throughout the movie. Another copy of the Ghost is held by a goblin as we first enter MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America, located in Manhattan's Woolworth building), and another character holds a copy of Transfiguration Today. As with the "Harry Potter" films, they add detail to J.K. Rowling's creation, offering glimpses of a larger magical world operating out of the confines of the plot.
In "Fantastic Beasts," they also offer clues about the story. The creation of The Daily Prophet in the "Harry Potter" series was mostly the work of MinaLima, a small design film that created the graphic design for all the "Harry Potter" films, as well as things like the book covers for the Pottermore e-books and the design for the "Fantastic Beasts" screenplay book. It's run by Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima in London.
For this movie, producer David Heyman, director David Yates, and Rowling gave MinaLima different headlines to use for the opening sequence, like the ones warning about Grindelwald. The majority of the papers were MinaLima's creation.
"We were given maybe half a dozen main headlines to feature," MinaLima co-founder Miraphora Mina told INSIDER. "Everything else that's on the rest of the paper, we have to create."
One of Rowling's offerings is a small reveal about Albus Dumbledore. Once Grindelwald's close friend, he later became Newt Scamander's Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts before becoming headmaster. Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted in "Fantastic Beasts" that Dumbledore is a contributor for "Transfiguration Today."
The big difference between doing the graphic design work on the periodicals in "Fantastic Beasts" versus the "Harry Potter" movies was that "Fantastic Beasts" didn't have any material before the script. The MinaLima team had to make everything in the papers except for those headlines, including other stories, the weather, and animated advertisements. They couldn't peer into a long "Harry Potter" novel for inspiration and information about the larger "Harry Potter" world, so they had to meet with Rowling to ask about some details.
"We actually did have to have a couple of meetings with Jo," Mina said. "We had some seemingly insignificant questions, like 'What's Newt's birthday?' so we could put it on his passport, or 'What's Tina's middle name?' so we could put it on her ID card. [It] was really nice, to sit down with her and go through some of these things. And she knew straight away what the answers were."
Mina and her team tried to use the vernacular of Rowling's novels to create the contextual "Harry Potter" world in the headlines. They know the headlines will be scrutinized by fans, so they'll try to refer to creatures, potions, and spells from the books. And at the same time, they looked into the history and geography of the setting, mentioning things like Central Park and sports games. All the while, they're maintaining the atmosphere of the story: that the wizarding world is increasingly at risk of exposure.
"We were all trying to keep it in that magical world, but anchor it in the reality," Mina said. "Maybe comments on muggles. And obviously the ongoing stories, like the risks of the wizarding world being exposed to the No-Majs."
All of this had to be done in the space of newspaper headlines, where there's a limited character count. Some of them had to be done in different languages.
"If you notice, there was one [newspaper] in German and one in French," Mina said. "So I was emailing my friends, going, 'Can you please give me some really good headlines in German?'"
The ads in the papers also have a sense of humor - you might notice an ad for the New York Academy of House Elf Training and an item about the Louisiana Swamp Monster hair being used as a wand core. They also hide a few Easter eggs. At one point in the film, for example, Dougal the Demiguise hides in front of a street poster for Divine Magic perfume. That same brand shows up in an ad in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
All of the stories, advertisements, and other developments still needed to be cleared by Rowling, but even if Rowling slipped in any clues in the headlines or advertisements of the papers, Mina wouldn't know.
"If there were, I wouldn't know what they are," she said. "I wish I knew. I wouldn't tell you if I did. I genuinely have no idea what's in the next film. And I'm quite excited to find out."