Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/42006
Visual Effects n n n n arry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the eighth and final film based on author JK Rowling's famous series of books, is, by all accounts, one of the best, perhaps the best, movie in the fran- chise. A momentous and thundering final film. It is also largely digital, with 1800 visual effects shots created by several hundred artists, most of whom work in London-based visual effects studios. These artists extended sets, placed footage of actors filmed on greenscreen into digi- tal backgrounds, added CG characters, removed the evil Voldemort's nose once again, and, this time, destroyed a digital Hogwarts. Senior visual effects supervisor Tim Burke, who had won an Oscar in 2000 for supervising the effects in Gladiator, has been creating such mag- ic at Hogwarts, the school where Harry Potter and his friends studied magic for 10 years. He joined the Potter crew on the second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which released in 2002, as a visual effects supervisor at The Mill. On the third and fourth films, he be- came the co-VFX supervisor for the postproduction efforts. He then took charge of the final four, working with director David Yates as the overall visual effects supervisor. Burke received an Oscar nomination for the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in 2004, and the seventh, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, in 2011. During the past 10 years, dozens of visual effects studios have worked with Burke and the Potter directors, and as the series progressed, so, too, did the kinds of visual effects the filmmakers could achieve. Here, CGW contributing editor Barbara Robertson asked Burke about the ways in which this film differed from the previous. When did you begin filming the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ? We filmed Parts 1 and 2 together, starting in November 2009, and con- tinued through the summer of 2010. But, we filmed out of chronological order. We did the battle sequences for Part 2 before we shot Part 1. To figure out how to coordinate all this, we did an intensive period of previs. What do you mean by "intensive period of previs"? We worked on previs for nine months. We didn't have a finished script for the film. It was always evolving. We didn't have a shooting script. We didn't have storyboards. We had the book, the unfinished script, a brief from David [Yates], our previs assets, and four or five animators. So, we worked with David and designed the whole thing in previs. How detailed was the previs? We previs'd all the action sequences–the Death Eaters, the giants, the attack from the bridge, all the action until the giants breached the school. Ferran Domenech from MPC (The Moving Picture Company) led that effort. We developed the way things moved, the knights, the giants. We animated everything. We built and rigged additional assets as needed. We really were at the forefront of the ideas. It was a great, creative, fun thing to do. Why did you do such extensive previs? We developed all this previs in animation to help everyone under- stand the action and all the pieces of the puzzle. It was a guide for the live-action shoot, not just to run sequentially and fill in gaps. The de- sign process had to happen early to decide what effects we'd need. It helped us determine which areas of the school to build. And, it gave the whole story of the battle; it described the battle sequence from start to finish. We ended up with 30 minutes of previs, complete ed- ited footage. We gave it to David Yates and his editor, and he used this to cut with; the previs stayed in there as he shot. So, it became the film, basically. And it turned out to be pretty close to what we previs'd. Hogwarts didn't appear in Part 1, but the action centers on Hog- warts in Part 2. Did you do set extensions for the Hogwarts minia- tures that were used for the previous films? The action sequences we developed in the previs take place around the school and the hillside where Voldemort arrives and stages his initial attack. We didn't have scripts when we started in 2008, but we had read the book. We knew we needed to create a flexible asset. We have always used our miniature model for Hogwarts, but we knew we would need to redesign it to encompass specific areas of action for the battle. We At top left, Voldemort takes aim within a digital background. At bottom, effects artists in 11 studios around the world created 1800 visual effects shots for August/September 2011 17 Harry P otter and the Deathly Hallows: P art 2.