A closer look
Harry Potter film producers originally tried to use real floating candles suspended by hundreds of wires for the Great Hall scenes in the first movie, but the heat from the flames kept burning through the strings and dropping fire onto the children. They quickly realized that raining actual fire on a cast of child actors was a massive liability and switched to computer-generated effects for the sequels. Nothing captures the magical whimsy of a British boarding school quite like almost incinerating your highly valuable child stars because the director really wanted practical lighting for a dinner scene
