All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S09E05.Growing.Up.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

- Harry Potter had turned
from a book

into a fledgling franchise, into
an efficient filmmaking factory.

- Cheaper, better,
and faster as well.

That's what everyone
wants to hear.

- But the magic formula failed

when Harry's Goblet of Fire
overflowed.

- They spent an awful lot of
money on the fourth film.

- Warner Bros' bubble had burst.

- They felt they needed to just
rein things in a little bit,

so the budget started to drop
as we got to the fifth film.

- Not helping the drive
for consistency

were endless personnel changes.

Key figures were dropping

like Defense
Against the Dark Arts teachers.

- I wasn't invited.

- Everything is temporary
in the film industry.

I missed Peter, that's for sure.

- We told it like it is,
as they say,

and very often in life,
people don't want to hear that.

- He joined director
Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron,

Mike Newell,
and visual effects gurus.

- I found a reason
for me to leave.

- When you weren't
being listened to,

I said, well, time to move on.

- That frustrated Peter a lot,

because he ran a very tight ship
and, you know,

he was one of the main reasons
those first four films got made,

because he did so much work.

- And the complexities
of adult life

were becoming all too real
for the cast.

- Emma Watson almost quit
after movie four.

- Daniel Radcliffe, too, was
reaching the end of his tether.

- He had a drinking problem
and was coming to the set drunk.

- In fact, the whole Potterverse
was now heading to a dark place.

- This is when we're out
of the school more and we're

sort of learning more about
the resistance to Voldemort.

-

- This is where
everything changes.

This is where it really
starts to get dark.

- Over the years,
the Harry Potter story

continued to evolve.

The books' themes had matured,
just as the readers had.

And for the fifth
Harry Potter story,

The Order of the Phoenix,

JK Rowling
had entered uncharted territory.

- It was less fantastical,
it seemed to me,

and more political.

- And with a new take on Potter
came a new scriptwriter.

- This movie was written
by Michael Goldenberg.

Having written the screenplays
for Peter Pan and Contact,

this script wizard
would have his work cut out.

- Because this was
the weakest book.

- It was also the longest yet.

- It's a tough one. It's
not an easy book to get through.

- A struggle,
even for its author.

- She wasn't quite sure
about what was gonna happen

in the fifth book.

- It's probably the most adult
and complex of the stories.

- Script-wise, it was a tricky
one, it was a really tricky one.

It didn't flow as well.

We had a lot of script revisions
on that film.

- The script didn't have as much
of the flavor of the book.

- Partly because the Harry
Potter books were lengthening,

along with the attention span
of their older readers.

However...

- There are things
that work on a page

that don't work on a screen
and vice versa.

- The trick of adapting them
was only getting harder

and more expensive.

- As the books and the movies
became more complex,

it was a natural thing

that they were going to diverge
at some point.

- So, not only
was there a new, lengthy,

politically complex text
to adapt,

Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix

also needed a new director.

- One of the
most disruptive things,

but probably inspiring things,

is changing directors
every film.

- After three directors
across four films,

change was a constant.

- We're all just used to,

every time we signed up
for a new film,

we'd say, "Okay,
who's the director?"

There was a core of us
that worked on all the films,

and that would include,
you know,

most of us
in the art department,

in the special effects
department,

in the miniatures department,
the creature effects department.

- No matter who came in
to photograph it,

we had that continuity going
all the way through the films.

- So David Heyman
needed someone

to direct this big budget
Hollywood movie,

and so he chose David Yates.

- David Yates was not a big
budget Hollywood movie director.

David's background having
basically been in television.

- I saw a short film he'd done
called When I Was a Girl.

This was probably his first film
to appear on TV.

- In fact, he had only directed a
handful of low-budget projects,

including
The Tichborne Claimant,

a mystery set
in the 19th century,

as well as
The Girl in the Cafe,

a love story starring
Bill Nighy,

which went on to win
multiple Emmys in 2005.

- I feel David was brought in
because of his personality--

quiet, gentle,
very interesting, and very warm.

- He has all the qualities,
in a way, wrapped up,

that they've got some of
in all the other filmmakers

that they'd used before.

- They wanted someone

that's gonna bring
some new ideas to the franchise,

but also somebody who was quite
fresh-faced in the industry,

who would see this
as a new challenge.

- David brings a nature
that's just in him,

and I was blown away just at

how he was able to bring
an ensemble cast together.

- But almost immediately,

David Yates discovered
the unique complications

of adapting a series
that was still being written.

- Kreacher lives to serve
the noble house of Black.

The director was
not going to include Kreacher

in the fifth movie.

- Kreacher!
That's enough of your bile.

- Prat.
- Yates would have got his way,

and Kreacher's death warrant
would have been signed.

- Poor Kreacher.

- But for a problem almost
no other franchise had faced.

- Because the books were
still being written,

the producers had no idea
which characters were gonna

come and go
in the upcoming films.

- The films had to adapt
the books,

but somehow stay faithful
to a story arc

that was still
under construction.

- And because book seven
had not been out yet,

JK had to say,

"No, you're gonna have
a hard time with movie seven

if you take out Kreacher."

- So Kreacher got a stay
of execution,

due to his role in Rowling's
upcoming seventh book.

David Yates had learned
no Harry Potter director enjoys

complete control over the story.

- I think he really mined
into the material,

he really started
sought to create

a strong relationship with JK.

And I think his respect
for the material

and his dedication to digging
out within the characters,

what these fantastic events
could actually mean

to them personally.

- David Yates had
jumped in the deep end.

But he'd be swimming
in a large pool of talent,

because the Potter franchise
had never been short

of respected British actors.

- You've got
the cream of the crop

coming in to play
these adult characters.

- And joining the cast would be
one of the all-time greats--

Helena Bonham Carter.

- Helena Bonham Carter
as Bellatrix Lestrange,

just the essence of pure evil.

-

- It seemed
The Order of the Phoenix

was oozing pure evil.

But arguably,

the most horrific character
in this movie

was more subdued pure evil.

- Imelda Staunton scared the crap
out of me as Dolores Umbridge.

- And Dolores Umbridge's
most terrifying quirk...

- Sit.

- Her room with all the cats,

when she goes--

-

- ...was worse
than a noseless face.

-

- It's horrifying.
-

- I hated her.

- All my scenes with Imelda,
she was great fun to work with.

If you're gonna say Filch was
in love, it was with Imelda.

- Also returning
after time away

was Hogwarts' head boy.

- It was a surprise,
if I'm honest,

because if we could have
done without Percy

for Goblet of Fire,

we could absolutely do
without Percy going forwards.

You know, he becomes superfluous

to the main storyline
pretty much

for the rest of the book series,

so I was pleasantly surprised
to be back.

I think it was two years
between Azkaban

and Order of the Phoenix,

and I got to adventure,

I'd got to play and I'd got to
sort of try out being an actor

in something other
than Harry Potter,

so it was nice to come back
with a bit more experience

of the real world.

- As for the core cast,

Warner narrowly avoided
a meltdown at the core

of the production.

- Emma Watson almost quit
after movie four.

- There was a rumor going around

that they were gonna
replace Emma

because she was being difficult.

- Emma Watson was considering
leaving the franchise.

Even though she
and Rupert and Dan

were all in the spotlight
as a sort of trio,

she was the only female,
and the fans

reacted differently
to the men versus the women.

And it put a lot of pressure
on her,

and she felt very alone
at that time.

- I do empathize with Emma a bit.

You know, as a young woman,

the pressures of growing up
in front of a camera

and all that that comes
with as a woman,

obviously, she felt that

more acutely than the
young boys with the press and,

you know, what we used to do
in society back then.

- It was stressful.

She could not go anywhere
without people hounding her.

She had no privacy.

- So she did seriously
consider leaving the franchise,

and she didn't, in the end,

and I think we're all
grateful for that.

But that could have
changed everything.

- In the end,
it looked like merely

a case of teenage rebellion,
which was becoming a theme

as the whole cast returned,
including Emma.

- I mean, the kids grew up, you
know, you caught them smoking.

You know, it's life.

- Others speculated a
teenage crush had actually

saved the day for Warner's.

- Emma Watson had a crush
on Tom Felton,

and they became really close
on set.

- Emma made him
a Valentine's Day card

and sent it to him anonymously.

And then everybody told him
that it was me and it wasn't me,

but I obviously was, like,

I'm not gonna out Emma
if she's not gonna say it's her.

- Until now. Sorry, Emma.

- And I think one
of the biggest reasons

why she stayed
is because of Tom.

- Now a cast of grown-ups...

- I'm still calling them kids.

- ... Harry Potter could finally
become a grown-up franchise.

- As the kids reached
their late teens,

as they were at this point,
really,

they were at a point

where they could understand
and react to a director

who was directing actors.

- In Yates, Emma,
Rupert and Daniel had a director

that could help them
spread their wings.

- He was very much
a kind of actors' director.

- He knows what to say
to an actor

to put them in the right place
to get the best performance.

- There was just one thing.

- He'd never done anything
with visual effects before.

- Fortunately, David Yates
had faithful support

in visual effects supervisor,
Tim Burke,

and he had done a lot
with visual effects.

- David's background,
being a Northerner like me,

I felt bit of
a kindred spirit,

so I built quite
a strong relationship with him.

It was the first time I'd been
allowed to supervise on my own,

'cause I was co-supervising
on the third film.

So for me that was
a nice, big step up as well.

- But the real step up
was in visual effects.

-

- David was very keen
to make the magic grounded.

- Because in 2007,

"grounded" wasn't exactly
what audiences were demanding.

- It's gotta be better
than it was before.

It's gotta be bigger
than it was before.

We've gotta be able to
do something

that we've never done before.

- The Order of the Phoenix
would need a new order

of special effects.

- What do you mean?

- Push the envelope to the degree

they wanted to do to
create that wow factor.

- And yet, all this now had
to come in cheaper than before.

There was only one way
to do more for less.

- Expecto Patronum!

It was now time
for the wizards with the wands

to fully embrace the wizards
with the mouse.

- David Yates was leaving more
to CGI effects.

- Moving away from anything

that was deemed to
not work as a practical effect.

- And there might be
no going back.

- You are hereby expelled.

- They needed to go to that
cutting edge of technology.

- Meaning big changes
for some of Harry Potter's

most faithful servants.

- In my world,

that probably meant
we had less to do.

- With a new story

and a new director
for Harry Potter's fifth film,

nothing about directing
a blockbuster

was second nature to
David Yates,

not even a second unit.

- David, I don't think,

had worked with
a second unit before.

So he needed to have
confidence in the person

who was gonna direct
his second unit,

who would really work and
understand the way he worked.

- Now without the experience
of stalwart, Peter MacDonald.

- I know Peter would
have done a fantastic job.

- I wasn't invited.

- The director's unique approach
was a spanner

in the production's works.

- It was difficult,

because David Yates had
control over everything.

Whatever we did had to
be videotaped,

taken back to him
for his approval.

It was a bit frustrating.

- David Yates was loud and clear
with his directing style--

that is, if you could hear
what he was saying.

- The one thing that a lot
of people say about David

is he speaks very softly.

- You have to listen to him very
hard when he explains stuff,

you know, and you might have
to ask him a couple of times.

- He works so quietly.
- What did he say?

- While cast and crew
listened closely to David,

he also listened carefully
to them.

- David's process was
very collaborative.

His initial reaction would be to
say, well, how would you do it?

- It was a new approach
best summed up

by one
increasingly uttered word--

- Digital.
- Digital.

- Digital.
- Purely digital.

- Well, it wasn't all digital,

but David Yates was
not going to look a gift horse,

or a gift thestral, in the beak.

- What is it?

- David saw these tools and
knew what they were capable of,

and knew how this was going
to get him the look and feel

if he needed to portray
the drama in a credible way,

and have them experience
and believe what they're seeing.

- You know,
the thestrals on the fifth film,

there's no way
we'd attempt to build those.

They would always
have to be digital.

- But creature creator
extraordinaire Nick Dudman

still had a gap to bridge
from the mind to the model,

especially with
these friendly fellows.

- I can see them too.

- They were, you know,
a piece of concept art,

and we had to turn it
into a model,

so we had a lighting
reference piece

that could be taken out
on location and could be used.

- For practical pioneers
like Nick,

the question he once asked...

- Will it be digital?
Will it be us, you know?

- ...had a much different answer
than it used to.

- Digital, digital,
they're completely digital.

- So the rule became, you know,

if you want anything dynamic to
it, then we'll do it digitally.

- In the war between
practical and CG...

- CGI was taking over.

- ...there's one clear winner.

- Computer graphics is
a weapon in your armory

to sort of say, well, I'm gonna
build this part of the set,

I'm gonna put a blue screen
at this end,

and then
the visual effect's gonna

make it three times as big.

- Which would make
the Ministry of Magic

very big indeed.

- The Ministry of Magic set is,
hands-down,

my favorite of all of the sets.

Utterly breathtaking.

- The Ministry of Magic
was one of the biggest

and most impressive sets
that we built.

It took over, you know,
a huge stage at Leavesden.

- You know, you had a lot
of people running around.

I think there was a lot
of extras in that one,

that I can remember.

- Whenever you're
working on a film,

you have a standby carpenter,
a standby art director.

All of those standbys
were actually dressed up

as characters in the movie,

so that if they
had to get on with their jobs,

they could
blend into the background.

- As magical as
the Ministry of Magic appeared,

production designer Stuart Craig

based it on something much more
down-to-earth.

- Stuart came up with the idea,
based on Leslie Green,

the architect
of London tube stations.

- And so while digital effects
didn't so much mind the gap...

- Mind the gap.

- ...but leap it on the back
of a thestral,

there was another scene
that made a leap so large,

it was a first
for the franchise.

- Department of Mysteries.

- The most amazing production
designer in the world,

Stuart Craig,

decided to design this amazing
infinite space of these shelves,

covered with thousands
of moving, whirling,

sort of smoky objects,
and each one had a prophecy.

- But, there was no mystery as to

how these prophetic spheres
would find their way

onto the screen.

- It became very clear that
we could never build anything

that would be of any use.

And what transpired...

- Now!

- ...was the very first full-CG
set in Harry Potter history.

- So we went digital
for the whole thing,

but it gave us control over all
of the events towards the end

when the shelves get destroyed
and they collapse,

and all the animation
involved in that.

- But this was much more
than just

glass spheres
falling off shelves.

- This was the cutting edge,
absolutely the cutting edge.

And this was pushing
the boundaries.

- But there were
yet more boundaries to push

in the film's
electrifying climax

where Dumbledore faces
Voldemort in the final showdown.

- We had this amazing fight
at the end.

- Even in this
new digital playground,

Harry Potter adhered
to David Heyman's

original philosophy
for the series.

- And this was the
David Heyman thing from day one.

"We're not doing Star Wars.

We don't wanna just see
laser beams.

The way that we're gonna make

this world believable
is to ground it."

- But David Heyman's
grounded approach was

taken even further by
director David Yates.

- David wants to bring
this new idea to magic

where they could use
physical things,

so actually use parts
of the set.

So we designed
that whole sequence

where he was exploding windows,

and then using the shards
of glass

like they were sort of
streams of daggers.

So it was more rooted rather
than it just being

flashing lights all the time.

- But not everything was
whiz, bang,

computer-generated
dragons and fire.

To score the scene
and all the others,

David Yates went old-school,

and attempted to bring in
his most trusted collaborator.

- I worked on every film he did,

but I had never done, I think,
a feature film of that size.

"Would you like
to come on board?"

And I sort of fell over.

- That made Warner Bros.
very unsure

about this maestro
they had never heard of.

- I had to really convince
Warner Bros.

that I was up for the job.

- But with the music
of John Williams

still ringing out
from the first three films...

- You can imagine what it's like
trying to follow John Williams.

Quite a task.

And of course, it tended
to make one a bit nervous.

- So they gave him a little test.

- All I had was a storyboard.

- And he was asked to score a
scene, which sounded like this.

- We recorded it and sent it
to Warner Bros., and job done.

- But whether they had a movie
would depend on

settling a different kind of
score altogether.

- Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix

was ready for
its finishing touches.

David Yates just needed his film
to sound as good as it looked.

- I was pretty nervous
by the time

we got to the first recordings
at Abbey Road.

- Producers knew
the man adding the music

was a novice by the standards
of the Potterverse,

So David Heyman was in London

to personally sign off
on the score.

- I think it was
on the second day of recording.

- Fortunately, he already had
a reason to smile.

- David Heyman
had just got married.

In the moment,

when he walked into the studio,
he said, "Hey, Nick, meet Jo."

- That's Joanne, AKA JK Rowling.

And thinking this was
his new bride...

- I rushed up to her
and I gave her a hug and a kiss

and said, "Congratulations
on marrying David."

"I didn't marry David.

I'm married
to someone else."

- So was David.

He was happy with the score
Nicholas had now finished.

The Order of the Phoenix was
officially ready for theaters.

- When the film came out...

Harry and the Order
of the Phoenix.

- ...I was probably
on some kind of

strange, hallucinogenic
Potter drug.

- Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix

premiered on July 11th, 2007.

- Emma!

- What David did
with the film is amazing.

We made one of the best films.

- But had
the most digital film to date

lost some of Potter's magic?

- It's not my favorite.
The whimsy had gone.

This was very much
almost like kitchen sink drama.

It was, like, everything's
got to be hyper-real,

and I felt that they'd lost
something of the magic of it.

- And yet,
if some of the magic had gone,

audiences didn't seem to mind.

The Order of the Phoenix
soared at the box office,

grossing almost $940 million
worldwide.

- David!

- David Yates, in a way,

becomes the most important
director in the history

of the series,

because I think they
finally find someone

who can embody the Britishness
of the franchise,

but he has a technical facility,

he's incredibly
energetic and focused.

- And David Yates's enthusiastic
energy soon turned into

a relaxing exhale
for the studio.

Yates was immediately signed
on to direct the next film.

- They obviously liked
the way he works.

- He'd gone from
one modest feature

to the world's hottest franchise
in a single film.

- The machine began to run
with such precision

and also with such confidence
under David Yates,

who really understood where he
was going for all those books.

At that time,

the studio had made the
commitment for the whole series,

and so the entire franchise
wasn't riding on

one movie at that time.

We began to see the benefits
of the continuous production.

- So you didn't have to reinvent
the wheel,

you know, you just carried on
from where you'd been before.

- Just felt like that team now
was gonna stay together.

- While Warner's looked
ahead to their sixth film,

Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince,

a major landmark
was suddenly upon Harry Potter

and his legions of fans.

The end was nigh.

- It was ten days, of course,

between the release of the film

and the release
of the final book.

- The final installment, Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

was released July 21st of 2007,

marking the end of a
20-year odyssey for JK Rowling.

- There was a great deal
of anticipation and excitement.

- Everyone got very excited
and thought I was hinting that

I was writing another one,
and I'm not.

- But there was also a real kind
of sense of sadness as well.

It was, like, "Oh,
she's not gonna write any more?

Really not gonna write
any more?"

- It almost felt jarring to know
that we had these movies coming,

but that it was gonna be
over for us

on the book side of things.

- Opening the very last Harry
Potter book, turning each page,

not wanting it to end.

But at the same time,

desperately wanting to know
how it ends.

- So I had to read the book
as quickly as possible,

and I sat
and I read it in one sitting,

the whole thing,
in about 14 hours.

I just bombed through it.

I remember when I read it, you
know, you sit back and you go,

"Oh, my god,
so that's what it's about,

and that's what's gonna
happen to that person

and that person
and that person."

- But the end of
the story was far from

the end of the road
for David Heyman and Warner's.

- Even though we were sad,

thinking,
this is the end of an era,

which, of course, it was,

it wasn't
the end of that legacy.

- Right.
The movies were far from done.

Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix

had barely spooled out
the projectors

when the production team
rolled into movie six,

The Half-Blood Prince.

- That was fun.

- Probably four month, five month
break, and then we went back.

- For the seasoned crew,

Harry Potter had gone
from a one-off meal ticket...

- When we worked
on the first film,

there was no certainty that we
would film the second book.

- ...to a long and lucrative
lunch.

- By the time we got to
kind of films four and five,

it's, like,
"Well, this is pretty cool."

- And following another
box office hit

in The Order of the Phoenix,

no one wanted to end up working
on the first Harry Potter bomb.

- They're expected
to produce better than

what they've done before.

- Harry Potter's original
screenwriter, Steve Kloves,

was back to script.

With Tim Burke back
in charge of visual effects,

and with David Yates
returning to direct,

everything was in place.

- That just gave efficiencies
better and cheaper as well.

- It's almost like that
growing pains film, you know,

in that sense,

between, oh,
we've got to a certain point,

and now we've gotta bridge that

before we go into
the big, big, big finale.

- Finally, after several movies,

it looked like the
Harry Potter sausage factory

was running at full speed.

However, there was
one minor snag, shall we say?

- I mean, obviously,
Dan went off to do Equus.

- I mean, he's got to
be allowed to act in other ways.

- Suddenly,
the man who was the boy

who was Harry Potter
was on the West End stage.

- Equus is a play.

- Proving he was definitely
no longer a boy.

- There is nudity.

- And I just thought,
well, if he's gonna do that,

he's gonna do that.

- Daniel Radcliffe showed
there was much more to him

than Harry Potter.

- He's a very brave actor,
and I take my hat off to him.

- After taking much more
than his hat off in Equus,

it was clear Daniel
and his costars

wanted to push
their own boundaries.

But that was pushing
the production, too.

- You better hurry before
they age out of this entirely

and we no longer believe
they could be 17 years old.

- For Harry Potter,
the clock was ticking.

Harry Potter was growing up,
and there was no hiding it.

- He was a growing lad, you know,

and which of us
weren't at one time?

- Fame and money are a
big draw and they're a lure in,

and not just for adults.

- Daniel Radcliffe had
fame and money, and soon...

- He had a drinking problem,
and was coming to the set drunk.

He has been very vocal
about that

and how much of a mess
he was around that time.

- His parents knew the pitfalls
of being a child actor.

It's fun,
but it's a really hard life.

Not that many kids
survive unscathed.

- While Daniel struggled with
adult potions and their effects,

Emma Watson was trying
to broaden her horizons

in a more conventional way.

- She wanted to go to school,
She wanted to have an education.

- She was doing her A-levels
or her GCSEs or something.

They wanted to give her kind of
maximum amount of time to study.

And the way the schedule was,

if they could get away
with a double,

they would prefer to buy Emma
as much time as they could.

- And for Emma,
that made all the difference.

- Warner Bros. have been

so supportive of me
continuing with school.

- Study hard,
and you will be rewarded.

- While the leading trio began
to look outside their cozy nest,

another core cast member
was finally beginning

to spread his wings with a
performance years in the making.

- We'll see just who's laughing
in the end.

- Tom Felton's Malfoy
would finally have

his defining moments.

- I love that Tom Felton
kind of matured as an actor

in Half-Blood Prince.

It's like, the first movie

where we spend time
with Draco Malfoy

and we see that he's changing.

He's getting abused
and he's afraid.

- I have to kill you.
Or he's gonna kill me.

- He's scared,

and we see the human side
of Draco in that movie,

and I think Tom Felton just

knocks it out of the park
with that.

- It's real easy to play smarmy
and the little jerk kid.

- Red hair,
and a hand-me-down robe?

You must be a Weasley.

But when you're dealing
with the inner stuff

that's starting to bubble up,
that takes a more deft hand.

- While The Half-Blood Prince
told the story

of Voldemort's ongoing battle
with the wizarding world

and took JK Rowling's
characters deeper,

the crew went deeper with
an old Harry Potter favorite.

- Now then, remember,

just because you made
the team last year

does not guarantee you
a spot this year.

- Every time we done
Quidditch, on the next film,

it got better and better.

- Digital effects weren't
the only improvements.

New practical rigs meant
the stunt designers could

make a broomstick do things

a younger Harry Potter
could only dream of.

- Greg had said, they want
to do multiple crashes,

all different types, all
different ways, into each other.

So we're just gonna have a
two-week brainstorming session,

rehearsing session.

Are you up for that?

Yeah, course.

- So we, as a stunt department,
were always looking to,

you know, incorporate
new ways of telling the story.

- But as the story demanded
more action,

more was demanded of the stunt
team, which meant more risk.

- We don't know exactly
how it's gonna go,

so we're gonna try
a few different techniques.

- It's usually what they call
a matrix tree.

You know, we could spin
'em over and spin 'em round

and, you know,
tumble and everything.

So and then we had
'em on the Russian Swing

where we actually
launched 'em through the air.

- What's the Russian Swing?

Well, it's a contraption
with steel arms

you'd usually find in a circus.

- And it was huge.
It was pretty dangerous.

- And it could make stunt work
more like Russian Roulette.

- Yeah, Russian Swing,
my favorite piece of equipment.

- We were flying on
this Russian Swing.

I mean, we were getting up
into the steels of the roof.

- Well, we decided to
fly through the air

and smash each other in midair.

- We had the one,
two Russian Swings,

one opposing the other.

So one person would
fly off the side swing,

and the person
going down the line directly

would smash into them.

Me and Tony hitting each other,

landing in a big bed
of crash mats.

- Originally an amateur game
for kids,

Quidditch had basically
turned professional,

even in the Muggle world.

- This is NYU footage.

We've adapted the score
to work for our own limitations.

- With Muggles playing Quidditch,

it was time for the wizards
to up their game.

- We just wanted it hard, fast,
over the top.

It was just insane.

- But even the craziest stunts
could not deliver

what visual effects needed
for Quidditch 2.0.

- What I really wanted to achieve
on the sixth film was

to really make the sequence much
more sort of fluid and exciting.

- Like many classic set pieces,

the inspiration for this high
velocity battle came from above,

thanks to Tom Cruise's airborne
antics in the OG Top Gun.

- Being in the air
with the aircraft

and being able to see the way
the planes bank and roll,

you know,
and we wanted to bring that

to essentially what
you're doing on the broomstick

when you're playing Quidditch.

You know, you're flying
and where you're rolling

and banking
to go around corners.

- Just as Dambusters had been
a template for Star Wars ...

- Gold Five, we'll cover for you.

- ...which became a template
for Top Gun.

- Watch out, watch out!

- So Harry Potter proved
a longstanding principle

of action sequences.

- Because if you can
film something

as you would film it for real,
then it becomes more believable.

You know, if you were really
filming a Quidditch match,

you would want to be
flying with the players.

So I tried to bring
in some rules of filming

that made it more believable.

- But making the Potterverse
believable was

having less and less
to do with the real world

and the crew working in it.

- The amount of people
they employ to do that,

and then all of a sudden,
that's going,

because they can now do that
in an office

by tweaking a few switches,
and I think it just loses that,

you know, authenticity
about making a film.

- And that meant
this production was about

to lose much more
than authenticity.

- There's some fantastic
craftsmen put out of work.

- As production on
The Half-Blood Prince

got underway,
we were introduced to

some scary new characters.

- So we had Fenrir Greyback.

Oh, he's a werewolf.

-

- We did this
really entertaining makeup

where it does appear
like his hair

is just growing out of
his skin all over.

- Prosthetics were back,

proving the simplest alchemy

could still leave
an indelible mark.

- We did some prosthetics for
Malfoy's sectumsempra thing.

- Sectumsempra!
-

- It was me
just behind camera,

catching Tom Felton
on a crash mat.

So yeah, we were constantly
trying to push the boundaries

and be able to tell the story of
this spell being more serious.

And not just some random Latin.

This was possibly Harry's
most visceral spell.

He would use his wand to draw
blood for the first time.

- That's quite a pretty full-on
spell to cast,

and you know, Harry only
knows the gravity of that spell

when he sees Malfoy leaking
blood all over the floor.

- Originally,
his chest was gonna be open,

the shirt was gonna be open,

and you could see the kind of
wand lines across here

that were bleeding.

- But the question was,
how bloody is too bloody?

- And then I think
they thought fairly quickly,

that's just too graphic.

- For more subtle gore
befitting Warner's

all-important PG certificate,

Paul and his team
needed only costume and makeup.

- There were a few tests
we had to do with that

to get the fabric damp,
just slightly damp,

so that when
it started bleeding,

when the blood came through,

it did that nice kind of
pooling into the shirt.

- Lumos maxima!

- As the line between digital
and practical blurred further,

even the crew could be tricked.

- People that were coming out of
the water grabbing,

they was all
Nick Dudman's people.

- No, it wasn't.
- That was digital.

We didn't have to do that.

- JK Rowling's darker visions
were now routinely demanding

more than practical
could deliver on its own.

- In the end, they wanted
'em to be too emaciated.

- Which was obviously
a very grim process.

We needed to find
emaciated people,

so we were referencing pictures
from the Holocaust,

the concentration camps,
of how the bodies looked.

We had to create
these digital characters

who were way more emaciated
than a human could be.

- And continuing
what they'd started

in the Department of Mysteries
by creating full CG sets,

they'd do it again here
for the film's climactic ending.

- The cave itself was
a full CG, digital environment,

and the little island
was built as a practical set.

But there was no water.
It was all done dry for wet.

- In fact, on
The Half-Blood Prince,

dry was the new wet.

- It's your job, Harry,

to make sure I keep
drinking this potion.

Production have learned the
lessons of the Goblet of Fire,

when going underwater
almost sunk the production.

- Never do underwater sequences.

- This time, the only lessons
were for Tim Burke,

and he didn't need any.

Whether he was
summoning water...

- We added all of the water.

- ...or fire.
- All the light effects...

- For Harry and Dumbledore's

dramatic showdown
with the Inferi,

Tim creates a firestorm
as big as

anything described
in the book.

- So it was a big,
complex sequence,

but illustrating again

how we'd really moved away
from the big sets

being practically built,

and we were relying on
very large CG environments.

- As all turned to flame

at the apocalyptic end
of Half-Blood Prince,

Gary Tomkins'
model-building crew...

- We built a miniature
for the Burrow.

- ...responsible for building the
historic home of the Weasleys,

took their cue from the story

and decided to put
the torch to their best work.

- Rather than rely
on digital effects for that,

we were gonna
burn it down for real.

So as it burnt, it would fall
and collapse realistically.

- We then basically had
one chance to blow up.

- So Gary and his team
weren't cutting any corners.

- And then he
torched the whole thing.

- And whoosh, off it went,

and the whole thing just
shot up in the blink of an eye.

- It took something
like five months to build

and something like
five minutes to burn down.

- As Gary's model went up
in flames,

it became almost
a metaphor for the fate

of painstakingly crafted
practical sets.

And finally,
after all these movies,

the majestic epicenter
of the wizarding world

would also succumb
to inevitability.

- We built this
tenth scale version, which,

as I say, was absolutely huge.

- Set builder Jose Granell
didn't know it at the time...

- It literally went up
into the roof of the stage.

- ...but his crowning achievement
on Harry Potter

was set to be
practicals' last stand.

- The model was obviously
quite complex as well.

- The complexity would be
its undoing,

as producers began
to acknowledge that

the tide had turned.

- We were relying so much
on the digital,

and the digital's delivering,

it's trying to deliver
a slightly different look

that the miniature is.

- It was time
for a defining choice.

- We made a sort of joint
decision with the producers

that we would invest
in totally rebuilding Hogwarts

as a digital model.

- It was a big choice, to say

we're gonna
digitize the miniature.

- Hogwarts, the very home
of Harry Potter 's magic

through the years, had finally
given in to digital sorcery.

- Hogwarts. What
a pathetic excuse for a school.

- They ended up
scanning the model.

- Jos's miniature,
that massive masterpiece,

was about to be swallowed whole,
devoured by digital.

- What it allowed us to do then

is give complete freedom
to design shots.

And that took the best part
of a year to do.

- It was a changing of the guard
to cue the slow fade to black

for the practical arts
of masters like Jose,

Nick Dudman,
and John Richardson.

- Although they might call it a
CG model for the last two films,

the textures and the detail came
from the original miniature.

So to me, it feels
more like a hybrid, if you like.

- The whole way

that stories are presented
to an audience is mutating.

It's changing beyond anything
we can imagine.

It's really important
we don't lose the magic

just to sell product,

and that's what's
been happening.

- The Half-Blood Prince had
one awesome responsibility

it simply had to get right--

negotiating the departure
of one of the franchise's

most loved characters.

- It was time for...
- Dumbledore's death.

- It was always intended that
it would be done respectfully.

- You are no assassin.
- How do you know what I am?

I've done things
that would shock you.

- It needed care.

- Expelliarmus.

- It was, after all, the end of

a long, painful journey
for Malfoy.

- Don't you understand?
I have to do this.

Or he's gonna kill me.

- It's terribly sad,

because he's just
caught in this thing

which he doesn't want to do.

- Well done, Draco.

- I really thought that Tom
Felton embodied that perfectly,

that, like, "I still
have to put on this show,

but inside, I'm really having
a hard time with this."

- Harry, do as I say.

- Dumbledore, the granddad's
going, you know? That's it.

- We're about to bid farewell
to possibly the series'

most beloved character.

Well, right, apart from Harry,
of course.

- Welcome to another year
at Hogwarts.

- Dumbledore, a father figure
to Potter fans the world over,

had come to the end
of a road originally traversed

by Richard Harris.

- Michael Gambon, I think,

did a very good job
in a super hard thing to do,

to come in and take over
for Richard Harris.

- Quite successfully too,
I might add.

Most people vomit
the first time.

- Across four films,

Michael Gambon had remade
Dumbledore in his own image.

- Never took it too seriously.

Well, he took the work
seriously, but not himself.

- I really enjoyed the way
that Gambon played Dumbledore.

- Now I can't imagine anyone else
playing Dumbledore,

and I don't even know if I
could picture Richard Harris...

- Good evening,
Professor Dumbledore.

- ...being able to convey
some of the things

that Gambon was able to convey
in the later films.

- That was fun.
Do you mind if I use the loo?

- No, of course.

- Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince

went out into the world
in July of 2009.

- Everyone's come out
to see us again.

It's great.

- I mean,
New York has always been

very, very supportive of
Harry Potter.

- The sixth film of Harry Potter
had gone off the scale.

- Sometimes it feels
like a lot of pressure,

because the fans are so crazy.
- Emma, Emma, Emma!

- And, you know,

really raised the bar in terms
of the quality of the work,

the storytelling, the acting,
everything.

- Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince

grossed $934 million worldwide,

the biggest box office take
in the US

since The Sorcerer's Stone.

- It was huge.

- It was a triumph
at the box office,

and that year,
the only film to beat it

was James Cameron's
computer-generated epic, Avatar.

The success
of The Half-Blood Prince

proved Harry Potter 's audience
had evolved with the films.

- It's probably the least
humorous of all the movies.

There's very little
light and shade.

- But it was dark, and it felt
darker than the book did.

- It did feel like it was
the precursor to another story.

- But now, only the end of
the story remained to be told.

- You knew that the next film was
coming, and when we finish that,

it'll all be over.

So there was
a sort of inevitability that

this wonderful project would,
at some point, come to an end.

- Harry Potter was about to
reach the sharp end of the wand

in its final installments.

- Everyone had worked so hard
to get to this point

that we really needed to
deliver on the final film.

- The pressure was on
to finish on a high.

- This had to be the pinnacle
of everyone's achievements

to get to this point.

- Reaching the pinnacle

would require a now-seasoned
team to call on everything

they'd learned from years

traveling through
the Potterverse.

- Certainly, the biggest and one
of the most complicated films

to actually complete.

- But in the final film,

a push to satisfy a more mature
audience's appetite for action

would come with complications
that were more permanent.

- We were pushing the boundaries.

- And they could hardly
have been more serious.

-

- I would rather not reflect on
the worst day of my life.

- They'll always say
there's never any risk.

But of course, there is.

- It just changed the whole
dynamics of it, you know?

It was just terrible.