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Cover Story Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows H ERTFORDSHIRE, UK — Harry Pot- ter and the Deathly Hallows is J.K. Rowling’s conclusive book seven, By DANIEL RESTUCCIO dansweb451@aol.com transformed into Warner Bros.’ final two- part movie of the Harry Potter saga that re- unites director Da vid Yates, editor Mar k Day, post supervisor Katie Reynolds and vi- sual effects supervisor Tim Burke. All four previously collaborated on the last two pictures, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and in some cases are culminating a 10-year-plus collaboration on the Potter franchise. One of the main differences between the Previs, post and visual effects. previous films and Deathly Hallo ws, says Burke, is the setting. This movie takes you through several different locations in the UK searching for the Horcr uxes, the par ts of Lord Voldemort’s soul.This leads us to the epic battle that takes place in the end of the book. Many of those settings were green- screen “illusions” shot right on the back-lot at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire, England. “In part one,” says Day,“they are not in Hogwarts at all, so it’s more lik e a road movie.” This film, he notes, was also given more of a contemporary look and feel by first-time Harry Potter cinematographer Ed- uardo Serra (Blood Diamond, Defiance). The Potter films have definitely evolved. As the actors have grown up, the story has become a lot darker.The visual effects have spanned 10 years and have become more sophisticated and seamless. “What’s written down on the page is not al ways easil y achievable,” says Burke. Some of the things in the past would have been simplified and now we seem to be attempting more and more ambitious things.” Mark Day edited the film using Avid Media Composer Nitris DX. THE VFX Burke set up a previs team at Leavesden, along with animation director Fer ran Domenech from Moving Picture Company. “We were basically making two films at the same time: Part 1 and Part 2,” he explains. “They were shot as if they were one big film over 18 months.We spent over a year pre- vising fairly major sequences because shoot- ing was not in chronological order.” In addition,Yates had Day come in and do additional editing on the previsualizations, looking at them from an editor’s point of view and making them “work even better.” For example, the film opens with a mas- sive chase scene.The rescue party comes to 18 Post • November 2010 take Harry away and they make six addi- tional Harry Potters. “We use a lot of split- screen techniques using Dan Radcliff to pla y seven different characters.”The characters get on their brooms and CG thestrals and Harry and Hagrid ride off on a motorbike and sidecar.They get attacked by the Death Eaters and the motorbike drives against traf- fic and rides upside down in a tunnel. Burke says he really pushed every tech- nique in the book, including the sophistica- tion and detail of the facial motion capture using Mova’s Contour, a UV-based mocap system, and making high-quality digital dou- bles and face replacements to perf ectly match and scale the actual actors to both their stunt doubles and digital doubles in the scenes. “All the ideas came from [Yates] and the THE EDITING “Action is quite easy to cut because it’s so quick and very fast,” says Day, who remem- bers being inspired by the Bourne trilogy films while he was cutting that sequence. Generally, says Day, visual effects gives him previs of all the complicated sequences and gr adually as the liv e-action f ootage comes in he starts intercutting it with the previs footage, working with Yates, and “get- ting it into good shape.” “When David Yates directs he gives me the rushes [dailies], and as soon as I get amount of composting work; and Cinesite (London), who did all the Lord Voldemort shots (see sidebar). Additional effects were done by Gradient Effects (Los Angeles) and Rise Visual Effects Studios (Berlin). Will the real Harry Potter please step forward: Making six additional Harry Potters is the work of Moving Picture Company in London. book,” explains Bur ke, “but we didn’t go through storyboards, we went straight into previs.We worked out all of the shots.That’s how we were able to piece together this jig- saw puzzle.There’s actually no other way we could have done it otherwise.” Burke supervised a global visual effects team that included The Moving Picture Com- pany (London, Los Angeles,Vancouver), who did the big chase sequence that opens the movie; Framestore (London), who did the animation of Dobby; Double Negative (Lon- don). who worked on a lot of the CG envi- ronments; Rising Sun (Adelaide,Australia), who animated The Dementors and the Min- istry of Magic; Baseblack (London), who had the highest shot count of all, including a large www.postmagazine.com those in I start assembling them in the way I think they should go.The only way I can do that is by gut instinct, the way I feel it should go story-wise. I’m spoiled because most of the time there’ s a lot of co verage. They shoot mostly two or three cameras on Harry Potter.” Having production and post both housed on the Leavesden Studios lot made it conve- nient for Yates to pop over to editorial after a day’s shooting and see what Day had put together.A scene, he says, can take a couple of days to assemble depending on how big it is. “He’ll give me comments on how it’s working or not working...that’s the kind of process we have together.“ On a conventional movie, describes Day, PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES.