Adriano Goldman, director of photography for HBO’s “Harry Potter” series, said in a recent interview with Andre Pilli that the show’s filming conditions have been “brutal” because the camera crew must work around the young cast’s strict shooting schedules.

“You have to shoot very fast, and the faster you shoot, the more you compromise on quality,” Goldman said. “There’s no way around it, right? Obviously, we have a lot of resources, but it’s brutal. The screen time the kids spend is really brutal. So the methodology is very specific. You pretty much have to pre-film every scene while they’re in class.”

Goldman explained that Dominic McLaughlin (Harry Potter), Alastair Stout (Ron Weasley), and Arabella Stanton (Arabella Stanton) come to the set for about “an hour and a half,” and the schedule calls for him to film “six montages” before having to leave again.

“It’s really difficult; you film everything out of order, because of that kind of scheduling,” Goldman said. “So the process is really complicated, but I’ve already done one.”

As Goldman noted, part of the reason the deadlines are so strict is that child stars have to balance on-set schooling with filming. The BBC reported in July 2025 that Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the production house for HBO’s “Harry Potter,” built a temporary school for the show’s many young actors.

Three Rivers District Council allowed the studio to “use a series of portable buildings as school facilities for the next decade. The proposed classrooms have been designed to be used by up to 600 pupils during peak periods, when scenes with large crowds are filmed, but will normally cater for around 150 students. It will operate Monday to Friday between 5.30am and 8.30pm so that young actors can carry out their actual studies between night shoots, reshoots and filming on location.”

The “Harry Potter” series will debut on HBO and HBO Max on December 25, 2026.