All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S09E02.A.Race.to.the.Finish.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

- Thanks to first-time
author J.K. Rowling...

- Three! Two! One!

- ...Harry Potter novels
had taken over the world.

- It did feel overnight
that it was sort of everywhere.

- Happy Potter Day.

- Every kid knew about Potter
and what was going on.

- Famous Harry Potter.

Can't even go in to a bookshop
without making the front page.

- It was off the charts.

- Warner Bros. were eager
to capitalize

on the ravenous fan base.

- Let's go ahead
and buy the book.

- Chris Columbus was tasked
with bringing

the wizarding world
to the silver screen.

- Chris really wanted people to
actually believe in the magic.

- There were just two problems.

- The time and money.

- It was like,
"You're overbudget."

"No, we're not. You just didn't
put in the number that it was."

- We felt like we were
always behind.

- They were caught between
a rock and a hard place.

- Release dates were set.
We couldn't move them.

- They'd need to dust
off their spell books...

- Oh, did beg
that huge question--

"Well, what the hell
are we gonna do now?"

- ...and get to work.

- I don't know how he did it.

My brain would have exploded
long before his, I'm sure.

- But the question remained--

Would the spell of Harry Potter
continue to captivate hearts?

- We demand the Peeves cut.

- Or was the magic destined
to fade?

- Sometimes you guess right,
sometimes you guess wrong.

Pretty hard to guess right.

- November 16 of 2001

was a date that loomed over
the production

of "Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer's Stone."

- It was so far over schedule.

- So it was not like
a leisurely process.

- If the film had any chance
of making its release date,

director Chris Columbus would
have to make some hard calls.

- Chris Columbus spent the last
two or three weeks of the film

not filming, but editing,

'cause they really had to get
that film out.

- Everyone will please
not panic!

- Luckily, second unit director
Peter MacDonald

had more than earned
Columbus's trust.

- Took over the main shooting
for a few weeks.

- Chris loved him.

He understood what Chris wanted,
what we needed.

- Peter was set to film

one of the most beloved moments
from the books.

- That's where I started,

whatever they called
that platform.

- Platform 9 3/4?

- Platform 9 3/4.

It was a working,
operating train station.

And every time you'd try
and do something,

there'd be, you know,
that sort of, "Bong, bong, bong.

Train arriving
on platform four."

Train stuff was chaotic.

- It was also a pivotal scene
for Harry's journey.

- It's a bit
of a responsibility,

but I was fairly much used to
after all the years.

- You know,
he knew what he was doing.

He didn't need to prove
anything to anybody.

Just wanted to go out
and get great footage.

- Peter MacDonald
was taking over

the second unit director duties
of Robert Legato,

who'd returned to L.A. under
less-than-ideal circumstances.

- Every department head
had problems with him.

- However, in his other task
as visual effects supervisor,

Robert was still responsible for
completing the visual effects

in this all-important
Quidditch scene.

- Scared, Harry?
- A little.

- We didn't have enough manpower
in England to do the pre-viz,

so I brought them to the U.S.
to help our team.

And when you do something
of this magnitude,

you don't really know exactly
how long it's going to take.

It's a guess,
and sometimes you guess right,

sometimes you guess wrong.

Pretty hard to guess right.

- And hard to guess how children

in test screenings
would respond.

- We had just a pre-viz
of that sequence.

Didn't bump them.

Then suddenly Harry
turned into a cartoon character.

- Whoo!

- And it tested huge, the highest
testing of our movies ever.

- Which was great news
for a nervous studio.

- I think once they tested
the movie and saw how it played,

they were ready
to green-light the next one.

- What? Who the hell makes
a sequel before you know

how much money you've made
on your first movie?

- It was gutsy.

- Meaning Chris Columbus
was facing

the very real possibility

that he would never have
another day off again.

- For Chris,
300 days of shooting,
really without a day off.

- Well, release dates weren't
Columbus's only ticking clock,

as there was the matter of...

- It's not every day your
young man turns 11, now, is it?

- Had to do it
within a certain period of time.

Otherwise, they were
gonna be adults

and won't be believable
even as a 17-year-old.

- And with that,
the race against puberty began.

- The way that it worked

was that he was finishing
the first film...

- While simultaneously...

- They'd started preproduction
on the second film.

- From a practical standpoint,

it means that you're prepping,
posting,

and shooting
almost continuously.

That puts tremendous stress
on all the systems

that are used to make a movie.

- Forget summer vacation.

Hogwarts was about
to be in session year-round.

- You're doomed.

- The load, I think,

on Chris Columbus's shoulders
was enormous.

- No matter what anybody says,
the burden still falls on him.

If it's a failure, everybody
points at the director.

- Luckily,
Warner Bros. had brought back

screenwriter Steve Kloves
to get an early jump

on adapting
"The Chamber of Secrets."

- By the time they said,
"We want to do it,"

it was a script that,
you know, worked great.

- With the world established,

the second film could
hit the ground running.

- Welcome home.

- "Chamber of Secrets."
Ginny gets a book.

It is Tom Riddle's diary.

- There's a name in this diary.

- And Harry has to rescue her
from the Basilisk,

who turns people to stone.

- The script would reflect
the book's evolving tone.

- With "Chamber of Secrets,"

That was when it started to get
the darker side, you know.

- It's written in blood.

"The Chamber of Secrets
has been opened."

There's blood.
"Enemies of the heir beware."

Elements like that definitely
felt a little bit more scary.

- Chris told everybody,

"Push the darkness,
push the scariness."

- This film had to grow out
from that sort of mild peril

of the first movie
into slightly less-mild peril.

- Goodbye,
friend of Hagrid.

- The studio was worried
that this could be too scary.

Chris promised them,
"It won't be too scary for kids.

We'll get a PG rating still."

It was important for the studio
that it was a PG rating,

but Chris wanted to push it,
push it, push it

as far as he could.

- Do you have any idea
how serious this is?

- But let's not get ahead
of ourselves.

The first movie hadn't
even been released yet.

And Robert Legato's Quidditch
woes had persisted.

- Normally,
I light everything I do.

I know everything
about the shot,

and I make alterations
and changes,

and I know what I'm doing.

And because I was in the U.S.,

somebody else was shooting it,

and they put the sun
in the wrong spot,

and I got a lot
of criticism for stuff

that I normally handle myself to
make sure that doesn't happen.

- But the work was
too much for just one man,

let alone one company.

- My job was to try
and identify and pull some work

that we could do in the U.K.

As the capabilities--
both the capacity

and capabilities
of the U.K. grew,

we would continue
to move more work over there.

- Rowling's insistence
on prioritizing Britain

also created a visual-effects
renaissance in the U.K.

- The smaller companies in
England could pick up the slack

and do some of the stuff,
like the Snitch.

- Harry Potter has caught
the Snitch!

- I think it's fair to say

that it was a fledging industry
in the U.K.

The big boys and girls
of the visual effects industry

were all in the United States.

- The few U.K. companies
at the time,

they could see an opportunity
to move into film work.

So they started expanding
and growing,

trying to take the work,
but the work that was on offer

was really
the "Harry Potter" work.

There wasn't much
other work coming across

from Hollywood in those days.

- What is this magic?!

- But it took them longer

'cause they were learning
how to do it.

- Cool.

- And once again, we can thank
producer David Heyman--

who brought "Harry Potter"
to Warner Bros.

in the first place--

for encouraging
the British effects industry

to make the magic happen.

- All of this started with
David Heyman's team at Heyday

trusting the fact
that these companies

had incredibly skilled
individuals

who'd come through the system.

- We can expect great things
from you.

- It was like the kind of
industry family in a way,

an industry network of people
that they felt they could trust.

- So it became everybody's
bread and butter, basically.

Everyone wanted a piece
of the pie.

- At this point,

the team working
on the Quidditch sequence

had become a nation unto itself.

- I would rough the scene
together as best I could,

hand it over to visual effects.

- We had people working
around the clock.

- I do hope
they're paying you overtime.

- You know,
we'd have calls in the morning,

calls in the afternoon,
before, after lunchtime.

- The last month is
when the shots start coming out,

'cause it took so long to get
them up to some kind of level.

- But the visual effects team
would run into

the most dreaded word
in Hollywood--

"Notes."

- It takes a bit of fiddling
backwards and forwards.

So it's very rare that you hand
a scene over to visual effects,

and they just give you back
the shots and they just work.

You know, there's always
adjustments to do.

- And more adjustment meant
more time.

- That was always scheduled
to be at the end of the film,

but it was so many
moving parts to that

that it just couldn't
be done any faster.

- The later these things
get turned over,

it'll compromise the quality
of the work.

- But the production team
was taking lessons

from the experience.

- From two onwards, you
really had

the heavy stuff
up front, you know?

- We were much more aggressive
about seeing things early,

so that the big sequences
we'd shoot first,

give it to the editors, turn
them over to visual effects.

We wanted the visual effects
to be better.

- Every effort was made
to lighten the digital load

as work began on "Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets."

- All of the elements
that could have been CGI,

they pushed for practical.

- I've always thought
things are better

if you can do them for real.

- and Nick Dudman and his team

we're gearing up
for the practical push.

- "Chamber of Secrets,"
I've read it.

Oh, God,
there'll be a basilisk.

Will we get to do it?

There's the giant spider.
Will we get to do it?

It is always about, is it
simpler to do it digitally?

So I argued, well, actually,

for a lot less
than it will cost you,

we could build
this massive spider.

- Aragog opened
the mystical creature floodgates

as the weight of the fantastical

shifted from post
to preproduction.

- They wanted us to build
a close-up basilisk head

for Harry to react to.

And once you know
you're building a giant spider,

there's loads of other stuff,

but it's like, "We're settled."

You know,
we know what we're doing.

- While Nick Dudman
rolled up his sleeves

and got to work
on the second movie,

Robert Legato was trying
to finish the first,

and his deadline was approaching
faster than the Golden Snitch.

- Chris Columbus was
deep into postproduction

on the first
"Harry Potter" film

while simultaneously
its sequel was in prep mode.

Overseeing it all,
producer David Heyman.

- David was involved day to day
all the time.

- You know, he was in very
close contact with J.K. Rowling.

So if we were shooting this,
you see this,

so they look at the book.

If the book doesn't tell them,

they pick up the phone
to the lady who wrote the book.

- As production
on "The Sorcerer's Stone"

began winding down,

casting on "The Chamber
of Secrets" was ramping up.

- Gilderoy Lockhart.
-

- This is so horrible.

I'm scared to say.
I gonna say it anyway.

I remember Gilderoy Lockhart
being like a heartthrob.

- Mum fancies him.

- And when you're 11,
I'm not gonna lie,

like, Kenneth Branagh's
not a heartthrob.

So I was kind of like, "Oh."

- Sorry?

- But now I'm like,
"Yeah, Kenneth Branagh is hot."

Like, I get it.

- But when it came
to Jason Isaacs

as the sinister Lucius Malfoy...

- We meet at last.

- That's somebody
that I was like, boom, bang on.

That's how I think Lucius Malfoy
would be. Like, amazing.

- You must be very brave
to mention his name.

- And while new blood
was being brought in

for "The Chamber of Secrets,"

there was at least one member
of the crew

that wouldn't be returning.

- John Seale didn't come back,

who actually did play quite
a big part in the first film.

- I had a film
to do with a wonderful director,

Anthony Minghella,
but Anthony's film didn't go.

It didn't get the money.

- So he could have done
the second film.

- It's part and parcel of being
in the film industry.

- Behind the scenes
was becoming a whirlwind,

as Chris Columbus juggled
the responsibilities

of two films at once.

- John Williams was
scoring the first movie.

- And it was hard to get John,
for a lot of reasons.

One, he is one
of the greatest composers ever.

But he loves Chris.

- Having partnered
with Columbus

going all the way back
to "Home Alone" in 1990.

- You guys give up
or are you thirsty for more?

- Chris asked him, and
he absolutely didn't hesitate,

said he would do it.

He started working on it, and
he called Chris on the phone.

He said to Chris, he said,
"Hey, baby."

He goes,
"Let me play you something,"

and he just played on the piano.

And Chris was like,
"Holy crap."

That was it.

- That is "Harry Potter"
and everyone knows that.

- Once John Williams has been
hired, the hard part is over.

- So, John Williams, he gets a
very early version of the film,

and he scores to that.

- But don't forget about
the adjustments.

- There's always adjustments
to do.

- It turns out

John Williams wasn't
interested in adjustments.

- As we give him other
versions, he starts telling us,

"Don't send me
any more versions."

And we'll say,
"But we changed that a lot."

Like the arrival to Hogwarts.

- We had
trimmed that scene down

because we thought
it was too long.

But once we saw his version
of it with the music,

it made a scene that looked too
slow just the perfect length.

- As Chris Columbus laid in

John Williams'
score on the first movie,

Peter MacDonald
kicked off production

on the second movie,
"The Chamber of Secrets."

- I started the next film
two weeks before Chris.

- First up,
the flying-car sequence

from "Chamber's" opening,

which, to avoid
another traffic jam in post,

leaned heavily
on practical filmmaking.

- What are you all doing here?

- Rescuing you, of course.

- For the flying car, the car
sat on a hydraulic arm and rig,

where we were able to fly it
into the back

of the private drive house,

reverse it up to the window
with the actors in it.

To be able to do that,
I had what we called a Waldo.

- Not to be confused with

Harry's difficult-to-locate
doppelganger.

- It's a model that you move,

and the real-sized car does
exactly the same thing.

- Harry had a getaway vehicle.

Now Chris Columbus
just needed a getaway plan.

- Come on.
- Come on, Harry.

- Come on, Harry.
Hurry up.

- Chris was concerned
about the scene

where Harry Potter's
uncle comes up the stairs.

He said, "I don't know
how to stall the uncle

from getting into the room."

And so I said,

"What if we have a whole bunch
of locks on the door?"

Chris said,
"That's a great idea,"

but I was getting daggers
from the art department

'cause they hadn't budgeted
for a hall.

Supervising art director
wasn't very pleased.

- But the art department
weren't the only ones

being asked to do more than what
had been budgeted.

- When the car first backed up
and picked Harry up...

- Petunia, he's escaping!

- I actually doubled
for Uncle Dursley

getting pulled out of
the window.

- He held onto my leg,
and as the car pulled away,

Greg then done
a three-quarter somersault fall

onto the flowerbed below.

- Aaah!

- 'Cause I was the only big fat
stuntman who could do it.

- There were even fewer
redheaded adults

that could double a 12-year-old.

- I was new to the industry

had got into the stunt register
literally the year before.

I had a friend and
he contacted me and said, oh,

because of my height,
being short,

he said, oh, they are
currently doing "Harry Potter."

- Harry Potter would be a dream
gig for anyone in the industry,

lets alone a newcomer.

Tony just had one question.

- Okay, "What's 'Harry Potter'?"
And he's like, "It's a movie."

I was doubling Rupert
in the flying-car sequence.

I had to pull Dan
back into the car.

- Hold on!
- I'm trying!

- I remember having to shave
my arm, on my forearm.

- I think Dan would
have probably loved

to have fallen out, but it was
too risky for us to do that.

- Like the first film,

"Chamber of Secrets"
was going straight into edit.

- Chris Columbus
needed to start editing material

that had already been shot
by Peter MacDonald.

- But with editing around
the clock on "Sorcerer's Stone,"

they'd need to bring
in a fresh face for its sequel.

- I had worked for
David Heyman's mother,

so I knew David,
and he called me up and said,

would I stand in
for a couple of months

on the beginning
of the second one?

The postproduction
supervisor was in my kitchen

when I got home
on a Thursday night

and said,
"Can you start on Monday?"

"No, but I can start
on Tuesday."

- While everyone had grown
accustomed

to the current workflow,

Mick couldn't help but marvel
at his new boss's juggling act.

- I don't know how he did it.

My brain would have exploded
long before his, I'm sure.

- The dual productions
were working at a frantic pace

when all of a sudden
everything came to a total halt.

- Suddenly,
the stage went empty.

We're looking around.
Where's everybody gone?

- The postproduction
supervisor came over

to the cutting room and said,
"You've got to come over,"

'cause they had a TV
on over there.

- They're watching on TV this

what looked like
a visual-effects shot

of a building being hit
by a plane, and we're like,

"What movie is this?"

They're like,
"No, this is the news."

- We understand that
there has been a plane crash

on the southern tip
of Manhattan.

- The whole thing sort of
we all went in shock,

and it was obviously
impossible to work.

- You know, there was a moment
there where you were like,

"What's going to happen now?"

- The wizarding world
for many was an escape,

but there would be no escaping
the tragic events

thrust upon the world
on September 11.

- That was a difficult moment
for Chris to focus on the movie,

'cause we all
had family back in the States.

It was a week
or two of all of our heads

kind of spinning a little.

- And while Columbus's
thoughts turned to his family,

the looming deadlines gave
the director new focus.

- For him personally, for us,

having all of this to do,
that he had to finish the movie

and he had to be prepping
and shooting,

didn't allow us to obsess
too much on what was happening.

- In a way,
it was rather cathartic

to be sort of a group

that could share our sense
of distress.

- It was a time when the world
needed fantasy more than ever,

but bringing J.K. Rowling's book
to the silver screen

would require
some difficult decisions,

and one decision in particular
really "peeved" people off.

- I found out
that the Peeve scenes were cut

at the cast-and- crew screening
the week before the premiere.

- We actually did film with
Rik Mayall, who's hilarious.

- It wasn't for lack of trying.

- Chris was trying
to squeeze it in there,

but it was a lift
that you could make

that would not really hurt
the movie or the storytelling.

- But the exorcism was music
to the ears

of an already overextended
visual-effects team.

- You remember doing ghost
testing and things like that.

You know, at some point,
there was a budgetary concern.

- That was mainly because of
visual-effects budget.

- Well, fans will always
have the books,

as well as hope for
an extended cut.

- We demand the Peeves cut.

I think that's
where we are with this.

- Peeves wasn't
the only beloved character

to end up on Richard's
cutting-room floor.

- Chris is
a gigantic Springsteen fan.

Chris has met him a bunch
of times,

and they've sort of
become friendly,

and Springsteen had been
reading the book to his son,

and he wrote a song,

and Chris said we should put it
at the end of the movie.

- ♪ I'll stand by you always ♪

- He kept listening to it
and listening to it

and listening to it,
and he thought.

- No. No.
Definitely not.

- It wouldn't fit.
Bruce Springsteen would not fit.

- After having, you know,

this whole
British-sounding movie,

and then to have a song at
the end of the movie from this,

you know, New Jersey rocker...

- But the luxury
of being able to

pick and choose songs
for the end of credits

seems insignificant compared
to a much larger problem

the movie was facing.

- We were actually at the sound
facility doing the final mix

when visual effects
were still coming in.

- They were pulling
the film away from us

going, "Hey, that's it.
You're done."

- For the most important scene
of the film, time was up.

But the question remained,
was it ready?

- I was disappointed
in the quality

of the visual effects
of the Quidditch game.

Looked a little bit cartoonish.

- And for Robert Legato,
his warnings were coming true.

- There's no way
that we're gonna be able

to get to this scene
by this date, and we have to.

It wasn't great.

Warner Bros. was like, "How
come we're doing it this way?"

"I told you
we have to shoot in March

and you didn't do it,"
so now it's all my fault.

- Determined not
to make the same mistakes twice,

"The Chamber of Secrets"
had every department

working overtime
on the practical push.

- Aah!

- The Whomping Willow

we wanted to build as much
for real as we could.

Wouldn't it be great
if we could make some whompers

that would actually beat it?

- Aah!
- Aah!

- With the actors
actually in the car,

we beat the living daylights
out of it.

- John had hit a home run,
along with a few actors as well.

But when the film is called
"The Chamber of Secrets,"

the door containing said secrets
better be incredible.

- The snake door,
we did it all practically.

All the snakes moved.
It worked really well.

- Perhaps too well.

- Everybody says, "Gosh,
I thought that was a CGI."

- And the practical wizardry
continued,

transforming Hermione
into a cat...

- Look at my face
- ...with prosthetics.

- When Hermione gets turned
into a cat,

that was actually me

because Emma had a slight
reaction to the prosthetics.

- There was a huge amount
of work

that went in to kind of
getting the look of that.

- Not only were creature
effects saving time in post,

they saved production the hassle
of hiring an animal trainer.

- Fawkes the Phoenix,

that was designed
to be able to open its claws

and move along its perch.

But inside,
it looked like a terminator.

Just every square millimeter
had machinery in it.

- Fascinating creatures--
phoenixes.

- When we dropped the phoenix,
we'd shot all morning.

Richard Harris, he just said,
"I can't get over that."

"Oh, thank you."

- Only the compliment
wasn't intended for Nick Dudman.

- He said,
"Where did you find it?"

And I just said,
"It's a puppet."

- Beg your pardon?
- I can't repeat what he said,

but the second word was "off."
- off.

- He kept saying that
because I said,

"No, there's a bunch of people
the other side of that wall,

and they're looking at it
through TV screens."

- I do not believe.

- He'd shot all morning,
believing it was a real bird.

- While some
of the practical creatures

were a resounding success,

others needed to lean on CGI
for the team to pull them off.

- Dobby feels most aggrieved,
sir.

- Dobby wasn't always
gonna be a CT character.

There was a time
when there was an attempt

to make it a puppeted character.

- We sculpted him completely
in the workshop.

We basically produced it
as a silicon model.

- But also, you have a puppet.

You have something that,
for certain shots,

particularly when he's been
carried or something like that,

you can just use the puppet.

- While "The Chamber of Secrets"
continued to push forward,

"The Sorcerer's Stone" was
still stuck in post production.

- We did go quite
a bit over schedule.

- Just days before the premiere,
finalized Quidditch shots

were still being dropped in
to the edit--

something John
desperately needed

to begin color correction.

- I sat in a hotel
at the airport for three weeks.

I told them, "You ring me

as soon as the first shot
comes in."

- The impending premiere
had post production

in scramble mode.

- We're a bit behind schedule.
Let's be off.

- They rang
at 3:00 in the morning

and I was able to race
into the lab.

- Which meant
John needed to work fast,

as the film needed to be
color corrected

before prints could be made.

- Faster?
Oh, now I can relax.

- We started grading
straightaway

because I only had three days.

By working 24 hours a day,
we just managed to get it in.

- Everything was a gamble,

as production continued
on the second film,

while simultaneously,
writing continued on the books.

- When we did
"Chamber of Secrets,"

there were only four books out.

So every time we were waiting
for the next book to come out.

It was never a done deal.

- But it very soon would be.

- We had a premiere in London,

which was very exciting
and very crazy.

- It would be yet another first
for the slack-jawed cast.

- Arriving in London
in the car to discover

that London is absolute gridlock
because 20,000 people

had descended
on Leicester Square,

but then getting out of the car
onto a red carpet

to people screaming at you.

- They were screaming.
- Like the Beatles were there.

- Everyone was going Potter med.

- Dan, just...

looking around
and just what is happening.

- My face and my stomach
are both kind of vibrating,

which is scary.
- This is exciting.

- And when it came to seating,

priority and performance
went hand in hand.

- We did go to the premiere,
but we were in bad seats,

which pretty much tells you
what people think of you.

You know, I was
a little difficult to work with.

I don't think anybody was
a big fan of me

by the time
I was done with the movies.

- Robert's work had blazed
a path for generations to come,

but that was little solace.

- You know, it did
what it was supposed to do,

it created a sense of joy
for people who watched it,

and just a little less so
for me.

- Memories ranged from bitter
to bittersweet.

- It was the last movie
my dad ever saw before he died,

but it was that thing of,
"If this is the last thing

he sees of my work,
I'm thrilled."

- And the Dudmans weren't
the only family

that fell in love
with "Harry Potter."

- I mean, it made $1 billion,
so that's pretty impressive.

- "Harry Potter" was finally
in cinemas,

and Warner Bros. breathed
a sigh of relief.

- Warners had spent
so much money.

They wanted -- "Here.
Get back as soon as you can."

- Warner Bros., you know,

if they could pull it off one
or two films,

they were going to have a series

that would run
for quite a while.

- I think the pressure was
even more then

to get the next one out
and cash in on it.

- As a result,

the goalpost had shifted
from making a successful film

to making
a successful franchise.

- It's just, like, right back
to work the next day.

- We virtually didn't have
any time off.

- Columbus dove back
into production

where nothing short
of a congregation of children

awaited his return
in the Great Hall.

- There's, like,
hundreds of children.

And normally in the Great Hall,

it's like, "You're feasting,
everybody.

There's a Quidditch game
on today,

so everybody, high energy."
- Chris Columbus was the master

of getting natural reactions
out of the kids.

- Hi, Harry.
-

- Sort of tricking
the kids into acting

when they didn't
even realize they were.

- Columbus's next trick
would be a calculated risk.

- I had 400 children
in the big hall,

and it could be a little noisy.

- With the rowdy stage set,
Columbus rolled the dice

and released a live animal
into the room.

- Ron, is that your owl?

- We let the owls in, and
I've got four or five cameras,

so this is working well.

- Everything was going
as planned.

- And suddenly I thought
I heard screaming.

- That's where a forgotten
element comes into play.

- They had open flames
across the top,

which is what would light
the Great Hall.

- Columbus wanted
a sincere reaction,

and he was about to get one.

- One of the owls--
"Well, this looks good."

He sat in the flames.

- Like everyone's like, "Aah.
It's blowing into the flame."

- It was actually on fire.

But it didn't seem to realize.

Luckily,
the animal guide rushed in

and he grabbed hold
of this flaming owl,

ran off the set.

By now,
a lot of kids are really upset.

About a minute later came back
with the owl saying,

"Look, it's all okay,"

and he threw the owl up there
and he flew around.

And all the kids are clapping.

- It wasn't, like, a flaming owl,

like, falling to his peril,
like, through the sky.

- We never actually
barbecued an owl.

- But as it turned out,
they actually barbecued an owl.

- And I said,
"That's incredible."

He says,
"It's a different owl."

I never did ask about that owl.
-

- Whether it's a stunt animal
or a stunt performer,

pain was part of the gig.

But Tony Christian was
about to learn

it's better to give
than to receive.

- Kenneth Branagh,
when he loses his memory,

he's supposed
to get knocked out.

- Who are you?
- Greg had said, "Tony,

you're gonna hit Kenneth Branagh
around the head with a rock."

"Really?" He's like,
"It's a movie rock. It's soft."

So I kind of
just tapped him on the head,

and he reacts to it.

Greg was like,
"No. No. Harder."

Bang around the head.

"No. Still not hard enough."

And then Kenneth's going,
"Just do it."

- Heart of a lion, this one.
- "Okay."

The third take,
I proper walloped him.

- Really?

- That sound effect, it's me
hitting him pretty much full-on.

- What do I do now?!

- Branagh was hard-headed,

but it was nothing compared
to David Bradley

who refused to let a line go.

- There was a scene
in the first book

where the kids are somewhere
they shouldn't be.

And Filch says, "Oh, dear,
we are in trouble."

But we didn't do that scene.

So in the second film, they've
survived the Whomping Willow.

- Clearly, someone
doesn't want me here this year.

- And the line in the script was,

"Looks like detention
for you lot."

And I said to Chris,
"I know we didn't do this scene,

but there was a line
that I particularly liked.

Can I say it here?"

And he said, "Yeah, sure.
Go for it."

- Oh, dear, we are in trouble.

It's one of the lines that kids
ask me to quote now and again.

- But not every change
would be so easy.

When it came to one of the most
complex scenes in the movie...

- You're Aragog, aren't you?
- Yes.

- ...changes would be
multi-departmental.

- The director and editor
have to cut the sequence

and turn them over
to the visual-effect houses

so that the visual-effects
houses can actually get

the material into the facility
and start working on it.

- The complexity of Aragog
and the cave of spiders

would require the combined
efforts of the digital

and practical effects teams.

- For a sequence
like the spiders,

they shot all
the live-action plates first.

- The sequence
would feature CGI,

as well as puppeteered spiders.

- We did make
about 12 background spiders

that could crouch
and move and everything.

- They were sculpted.

They did about five
or six different sizes.

- Very simple things,
but Aragog was not simple.

- Nor was he small.

- Having Aragog as a practical
thing for the children being

just like, "Oh, this thing,
I know it's not real, but, ugh."

- To ensure the children
never slept again,

Nick Dudman got to work.

- We did actually build
this massive spider

where the front four legs
could independently work.

- It was just
kind of pushing him up the ramp

as the legs were moving.

Sometimes it would look
really cool.

Sometimes the legs would be
kind of doing the wrong thing

at the wrong time.

- With Aragog complete,
it was time for a dry run.

- We asked Daniel and Rupert

to come on set
and have a look at it,

and it was in the hole,
and we just had it come out,

and they both
started walking backwards.

- Thank you.

- But when it came
to the multitudes

of digital arachnids
needed for "Harry Potter,"

well, it was the British
computer-effects houses

that stepped forward.

- When "Harry Potter" started,

it was drawing on the big
companies in the U.S.,

and then it became apparent that
if the work's gonna be here,

and the work's gonna be here,
you know,

for years,
then we need to invest.

- And invest they did

as the contract
for the pivotal sequence

was awarded to an up-and-coming
UK studio, The Mill.

- A lot of our background

came from commercials
and television work.

It was the first film I'd done

where we were doing
animated creatures.

We're doing things
you've never done before.

- And it goes without saying...
- We'd never done giant spiders.

- But this potentially
terrifying prospect and spider

would be in safe hands--
Tim Burke's.

- Quite often,
when you undertook a job,

you were taking a leap of faith,

and you said, "Yeah,
we can do that,"

and then you'd have to go off
and figure out how to do it.

- Which they very quickly did

as Tim and the team began
spinning their digital web.

- Photorealistic spiders,
at the time,

was a very large amount of work,

and they were all
sort of gathering around,

and we had to build
the suspense for the scene

and make it very scary.

- Where's Hermione
when you need her?

- But it wasn't spiders scaring
Chris Columbus and the team.

The most terrifying prospect was
how on Earth they'd do Dobby.

- Such an honor it is.

- As filming continued,

"The Chamber of Secrets"
faced a myriad of new problems,

but you would never know it
by looking at Chris Columbus.

- Just the atmosphere
that he brought...

- Spooky, how the time flies
when one's having fun.

- ...and the way he liked
to run the set.

- But every age presents
its own unique challenges.

- Richard Harris was
an older guy.

- He struggled a lot
with his lines,

and I remember once Dan just
kind leaned in and said

would he like him
to run lines with him?

- I want to thank you, Harry.

- This is like
an 11-year-old kid.

- But it was Harris
that left one young co-star

at a loss for words.

- I was terrified of him.

I'd heard the stories
about Richard Harris

as being one of the group
of hell-raisers

of the London theater scene.

I had nothing to say that
would have been worth

opening my mouth for
to speak to Richard Harris.

- You can speak.

- Whilst Richard Harris loomed
large over the actors,

when it came to...
- Who are you?

- Dobby, sir.

- Dobby.
Dobby's the best house elf.

- ...things were very different.

- We want to create
this character called Dobby

and how are we gonna
create this character?

- I bet loads of people here
can do it.

- After Nick's puppet failed
to cast its spell...

- We sculpted him completely
in the workshop.

- ...Dobby wouldn't just need
magic.

He'd need industrial magic.

- So Dobby, the natural choice

was to go to the leading company
in the world,

which was ILM at the time.

- You know,
Industrial Lights & Magic,

coming out of George Lucas,
created Dobby.

- A disappointment for the
fledging British effects houses,

but Dobby would
still be designed in the UK.

- We had lots of concept artists
in the art department

working on Dobby

and were struggling with
what the ears might look like.

- It is difficult, sir.

- Until inspiration came up
and licked them in the face.

- He saw the
art-department dog, Max,

who was owned by our
art-department researcher,

and this Alsatian's ears were
just the perfect match

for what he was after.

- Indeed. Yes, sir.

- But final say wouldn't fall
entirely on Columbus's shoulder,

as the director would run every
design past Rowling herself.

- Chris had great respect
for the book and for her.

Chris wasn't told,

"You have to check everything
with Jo Rowling."

Chris wanted to check things
with Jo Rowling,

not because he had to,

but he had so much love
for the book.

- Even though Dobby would come
to life with the help of ILM,

Nick's puppet wouldn't
just be a simple stand-in.

- For digital departments
to just sit at a computer,

they can use all
of that information the way

the light scatters on it,
the reflections.

So it benefits them hugely.
It saves a lot of work.

- Another example
of the interdepartment dance

was the Basilisk.

- Chris wanted something
that Daniel could react against.

-

- And so we took the main body
that we'd used for Aragog

and we literally sculpted
30 feet of the Basilisk.

This thing rears up to be,
you know,

10 feet higher than you are

and opens its mouth,
and then come down like that.

They shot the hell out of it.

And Daniel did say, you know,

having that coming towards you
with a mouthful of fangs,

you know, you're just thinking,
"I hope they can stop it."

- Just looking down that thing
was, you know, pretty unnerving.

- Luckily for Daniel
and the cast,

the stunt team was
always ready to take a hit.

- David Holmes was doubling Dan,
and I was to double Rupert.

- And in a request
not often seen in the workplace,

this fledgling stunt team were
asked to run into a brick wall.

- It was not a fake wall.
It was a brick wall.

- Let's go.

- Greg Powell said to me and
Tony, "Run as fast as you can.

Try and have some sort of
physical element over

and off the trolley."

- While Chris Columbus
created a nurturing environment

for his young cast,

stunt coordinator
Greg Powell opted

for a tough-love approach
for his young stunt performers.

- His only piece of advice was

and he had his cigar
in his mouth and he's like,

"This is gonna work."
- And, of course,

we just run full pelt
and collapsed into the trolleys.

-
And that's all I got from him.

- Having worked together on the
previous film, David and Daniel

began to grow a kinship as
David and Greg had years prior.

- David started with me
on films as a kid, literally,

and he was still a kid

when he started "Harry Potter,"
basically.

- Dave was very close with Greg.

Almost like the son, you know,
that he never had.

- Greg was my first
stunt coordinator,

and he's very much
my film father

and very much part of
my extended family to this day.

- He was Harry Potter as much
as Dan was,

'cause everything Dan done,
Dave had done.

- Like the adults, David did
things the cast shouldn't do.

But it didn't stop them
from trying.

- Scared, Potter?
- You wish.

- When they did
the Wizarding duel,

Tom Felton really wanted to do
the wire gag.

- Rictusempra!

- It was a very complex wire gag.

- Perhaps it was a matter
of middle-school machismo?

Nevertheless, wire work wasn't
something to be taken lightly.

-

You see this person
hanging on one little wire.

You know, he said,
"Oh, my God, no."

You've always got to think
safety.

- And the stunt
that Tom wanted to perform

was amongst the most dangerous.

- Main problem with a rough
like that,

if it gets caught
around the neck of somebody,

it can cause
quite serious damage.

- Would never,
ever take any chances.

- Peter was very focused
on safety.

It was a bit too technical
for Tom to do himself.

- Which meant no wire work
for Tom Felton.

- Bet you loved that,
didn't you, Potter?

- Dave Holmes ended up doing
that stunt and nailed it.

- High-pressure situation,

trying to not kick Alan Rickman
whilst flying through the air.

Yeah, thoroughly enjoyed
that gag.

- But injuries weren't
exclusive to sets.

- And we had
a basketball court built,

people would go
and play on at lunchtime.

- It was kind of
a strange college,

summer-camp environment there.

- Everyone on the lot
was the best of the best.

Just not at basketball.

- It was all fun until, you
know, there was a couple of--

a couple of incidents

where one of the other guys
dislocated his shoulder.

And I actually had to pop
it back in

while he was lying
on the ground.

Could actually feel it

pop back in to the socket.

- Mend bones in a heartbeat,
but growing them back...

- It was part of the thing,
I guess,

that Chris sort of
encouraged from the beginning

to make it feel like it wasn't
just a working environment

that you were part of a team,
part of a family.

- But there was another family
to consider.

- For Chris, 300 days
of shooting, he was exhausted.

He had four kids and his wife
who were loving being in London,

but were exhausted, too,
in a way, not being at home.

- And another film wouldn't be
just adding a couple of months

to the schedule, but years.

- We didn't get a break
between the first two movies,

and literally one went
into the other.

- It was a production schedule
designed not by a studio,

but by hormones.

- Had to do it
within a period of time.

- It became a matter
of sustainability.

- There was always rumors.

- He was thinking he might
not come back after filming.

- Chris had to make a decision
about coming back for a sequel,

and he didn't have much time
to make it.

- It is not our abilities
that show what we truly are.

It is our choices.

- With principal photography

on "The Chamber of Secrets"
wrapped, in October of 2002,

the cast and crew were about
to receive some troubling news.

- Richard Harris.

He said,
"I'm in the Savoy Hotel,

so come over and have a pint."

So I went in one night,

and the guy behind the bar said,
"Richard's been taken ill."

And apparently, on his way out,
he was on a stretcher,

and a lot of tourists
were entering,

and he sat up and said,
"It was the food!"

I thought, "That's quite
an exit line, isn't it?"

- I remember Chris
went to see him in the hospital.

- Harris had been diagnosed
with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

And like Dumbledore,
Harris remained optimistic.

- Most of what Chris remembers

is Richard Harris telling him,
"Don't recast me.

Don't -- You know,
I'm gonna be there."

As Chris is walking out
the door, he goes,

"Don't recast me."

That was, I think,
the last words

that Chris heard
from Richard Harris.

- Richard Harris departed
this world on October 25, 2002,

at the age of 72.

- It was sad news that he died,

but I think we were all aware
that he was quite frail.

- You see, sir, I couldn't help
but notice certain things.

- That was no secret.

We did have to be
quite delicate around him.

- While the reasons
had changed over the years,

people always needed to be
delicate around Richard Harris.

- I worked with him
on "Cromwell."

This was during
his heavy-drinking,

looking-for-a-fight days.

He was quite a handful.

- You have broken perhaps
a dozen school rules.

- But on "Potter,"
he was good as gold.

- I thought he was perfect
for Dumbledore.

Bless him, he got through
the first two.

- Richard Harris's absence
loomed over the premiere,

which took place a mere
nine days after his passing.

- I do remember
David Hayman saying,

"Thank you to Richard Harris.

You'll always be
our Dumbledore."

- Thank you, Harry.

- While the premiere
celebrated Harris,

the red carpet also served
as a welcome diversion

for the young cast.

- Everybody knew who you were
because they knew the films.

They knew those characters
so well.

We were famous kids now.

- Fame is a fickle friend, Harry.

- I think a lot of people

were probably going to
that movie going,

"Did they screw up the book?"

- You will not mess it up.

- It was well received.

Box-office taking seemed
to be really good.

- We're anticipating
a pretty big crowd.

- "Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets"

would go on to become

Harry Potter
and the vault of cash,

as the film would pull
in nearly $880 million,

proving that Warner Bros.'
concerns with Columbus

embracing a more mature tone
were moot.

- Tell them Hogwarts
is no longer safe.

- One thing that makes
Chris a successful filmmaker

is he has a very good instinct
about the audience.

He would say himself,

"I'm not the greatest filmmaker
that's ever walked."

He goes, "But I know what
the audience will respond to."

- I found one and two
were so similar in the way

they were put together,

and it was the same team
and all of that.

I just loved it.

- But it appeared
that team was about

to get fractured even further.

- The other governors and I

have decided it's time
for you to step aside.

- They wanted to roll
right into the third movie.

So it was like, again,
he wouldn't have a break.

- I think there
probably is a time limit

on how long you want
to do that for.

- Staying on would mean no break
that year or that decade.

- Chris, I think,
when we started, thought,

"Oh, I'm gonna direct
all seven of these,"

but he just said,
"I-I need a break."

- Only that wouldn't be
an option, thanks to...

- Puberty.
- That's right.

And unfortunately, the Potter
Puberty train waits for no man.

- He was really tired.

Just felt like
he couldn't keep going.

- The thought of "Potter" without
Columbus led to concerns.

Concerns led to conversations.

Conversations led
to a compromise.

- We heard that he was
going to stay on and produce.

- And he stayed on
for the third one as producer.

- It was settled.
The only thing that remained...

- New director.
- A new Dumbledore.

- Welcome, welcome
to another year at Hogwarts.

- Only one thing was
for certain--

change was coming to Hogwarts.