All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S09E06.Pushing.the.Boundaries.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

- "The Deathly Hallows"--

the conclusion to one
of the greatest film franchises

the world had ever seen.

The production was
as dramatic as the tale itself.

- Everything about the world
of wizards is at risk here.

- A story split in two
with no extra money to do it...

- Here's a marathon
you've never run before, guys.

- ...causing budget
and schedule overruns...

- Well, my first thought was,

"We're gonna be here
a long time."

- ...on-set infernos...
- It got out of control.

- It absolutely went up
in flames.

- ...infernal issues...
- They took our phones.

They don't normally do that.

...and crew meltdowns.

- Clashes, personality conflicts.

- All in the pursuit
of perfection.

- To go out and try
and tell the story in a way

that we hadn't done yet
in a "Potter" film before.

- But all of that would pale
in comparison to an accident

that would rock the lives
of everyone involved forever.

- We were pushing the boundaries

and something was a mishap
and went wrong.

- "The Deathly Hallows"

would quite literally
come close to death.

- Very devastated and, you know,
kept hoping for the best.

- As the "Harry Potter" franchise
approached its final chapter,

director David Yates was back
for his third film

in the series -- the most
of any director in its history.

- He's amazingly, amazingly
dedicated to this world.

He's so wedded to the series
that he could really pilot it.

- But now the question was,
could he bring it in to land?

- It was huge.
This had to be the pinnacle.

Everyone had worked so hard
to get to this point.

We really needed to delivery.

Really raise the bar in terms
of the quality of the work,

the storytelling, the acting,

be as creative
as we possibly could.

- Easier said than done.

"The Deathly Hallows" was huge,

and although not quite as big
as "The Order of the Phoenix,"

it was still over twice
the length

of the comparatively puny
first book,

"Harry Potter
and the Philosopher's Stone."

- I mean, it was just monumental.
- Huge, that was.

- And something didn't add up

because that first puny book
clocked in

at 2 1/2 hours.

- "Deathly Hallows,"
they realized pretty rapidly,

"We can't do this
in 2 1/2 hours.

No, we probably can't do it
in three hours."

- But don't forget--
This wasn't the first time

they'd grappled
with duration issues...

-

- ...as Chris Rankin
surely remembers

when his character was cut
from the fourth movie.

- Does it matter
to Harry's story? Yes or no?

And if the answer is no, that's
the stuff that gets cut first.

- Gone.

- But this time,
there was more to it.

- The filmmakers believed

that they had to do justice
to the final book

because the books did have
so many complex plotlines

and multiplicity of characters
to be reflected.

- How on earth
are we gonna do that?

- There was only one way.
- It had to be two movies.

- But did it, though?
- Yeah.

That one, out of all of them,
had to be two movies.

- Well, logistically
it did make sense

if they made both movies
together.

- Time is money.
If we stop and come back,

we have
the whole setup cost again.

It's too complicated.

The only way to make it work

is to combine all the shooting
at once.

- Splitting the last book
in a series is common now,

but "The Deathly Hallows"
was the very first to do it.

- I'm not a huge fan of things

being split into two films
because it--

Maybe it just feels like a
money grab to me. I don't know.

It's not that I don't want
more films in a franchise

that I love. It's just
that when they split it,

it always feels off.

I know I'm...

Other people have
different opinions on that.

- Including Warner Bros.,

who were more than happy
to make two movies...

as long as they did it
for the price of one.

- The budgets for the films
never grew because you looked

to sort of take advantage
of the efficiencies

you're bound to have
through all this work.

- But even still...

- 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 budget for the previous
movie was $250 million,

but in this case,

each of the two
"Deathly Hallows" films

would clock in at the price
of the very first movie--

"The Sorcerer's Stone."

There was an element of, like,
"Oh, right. Mm..."

- Well, my first thought was,

"We're gonna be here
a long time," and we were.

- I think it was an
18-month shooting schedule,

so that was enormous.

- But no challenge was too big

or underbudgeted for these
"Harry Potter" veterans.

- A lot of this team have been
together for 10 years.

The producer's
done a whole series.

They've got a guy at the helm

who really knows
this stuff backwards.

So it's not like turning around
to them and saying,

"Well, here's a marathon
you've never run before, guys."

This is,
"Here's a marathon you've run.

You've just gotta
keep on running."

David Yates,
he's, like, the marathon man.

You know, he's like,

"You want me to run
seven marathons or five,

I'm gonna run them,
and I'm gonna keep on going."

- Usually best to have
a break between marathons,

but not in this case.

The "Potter" team were running
a sort of three-legged marathon.

- We were overlapping
three films.

We were still delivering shots
for the sixth film

and previews
and development work

for the seventh film,
part 1 and 2.

- And although they
would be shooting both movies

simultaneously,
working on anything

to do with "Part 2"
was a little bit tricky.

- We didn't get a script
for a long time

and we actually had to start
reading the book

to figure out what was going on,

and even start designing
sequences

that we thought would be
in the second film

based on what was in the book
because we didn't have a script.

- Surely that was
not the best use of Tim's time.

- Well, to be honest, I let my
producer do most of the reading.

She was paraphrasing things into
sort of story beats for me.

- And there was one story beat
that everyone knew about...

roughly.

- We were just
basically taking a guess.

We knew there'd be
a huge battle at the end.

- An almighty battle where Harry

and the forces of good
take on Voldemort

and the forces of evil.

And the background
for this ultimate showdown?

Hogwarts Castle, of course.

- The thing about Hogwarts Castle
was, it changed on every film.

The joy was, at the beginning
of every film,

we would read the script and
work out what was needed to add

or change Hogwarts Castle.

It's the only production
I've ever been on

where continuity can be taken
with a bit of a pinch of salt,

because you can say, "Well, it's
magic. Of course it changes."

- But this time, the
transformation was different,

thanks to
the Battle of Hogwarts.

- Nothing really compares
with the Battle of Hogwarts.

That was of
just unimaginable scale.

There was incredible pressure
on that

to both wrap everything up,

but deliver a spectacle
you've never seen.

- To bring the spectacle to life,

the fully digital Hogwarts
they created off the model

would now undergo
its biggest renovation yet.

- On the last film,
it was important

that the playing area
for that final battle

was in a much bigger courtyard.

- The model being built
in the computer

took the best part of a year
to do.

We could then preview
and design all of the sequences

for the final battle.

- The design of Hogwarts
changed dramatically.

The courtyard in front of
the Great Hall doubled in size.

The viaduct to that
changed in size.

That doubled
or tripled in length.

That was a big change.

- The digital artists were
artists, though, not builders.

Practical effects wizards,
the likes of Gary Tomkins,

found themselves
needing to teach

the practicalities
of model making.

- Through no fault of their own,

last week they were probably
working on dragon's feet

or fairy wings
or something,

so I took up a lot
of building construction books

that I've got in my library,
just showing them

how lintels work over doorways,
rafters work,

how tiles would be fixed
to the tile battens.

There are things that you
can do with a built miniature

that you can't do digitally.

When it was being built,

you might think, "Let's
have a little bit more verdigris

on that drainpipe.
Let's have some moss on that."

It's very tactile. It's
like going on to a full-size set

and just doing all the finishes.

When something is done
completely digital,

you don't have that control

because it's done
at a digital effects house,

which is away from the studio.

- For some, this meant
giving up work on a set

they had been involved with
for the better part of 10 years.

- The last two films were done
that way, so that kinda meant--

spelt the end for us.

We didn't physically shoot
after that on Hogwarts, sadly.

But there you go.

- Hogwarts was my baby

that I looked after
for all of those years,

and every film,
it would be something

I would always look forward
to -- going down,

meeting up with José,
discussing the new changes,

what we were gonna build.

Meeting up with the team
of model makers,

all of whom were, you know,
incredibly talented

and they knew
every inch of that model.

They knew
construction techniques.

They knew what we were trying
to achieve.

- And if the Battle of Hogwarts
was between CG and practical,

by now,
there was absolutely no doubt

which side had emerged
victorious.

- There were a lot of things
that went more to the CGI world

and that was
the director's choice.

I found that quite daunting
at times

that David Yates was
leaning more to CGI effects.

- Regardless, director
David Yates knew one thing.

- It is the quality
of one's convictions

that determines success.

- With the legacy of the
"Harry Potter" franchise riding

on the results
of these last two films,

failure just wasn't an option.

- You brave, brave man.

- Principal photography began

on "The Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
and "2" in February 2009.

The shooting schedule had now
been extended to over 260 days

on the same budget,

so every dollar counted

and all the departments
had to rely on each other.

- A good relationship
is important

between
the visual effects department

and the art department

because they really
can help you out of a scrape

if you can't afford to build
a set or whatever that might be.

- Right, Tim and his team

couldn't do everything
digitally,

and even
though Hogwarts was now digital,

there were still plenty
of hands-on action

for Gary and the team.

There was a ton of work
to be done building new sets,

like Shell Cottage.

- Shell Cottage
on the outskirts of Tinworth.

- That was
a particularly lovely set to do.

One of the references
for the design of Shell Cottage

was a place in Devon
called A la Ronde.

One of the things that
this particular property had

was triangular windows,
which is obviously very unusual.

Shell Cottage was built
very much

like a traditional cottage
would be made,

but instead of using stones for
the walls, they were big shells.

We then got
the plastering department

to cast them off
and make sheets of them,

and the same with the roof.

We built the set
that they used in the studios,

the entire thing was built,
finished, painted,

and then it was dismantled,
put onto trucks,

taken to Wales,
and then built on the beach.

- And such a unique design
could only benefit

from a unique location.

- Freshwater Bay in
Pembrokeshire in Wales.

I think it worked
particularly well.

The colors that we chose
to paint Shell Cottage

were very much based
on the colors of the sand

and the dunes
that it was nestled in.

It looked like it had been
there forever.

- But by building out
such a major set piece

in a public space,
it was only a matter of time

before it attracted
the attention

of ravenous "Potter" fans.

Whereas normally
on "Harry Potter" films,

they're cloaked in secrecy,

and if you were shooting
on location,

there'd be barriers
and cordons--

For this,
we made no attempt to hide it

because you just couldn't.

- The location would also
feature the beloved house-elf,

Dobby's, death scene.

- Such a beautiful place.

- I remember reading the book

and just crying my eyes out
when Dobby dies.

- Dobby had been a CGI character
since "The Chamber of Secrets,"

but his passing provided
an economical opportunity

to return
to the original puppet.

- For certain shots,

particularly when he's being
carried or being wrapped up,

you can just use the puppet,
and that's a,

you know, few thousand pounds
saved on the budget

just by using something
that's static.

So, we just had our practical
puppet that we used for that.

- However, when it came
to filming the emotional scene,

the Freshwater Bay location
saw it make the front page

of the newspapers
for all the wrong reasons.

- Nick was
famously photographed--

it was on the front
of the newspaper--

holding Dobby in his arms.

- It was literally
just the corpse,

which we did take up
to the location in a box

with "RIP, Dobby"
written on the front.

I remember horrifying people
because they were saying,

"Oh, God, it's Dobby!

He's dead!" You know?

- Thankfully, that's
where the trauma ended.

- Anything walking
or talking was digital.

- And what the distraught fans
didn't realize at the time

was, he would be treated
to one final makeover,

ensuring he'd look his best.

- We modified Dobby a little bit
from his original design.

-
- He was so cartoony.

We wanted to just reduce some
of his features

a little bit to give him
a little bit more realism.

- Of course, sir. I'm an elf.

- I wasn't a big fan
of facial capture.

Toby Jones, playing Dobby--

His facial details were
so different.

I basically wanted to animate,

so when we filmed, we had
Toby come

and deliver the lines on set,

and then once we'd finished
filming on set,

we'd take him
to a little side studio

and we basically allowed him
to repeat the whole performance

with physical character,
as well as facial character.

Cut that material together,

turned it over to the animators,
who then interpreted designs

that we'd done
and came up with the animation.

The nature of how it's filmed
and the sort of--

the rawness of it,
was, yeah, very, very real.

And there are moments in there,
absolutely,

where you just believe he's a
real character that's just died.

- But for some, Dobby's death
evoked unexpected emotions.

For Gary, one of irritation.

- Shell Cottage is seen
just in the distance.

And you can barely see
any texture on it

because everyone's concentrating
on Dobby,

and in the background,
there's Shell Cottage there.

Get out of the way.
There's Shell Cottage.

We put a lot of effort
into that.

- Dobby wasn't the only character

who'd undergone a bit
of an image change.

- The producer came literally
running into my department,

saying, "We've just had
Harry Melling in,

and we've got a major problem."

- Just look at him, Petunia.
Our boy has gone yumpy!

- He'd always been
this totally chunky child

and he's turned up and
he's this very slim young man.

- Nick promptly came in
with a picture and says,

"Have you seen Harry Melling?"

It's like, "Oh, my God.
Wow, he's lost loads of weight."

And they want him to look
exactly how he did,

and it becomes, "Okay."

Nothing massively
had changed here.

It was just really
the weight in his face.

- So, we had to make
a full bodysuit for him,

and hands,

and face, the whole thing.

- I don't think you're
a waste of space.

- And that was
quite a tough number

'cause it's one of those gags
that nobody's meant to notice.

You know, you're not doing it
to attract attention.

- At least it was
that way 'round.

If he'd put on loads of weight

and we'd have had
to shrink him down,

that would not have been
our world.

That would've been
a digital thing, for sure.

- And issues with cast members
persisted.

Another actor, Jamie Waylett,

portraying Malfoy's sidekick
Vincent Crabbe...

- What are you doing down--

- ...would find himself propelled
into the spotlight

for all the wrong reasons--

arrested on a drug charge.

- I think it was discovered
in a club or something outside.

- He pled guilty
to possession of cannabis

and was ultimately let go from
the "Harry Potter" franchise.

- That was not good.
Tragic, really.

- But where there's smoke,
there's fire,

and before the end of shooting,
there would be an inferno.

But we'll get to that.

For now, filming was
in full swing

on the final two
"Harry Potter" films,

and Tim Burke was now frequently
by the director's side.

- When he's directing,
we were sort of quite close.

There was so much
to be done in post, basically.

- But it wasn't all business
as usual

because these movies had
some necessary exposition

regarding the legendary
Deathly Hallows

and it was a backstory

that didn't involve
Harry Potter at all.

- So you want kids
to pay attention to this thing

that doesn't have Harry in it,
that doesn't have Hermione,

it doesn't have Ron.

In kids' movies,

you have to have a reason
to pay attention to stuff.

- To solve this,
a bold, unusual step was taken.

- Try and tell this prophecy,
this story in a way

that we hadn't done yet
in a "Potter" film before.

This puppet film with almost
a Balinese shadow puppet look.

- The three brothers simply waved
their wands and made a bridge.

- Ben Hibon did
this animated film for us.

- He was an animation director.

- Driven mad with
hopeless longing,

the second brother
killed himself.

- At this point, the franchise is
operating with such confidence.

"Let's give this a try."

- To do something visually
that was so different

and so interesting,

it was really effective
because it kinda jolted you out.

It made you pay attention
to this story,

especially little kids, sit up
and go, "Ooh, what's happening?"

- But for the cast and crew
of Harry Potter,

a dark event was on the horizon.

"The Deathly Hallows"
had a tragic plot twist

and it was one
that nobody saw coming.

- As filming continued
on "The Deathly Hallows,"

the challenges for Tim Burke
and the team continued.

- One of the big,
complex sequences

was when they transform
into the seven Harrys.

- I believe you're familiar
with this particular brew.

- Basically, we had to replicate
Daniel seven times.

We started with each
of the actors

who were gonna turn
into Harry.

Basically, we designed
a single shot, a full 360.

By the time we got back, they'd
turned into the seven Harrys.

- Wow, we're identical.
- Wow, we're identical.

- David directed each
of the actors,

so they had their own peculiar
sort of little personalities

about how they transformed.

- Delivering the scene
would require high-tech VFX,

but also some
straight-up quality acting.

- [Fleur's voice]
Bill, look away. I'm hideous.

- Dan watched each
of their performances

and learnt those performances
and then sort of copied

and tried to emulate them.

- But some actors,
he'd been studying for years.

- He did a very good Hermione.

- [Hermione's voice] Harry,
your eyesight really is awful.

- Which he seemed to get
a lot quicker than the others,

probably 'cause he's known her
for a lot longer.

- [George's voice]
Haven't got anything

a bit more sporting, have you?

- [Fred's voice] Yeah,
I don't really fancy this color.

- We'd basically blended
live action with CG

and did the transformations.

The final realization
is startling

and it's great storytelling
at the end of the day.

- Yes, it's all very touching.

Let's go!

Three!
- And go they did,

straight into a hell-for-
leather chase sequence

high over the streets
of London.

But prop master
Barry Wilkinson

felt that Mad-Eye Moody

might be slightly
out of place perched on a broom.

- Mad-Eye Moody. Well, looking at
the character in that coat

and that,
he looks a bit thuggish.

He wouldn't be just sitting
on a piddly little broom.

Let's do him something good.

I said,
"Well, let's get a Harley seat,

one of the old-fashioned type,
leather ones,

and a couple of pegs

and put him
so he can be at least looking

as though he's riding a bike."

So that's
how his broom came about.

- Once the chase sequence
touched down,

literally every department
on the film became involved.

- Stunts, the special effects,

two different locations for
the tunnels, CG environments.

You know, we had riding
upside down on the roof,

which we did with a rig.

We were doing a lot of
air-to-air photography

to make it very dynamic
and visceral.

It was a very
heavily involved sequence.

- Now, speaking
of being heavily involved,

Chris Rankin had been
patiently waiting by the phone

to find out if his character,
Percy Weasley...

- I happen to be
a school prefect.

- ...would make the cut
because he was in the book.

- I do remember turning that page
and gasping,

and I was like,
"Oh, he's there!"

- Having gone to work
for the Ministry of Magic,

Percy returned to Hogwarts
in time for the big battle

in which
he would redeem himself.

- In the book,
if memory serves me,

he gets called
a Ministry-loving,

family-disowning,
power-hungry moron by Fred.

- While reunited with his family,

Percy wouldn't be
able to save brother Fred.

- And then they go into battle
together.

Percy ends up dueling his boss
and says,

"Oh, by the way,
did I tell you I'm resigning?"

And Fred says,
"Percy's told a joke."

And as he says that, he gets
killed, and it's just horrible.

- As heart-wrenching
as this moment was in the book,

it was even worse news
for Chris.

- I remember having a call from
David Heyman, which was unusual,

saying, "We're not gonna
show Fred's death scene.

It's not gonna work.

There's no way we can do this
without ruining that moment.

Some things are better left
to the imagination.

But please don't tell anybody

because everybody wants to know
what's gonna happen

with Fred's death."

- The killing off
of Fred Weasley's death scene

meant only one thing for Chris.

- Percy's not
in "Deathly Hallows" much,

but he's there.

- There! And there!

- And that's what matters.

- Someone who was there
from the very beginning

was stunt performer and "Harry
Potter" double David Holmes.

Having spent years working
on the franchise,

he was there day in,
day out,

but on one particular day,

things went terribly wrong
indeed.

- The job that he was doing

was pretty much similar
to what we'd done before.

Not a lot of difference,
you know.

- The shot was for a scene
where snake and Horcrux Nagini

violently attacks Harry.

- I believe they'd done a test
prior, done a successful one.

- Director David Yates

then asked for a
little more power in the shot.

- Changed the wiring. We
rehearsed it a couple of times.

We were building up, and then...

-

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

too much, but
we were pushing the boundaries

and something was a mishap
and went wrong,

and unfortunately
I suffered a spinal cord injury.

- I remember it happening
and I remember, you know,

the story coming up
to the art department

and obviously, you know,

we had known David
for many years prior to that

and it was, you know,
just very, very devastating.

- I remember the shock
and the upset that it caused.

Dave is incredible.

He's one
of the really good guys.

You know, just such
a genuinely great human.

- I'm paralyzed from here down.

Unfortunately
since then, with a complication,

I've lost the function
of one arm.

- For something like that
to happen to anybody,

but to a young,
vibrant, energetic bunch of fun.

He was absolutely diligent
on safety first.

- Unfortunate as, you know...

Actually, it...

I'll just stand up for a minute,
okay?

- I think it was the speed
of his impact and the point

where he impacted
that caused the damage.

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

but, of course, there is.

- We wanted everyone to be safe,
obviously.

I don't think we'd done
anything different.

Yeah, he'd done it all for then,
and that happened.

- Second unit director
Peter MacDonald,

who left the franchise
after "The Goblet of Fire"

believes an accident
like David's

could have been avoided.

- When you're making a film,

you're not there to hurt
or injure people, you know.

Unfortunately people are.

Sometimes, though,

it is because people
don't stand up and say,

"No, we've got to do
this properly.

We've got to rewire.
We've got to, you know..."

And they say, "Oh,
that's gonna take two hours."

And that's,
"Well, it takes two hours,

it takes two hours," you know.

You have to be fairly strong
and be, you know,

willing to be counted.

- Just changed the whole dynamics
of it, you know.

It was just terrible.

He's never gonna be the same.

He's, you know -- And I was
different after that, I think.

It ruined "Potter" for me

'cause the poor kid,
he's ended up in a wheelchair.

- David, though, holds
no grudges.

- I went into hospital
and met real victims,

and I went into hospital
with a spinal injury

whilst doing a risky job.

In life, you can either be a
victim or you can be a survivor.

I choose to be a survivor
from that incident.

I'm still alive. I'm a person.
I'm not just a disabled man.

I'm not a victim
and I still have hope,

love, and joy in my heart.

- After David's
horrific accident,

he was replaced
by stunt double Marc Mailley.

- You know, when we come
to do that job with Mark,

everyone was watching it

and it really annoyed me,
how they were watching it,

because they wanna see--
I don't know.

They're gonna watch it

because another accident
might happen, you know?

I was really annoyed at that
then.

It was like a freak show.

I got really pissed off
with that one.

It was never the same.

- Sadly, David's injury occurred

with the climactic Battle
of Hogwarts still to come.

A battle he would've had
major involvement in.

And it needed to be
the franchise's crowning glory.

Obviously it was the climax
of the film itself

and the whole series of books.

Hogwarts was key to
the whole story of Harry Potter.

For the characters,
it was the thing

that grounded all of their
stories, it was their lives.

I mean, everyone was
so committed to making

the best possible end
they could.

- But what mattered most, at
least to special effects guru

John Richardson...

- It was my one chance
to talk David Yates

into doing something
really spectacular.

- ...was a special effects
bonanza at Hogwarts Castle.

- To blow up a large part
of the Hogwarts courtyard.

- It was John's opportunity to
leave the franchise with a bang.

- I think they built probably
100 foot

of practical set to blow up.

- It was a very complicated.

Explosions going off
that you had to make sure

were in the right place
at the right time.

- Of course,
blowing up real bricks

would have been
a health and safety nightmare.

- Because the kids were
gonna be running on it,

you couldn't use real stuff,

because they would cut
their legs.

- The solution...
- Polyjuice Potion.

- Uh, not Polyjuice Potion.

Polystyrene.

- They started getting these
lorry loads of polystyrene.

There was tons,
so I had a conveyor system going

where they was chopping
this stuff up.

Each piece of that was made.

- It was supposed to
fireproof polystyrene.

And as they set off
all this explosive

along the perimeter of the set,
it got out of control.

It just went up.

- It absolutely went up
in flames.

- But that's why you have
firefighters on standby.

Unfortunately...
- Unfortunately,

the fire brigade
didn't have a long enough hose

to put the fire out,

even though they'd
been standing there all day.

- ...the cast, crew, and firemen

could only watch on
from a safe distance

as the set went up in smoke.

- The whole one side of the set
was destroyed, really.

To see it destroyed,
it was shocking, to be honest.

- The damage cost
an estimated $150,000 to fix.

- Which I'm sure Warner Bros.
wasn't really pleased about.

We couldn't do take two because
it had already gone up in smoke,

but everyone was safe,
no one got hurt.

- The rebuild cost was not only
money, but time, as well.

- We did have to stop
while they rebuilt it.

- All had to go back
exactly as it was.

- But the end result was
a remarkable sequence.

- It was good stuff and I think
it added a more spectacular end.

Destroying Hogwarts,

I often tell people,
was probably my favorite thing

after being in it for 10 years.

- But there was still
one last scene to film

before the crew could say
goodbye to Hogwarts--

the final showdown
between Voldemort and Harry.

- David wanted the fight
between them

not to just be about
blasting magic at each other,

to become very physical,
because, you know,

this kind of bond between them
had grown to the point

where he wanted them actually
almost physically in contact.

Which is why you'll see
in some of the sequences

Voldemort is actually hitting
Harry.

He wanted it to be personal,
basically, you know,

with great hatred
for each other, almost.

- The battle being literally
one-sided some of the time.

- We had to drop Ralph Fiennes
from a green-screen shoot

into stuff
we'd already shot earlier on

because he wasn't available
at the time.

- It was a battle for the ages.

But once the dust settled,

David Yates had a little bit
of business

for old Filch to attend to.

- When Hogwarts Hall
was demolished

and it was rubble and dust
everywhere,

there was a scene
that wasn't in the script.

He just handed me a broom
and said,

"Here, David, just do
something totally useless."

So I just did a bit of brushing,

but, bless him, he kept it in.

Amazing
how many people come up and say,

"Oh, I love your last bit

where you're just doing
something

that's totally pointless."

Signing off for Filch,
if you like.

- Not that David was aware at the
time that he was signing off.

- All of a sudden,
everybody was applauding.

I thought, "Why are
they applauding? I've just...

I wasn't that good."

And they were applauding me
because it was my last scene,

and I thought I had
another scene to do.

- David was one of a number
of actors

for whom the battle would
spell the end of their time

on the franchise.

- That whole time was
quite poignant

because every single day
would be somebody else's

final day of filming.

Every time, you were like,

"Oh, that's another person I've
been working with for 10 years

who's not coming back tomorrow."

It was weirdly emotional.

Even for somebody like me

who was kind of a bit
of a part-timer really.

But I had been there
pretty much from the start.

Like, gosh,
this is the end of an era.

It was a sad time.

- But for Daniel, Emma,
and Rupert,

the job wasn't over yet
with the epilogue still to come,

and turning the three
into middle-aged parents

turned into a major headache.

- We did a practical attempt
and that really didn't work.

Aging makeups
are very difficult, and on kids,

the point where you tip
over into caricature

is very difficult to find.

- It's not old enough
to really do anything wrinkly

and it doesn't really work.

You've just gotta be
really subtle with it.

- The sequence was
originally shot on location

at King's Cross Station,
which created more issues.

- There was also some lighting
issues in the real station.

They decided
to reshoot that sequence.

- The decision to relocate
the scene to Leavesden Studios

was yet another delay and a cost

the production
could've done without.

- They had to bring
the whole train.

They had to bring the locomotive
and a carriage,

I think it was,
all the way to Leavesden,

which was, like, a massive,
massive structural thing to do.

- However, the benefits
were immediate.

- It gave them a controlled
environment to shoot it on,

and that also gave them
a chance to just rework

the makeups a little bit.
- We did a series of pieces

which were more delicate
than we'd done.

- Which were then enhanced
with visual effects.

- They did a digital thing
where they enhanced them,

and I must admit, it was
the right thing to do.

- And when the final cut
was called,

it was more than
just another scene in the can.

- That was a wrap,
and I found that very powerful.

Everyone was -- You know,
people were in tears,

and sort of everyone
was hugging everybody.

- Celebrations
were soon under way.

- We stopped in this wine bar

and there was other people,
public in there.

All of a sudden, Dan walks
in, and I'll never forget--

There was a kid there,
he had his birthday party there.

Dan went over there
and, you know,

they started saying,
"Harry Potter! Harry Potter!"

He went over there
and introduced himself

and said hello to everyone.

I mean,
what a birthday for that kid.

- Dan is the nicest person.

I think he is who everybody
wants Harry Potter to be

because he is such a lovely,
lovely guy.

I have nothing
but good memories of him.

- But
as it is with most parties,

there's always a cleanup.

- 10 years of accumulated stuff
took quite a lot of clearing up.

Lots and lots of books,
and, you know,

the walls were covered
with drawings and sketches

and various bits and pieces.

- And then a couple
of weeks later,

when we'd packed everything,

and the place was empty, I was
the very last person to leave.

But before I drove away,
I went 'round every single room

and just quietly said,
"Thank you."

This building
was gonna be destroyed

after we left as part of
the redevelopment of Leavesden.

Where our workshop was
is now a car park.

That was 10 years of my life.

It was really tough.

- As the November 2010
release date for "Part 1"

of "The Deathly Hallows"
beared down on production,

one of the biggest challenges

was dealing with the vast amount
of visual effects work.

- Any of the characters
and digital objects

had been generated
by a variety

of different
visual effects companies,

so we had to bring them all
into a single pipeline.

- We were having to share...
what we call "share shots,"

which is not something
you particularly like to do,

but because one company
was doing one character,

like the Dementors,

another company was doing
the backgrounds,

we ended up having to mix all
these different shots together,

which made it
very complicated logistically

to actually achieve these shots,
you know, in the time we had.

- But through sheer hard work,

the visual effects for "Part 1"
were completed in time

for its test screenings.

The question now was,
how would audiences respond?

- What you're relying on
all the time

with something like this
is the audience.

You have to make a good movie.

There's no getting around that.

It doesn't matter
how great the property is

or how popular it is.

- Warner Bros.' biggest concern,
though, seemed to be keeping

where the film finished
a secret.

- We went in for the screening
for the seventh movie.

They took our phones.

They don't normally do that

unless it's, like,
a Marvel movie

or something
that's gonna be all spoilers.

And I remember asking
the security guard, like,

"Why are you taking our phones?"

And he told me it was
because they wanted to make sure

that we did not leak
where it cut off,

and they didn't want anybody
to know what that moment was.

- It seemed, though, fans were
just fine with the ending.

In fact,
they loved the entire film.

Released in November 2010,

it went on to gross
$960 million--

the third highest-grossing film
of the year

and second only to "Sorcerer's
Stone" in the franchise.

- The audience didn't mind
it was in two parts,

as long
as they got the whole story

and the whole story
was delivered in the way

that only that group
of filmmakers

could deliver it, and they did.

They didn't just deliver--
They knocked it out of the park.

- Now the focus shifted
to finishing "Part 2,"

especially the large amount
of visual effects.

Sequences like
the Gringotts Bank break-in.

- For the cave and the way
that the cart travels,

David wanted this to be
like a white-knuckle ride,

just really exciting,
like on a roller coaster.

- The problem was...

- You know,
we'd got into this routine

from in the early films,
it's like we felt

like we were reinventing
the wheel all the time.

- So, to come up with something
fresh and exciting,

the team drew inspiration

from another
iconic film series--

Indiana Jones.

- There's one of
the Indiana Jones films

where they're in a cart.

We had a look at that
to see how they'd done that.

It was fun.

- But CG thrills will
only get you so far.

They were also employed
to convey emotion.

In this scene,
it was to do with the dragon

protecting the Gringotts gold.

- David's take on things
is he wants everything to have

a character and a personality
and a backstory.

So, this dragon,
he wanted it to be emaciated,

to be badly treaten,
or to come across that way

so that we would
empathize with it.

- Bloody hell.

- To actually feel sorry for it

rather than it being
this horrible big,

horrible mythical creature.

- It's been trained to expect
pain when it hears a noise.

- Our reference became sort of,
you know, badly treated dogs.

Dogs that you get in shelters
that have been starved.

Looking at
how their body behavior is

and how frightened they are

which is what gives
the personality of the dragon,

and then makes you wanna
help it get free.

- Reducto!

- Hold on!

- But in the preview screenings
for Part 2,

one scene proved
to need another look.

- Harry basically drives
the spell back to Voldemort.

As it was originally designed,

Voldemort died
without any effects on him,

and people were looking at it
and going,

"Don't we need
a slightly bigger ending,

given that this is the end
of the biggest franchise

that's ever been created
to date?"

They were saying,
"What do we do?

We need to make this
more dramatic."

And this was really
the 11th hour, and we just,

you know, we thought about
the idea of ash.

Voldemort turns into ash.

The lifeblood has
been sucked out of him,

so that as the skin dries out,

basically sort of decays
and disintegrates,

then it could start to shed
and come off.

It all floats up to the camera.

It became quite poetic
in the end,

and we kind of pulled it all
together in a couple of weeks.

- Part 2 was released
in July 2011

to rapturous applause.

- I loved the second
even more than the first.

It's the ultimate end
of the storyline.

- The film grossed $1.3 billion,

the highest-earning film
in the franchise's history.

Collectively,
the eight films grossed

almost $8 billion,

making J. K. Rowling richer
than the King of England,

literally,

and Warner Bros.
equally wealthy.

For the man that green-lit
the series, Bill Gerber,

it was the ultimate
satisfaction.

- I can say without
any hesitation,

I had no idea
how huge it was gonna be,

and it blew up fast and huge.

If I had known what
it was gonna be,

I would've quit my job and gone

and produced it
with David Heyman.

- "The Deathly Hallows"
proved to be the crowning glory

of the Harry Potter
film franchise.

But what is it about
the series as a whole

that made it so successful?

- Harry Potter--

more than 3,000 pages
of gripping story

spanning seven books...

- Blimey.

- ...adapted into
over 19 1/2 hours of cinema.

- You keep your concentration.

- Being a Harry Potter fan

has turned out to be
quite the journey.

- Not for the faint-hearted.

- So, just what is it
about this tale

that's cast a spell over the
world for more than 20 years?

- It's about imagination
and fantasy.

We all need a bit of magic
in our lives.

- I love magic.

- But does it go deeper
than that?

- This story guides a child
into becoming a late teenager,

but even the themes
and the things

you learn along the way
help you in your adulthood.

- We've all encountered bullies,

relationships,

first girlfriends,

and we can all relate.

- Everybody who has--

whether it's
a terrible childhood

or a small hurt that feels big
as a kid,

Harry Potter helps.

You feel like, "This
does not define my life."

- But its impact goes
even further.

- I have yet to recall
a book series that had the power

that Harry Potter had,

where kids,
they wanna be reading.

- And that's thanks to one woman,
J.K. Rowling.

- Every character is so
beautifully drawn and so rich.

- But she thanks
the movie franchise.

- I just feel they got it right.

They cast British, they used
amazing British talent.

They built beautiful sets,
and most importantly,

they assembled the best team
I've ever seen.

- From the directors and
the cinematographer magicians,

to the talismanic
stunt performers,

model-making
and practical-effects wizards,

to the acting alchemists and
the postproduction sorcerers,

collectively they made magic.

- The amount of time and care
that was taken

to every creature,
to every shot.

- Every day, we never stopped.

- Not everyone wants to get up

at 5:30 every morning
and go to set.

- And that was something
that we accepted.

- Over and over and over again.

- It just got bigger and better.

- I'm incredibly thankful.
I'm incredibly proud of it.

- One of the great experiences
you can have in your career.

- But it's this trio
of young actors

whose shoulders held aloft this
most remarkable responsibility.

- They started off
10-year-old kids,

never done any acting
before, really.

- For Dan, there was
so much responsibility

to take on a character
that was so loved.

- Being able to work with them
over the years,

watch their physicality grow.

- Working on Harry Potter
wasn't a job.

It was where we grew up.

- The family unit
that we created on Potter.

- The production team had
such a wonderful way

of looking out for us.

- Something that no doubt has
helped set the trio up for life

after Harry Potter.

- To have been able to maintain
careers past something

that could've had them typecast
the rest of their lives,

it's extraordinary.

- But Harry Potter
hasn't just changed lives.

It helped to reinvigorate
the entire UK film industry.

- It really established
the UK talent.

- To the point where the whole
of the UK industry had grown

and developed
to the same skill set

that the American industry had.

- And as for Leavesden Studios,

which had left a lot
to be desired...

- It was diabolical.
- Leavesden was awful.

- ...Warner Bros. went all in
with the redevelopment

of the spiritual home
of Harry Potter.

- Warner Bros. are going to now
build the first

new studio space in the UK
for 25 years.

- It was nothing
more than four enormous walls

and a very leaky roof.

- Now it's quadrupled in size

because of all the productions
that are coming to the UK.

- It reminds you of one of the
big Hollywood studios, you know.

- The legacy of
the Harry Potter films is there

for everybody to see.

Merchandise, fan events,
stage shows and theme parks.

- Got the video games as well
that continue the stories.

- Now Quidditch
is an actual sport.

- But maybe the ultimate tribute
to Harry Potter's success

is the studio tour attached
to Leavesden Studios,

meaning Hogwarts Castle
has lived to fight another day.

- We snow it up every year
for Christmas.

- But Harry Potter
isn't done yet,

and for this beloved character
and his wizarding world,

it seems that there is
much more to come.

- The series that's gonna come
out will be really interesting

because it's one
of those worlds that's so big

and it can continue growing.

I can't see the appeal of it
dying out anytime soon.

- I've been in hospital, in bed,

looking at a projector
on a ceiling

and I've watched
my favorite films

that have got me
through those times.

I know Harry Potter
is doing that for a lot

of people around the world
right now.

Kids in conflict zones
all around the world

watching Harry Potter
on iPhones,

and it's making them feel safe

and taking them
through a tough time.

It's just exceptional.

- In fact,
you might even say it's magic.