All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S09E03.A.Dark.Turn.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

big-screen sorcery
- "Harry Potter's"

had the world spellbound.

- It is a magical thing
that they've created.

- Everybody loved it.
- Wicked.

- Two films in, the students
had become the masters.

- We're settled. You know,
we know what we're doing.

- The "Harry Potter" world
is expanding.

- But we had a long way
to go before graduation.

- Prepping, posting, and
shooting almost continuously.

- It just couldn't be done
any faster.

- We had people working
around the clock.

- And we all soon found
there was still a lot to learn.

Everyone's, like, operating,
like, up here.

And dropping out early
was our director.

- The load on Chris Columbus'
shoulders was enormous.

- The man who'd helmed
two successful "Potter" films...

- I think there was some family
pressure for him to go home.

- ...was ready
to hang up his hat.

- I think he was tired.

- So sorry. Dozed off.

What have I missed?

- The kids were very upset
that Chris left.

- But Warners needed more
than a new director.

- Don't worry about all the
sort of, magic, clever stuff.

- They needed a new brand
of magic.

- To make it grittier.

- The "Harry Potter" franchise

was under the spell
of a new, dark magic.

- It was very brave.

- We even had
a different Dumbledore.

- What the hell is he gonna do
with this?

- Yeah,
I think you just have to believe

that this is gonna work.

- Hogwarts had changed forever.

Everything we were seeing
coming out was quite dark.

Would Harry Potter survive?

- I'm not sure a human being
can actually do this.

- For the third film
in the franchise,

"Harry Potter" was not only
changing direction,

but changing directors.

- Chris wasn't coming back
for "Prisoner of Azkaban."

- After those first three years,
he was really tired.

He just said, "I need a break."

- And perhaps in this case...

change would be a good thing.

- It's very healthy
on a franchise

to have a different director,

particularly with the change
of mood of film three.

- The darkness that comes later
in those stories

would have played differently

with the world
that Chris had created.

- Three books into the series,

the mood was becoming
distinctly different.

- They were beginning to become
a little bit more serious

as the kids grew up.

The themes
were a little bit more intense.

- Uncharted territory...
- Lumos maxima!

- ...amidst the childlike wonder
of the first two films.

- You needed somebody who
could walk in and actually go,

"Yes, I know what to do."

- And so quickly,
a short list emerged

of knowledgeable directors
who knew what to do.

- Maybe it was going to be
Kenneth Branagh.

- That is the question.

- Branagh was no stranger
to "Harry,"

having appeared
in "The Chamber of Secrets."

Also on the short list--

- I did toy with
Guillermo del Toro for a while,

which people got very excited
about.

- But we would not be seeing

Del Toro's famously creepy
monsters or Hogwarts.

- And, then, suddenly,
it was Alfonso.

- Alfonso Cuarón
had done some work

with one resident before that.

- And with that, the short list
was down to one--

Alfonso Cuarón.

- I remember David Heyman
had seen Alfonso's film--

was it "También"?

- "Y Tu Mam También"?
- That's the fella.

And that's how he got the job.

- Like "Harry Potter,"
this erotic road movie

centered on a trio--

- I thought, "Fantastic film,

but what's it have to do
with Harry?"

I mean, so adult and sexual.

- Really? For a children's film?

- That guy is directing this?

What the hell
are we gonna be doing?

- But let's not get distracted.

Warners weren't dwelling
on Cuarón's penchant

for sizzling love triangles.

They were thinking about this.

- Why don't they come to life in
front of us so we can see them?

- Because it's magic.

- "A Little Princess,"

which was centered
around a bunch of children.

- "The Little Princess"
was a whimsical story

of a girl
sent to a boarding school.

Okay. So, that, like,
totally makes sense.

That has elements
of, like, darkness,

the boarding school
a little bit.

You know, the headmistress
isn't that nice.

So that, like,
kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

- Becky, you will remain
locked in your room

for the entire day tomorrow
without meals.

- But, mostly, it was Cuarón's
imaginative take on literature

that was most relevant
to him taking on "Harry Potter."

But...
- He hadn't done anything
this big.

- Fortunately, Chris Columbus
would still be hovering

as an executive producer.

- "If you need me,
I'll come down.

If there's a problem,
I'll come down."

He is the kind of producer
who wants to,

"This is your movie now."

- With the wand passed
from one director to the other,

Alfonso Cuarón began wielding
his newfound power

further than ever before
into the shadows...

- Add a little bit
more seriousness

and a slightly darker tone.

- ...and maybe even
right up to the edge.

- Yeah. Sort of edgy -- edgy.

Which is a weird word to use
in the "Harry Potter" franchise.

But it felt gritty
and dark and exciting.

- After all, despite all
that magic, for Harry and co.,

things were starting to get,
well, real.

- As the characters
began to grapple

with more personal problems
and more issues of the anxieties

we talk about
that come with adolescence.

- And just as real-life themes
began to emerge for Potter,

real life forced changes
on the franchise.

- They'll burst into flame
when it is time for them to die.

- The death of Richard Harris

before the release
of "The Chamber of Secrets"

left producers with no choice

but to go against
the actor's expressed wishes...

- "Don't recast me!"

That was, I think,
the last words

that Chris heard
from Richard Harris.

- ...to replace the man that was
the gold standard of Dumbledore.

You would be hard-pushed
to find somebody

who said that Richard Harris

wasn't how they pictured
Dumbledore to be.

But yet they had no choice,

and in stepped Michael Gambon

with some rather big shoes
to fill.

- I think it must have been
a lot of pressure

for him taking over
from Richard.

- A word of caution.

- When Gambon came on, we knew
it was gonna be different.

- Welcome to another year
at Hogwarts.

- He was an interesting person
to work with, was Gambon.

You will hear many stories
about Gambon,

and most of them are true.

Unbelievable, but true.

- And we'll get to some
of those stories.

But first, they had
some new characters to cast.

- If you were a British celebrity
that was not in "Harry Potter,"

you were trying desperately
to get into "Harry Potter."

- Trying and succeeding
was Emma Thompson...

- You must look beyond!

- That was a load of rubbish.

- ...as the fortune-telling
Sybill Trelawney...

- You, boy--
is your grandmother quite well?

- Uh, uh, I think so.

-
I wouldn't be so sure of that.

- ...along with the U.K.'s
preeminent

character-actor extraordinaire,
Gary Oldman.

- That is Sirius Black, that is.

- Gary Oldman as Sirius Black
is perfect.

This guy's got a backstory.
This guy's messed up.

This guy has been in prison.
He's a little nuts.

- Are you going
to kill me, Harry?

- Despite it being
a smaller part,

it's not a throwaway part
at all,

and they really needed somebody
who could take a meaty role.

- I'm pleased to welcome
Professor R.J. Lupin.

- And a new face
in the Hogwarts staff room

was provided by David Thewlis.

- Just a gentle,
soft-spoken, lovely man.

- The injection of fresh blood

added decades of experience
to the core cast,

who, although still young,

were already veterans
in their own right.

- They'd been to 300 days
of shooting with Chris.

That's like six movies
for normal actors.

- A significant chunk
of their lives

had already been consumed
by Harry Potter.

I was there every day,
Monday to Friday.

I'd leave my house at 8:30

and probably get back
at about 7:30, 8:00 at night.

And you commit to that
as a 10-year-old.

The adolescent cast members
had grown up on "Harry Potter."

It was so excited what we were
doing, and I really mean this.

Like, it was so exciting.
And it was fun,

but, obviously, it takes up
a big part of your life.

In fact, life at Hogwarts

had virtually replaced
regular schooling

for the principals.

I do think, like,
it was completely natural

for all of us to have missing
elements of what, I guess,

a normal 13-year-old's life
would look like--

parties, friends,
that sort of thing.

But cast members
were continuing their education,

as actors at least,

thanks to the tutelage
of their new director.

- I remember him being
the first director

really that I had worked with

who expected more
thought process.

You know,
he wanted me to make decisions

and have ideas and thoughts.

In the real world, you know, you
don't finish what you're saying

and then it just shuts off.

You know, that doesn't happen.

He made you think about things
like that.

It was a challenge,
but an exciting challenge.

- Now the challenges of adulthood
were becoming part of the job.

- So they could begin
to take some direction,

just pushing them more,

challenging them
a little bit more.

- Alfonso was a bit more like,
"You're an actor.

How are you gonna do this?"

But I think everyone
was ready for it.

Chris Columbus knew how
to almost trick us into acting.

But now, as the years passed,

Alfonso Cuarón was directing
well-trained actors.

Alfonso really wanted, like,
the actors to have a say

in how they think
their character

would wear their school uniform.

So with Hermione,
she would have,

like, her tie properly done,
top button done up.

But, then, if you looked at,
like, Seamus Finnigan,

he had, like,
top button undone, short tie.

And I think maybe he did
sort of think

more of how 13-year-old,
active young girl would dress.

That felt right.

- Excuse me. I'm head boy.
- Oh!

- And in the case of Percy,

Chris Rankin
had some ideas himself

very befitting of a head boy.

- One thing I wanted to do
that I was really clear on,

because it was a fun moment
for me from the book

was Percy is so proud
of becoming head boy.

That is such a big thing
for him.

And we had the costume-fitting
for that.

I mean, there were our fezzes
and our,

you know, sort of, looking like
the Weasleys on holiday.

And I said
to the costume designer,

Percy has his head boy badge
at this point.

And she's like, "Oh, no.

We do not need to bother
with that."

Said, "No.
We need the head boy badge.

We need to do that."

We desperately need to do that.
And that was a triumph.

That was a victory for me.

- It was clear

Chris was squeezing
every little bit of business

out of the character he could.

- Alfonso spoke to me and said,

"You know, Percy is this
sort of nerdy, geeky guy.

I like the idea that he's got
greasy hair and oily skin

and he's a bit spotty
and he's imperfect."

Funnily enough,
on the first two movies,

the hair and makeup team had
spent money and time and effort

giving me so many
different products

to try and clear
my teenage, spotty face up.

And then we got to "Azkaban."

They then had to spend
like 45 minutes every morning

smearing puss-filled whiteheads
onto my forehead

and things like that.

-

- As the kids began to grow
and change,

even the familiar spaces
of Hogwarts

underwent a metamorphosis.

- Because the story
was a lot darker in tone,

I think the look of the sets
got darker, as well.

- As long shadows
loomed over Hogwarts,

the question was,

would Alfonso Cuarón
get lost in the dark?

- As darkness loomed at Hogwarts,

it would be easy
to get lost in the shadows.

But there was someone

who could safely lead the way
through the hallowed halls.

- Hogwarts changed
on every single film.

- And Art Director Gary Tomkins
had been there all the way.

- There's a lot of my input
there,

particularly on
the Hogwarts model.

- Hogwarts,
the home of Harry Potter,

had changed just like
the students it housed.

- There were many
architectural features

that changed from film to film.

- And Gary's brief changed
with it.

- When we started
on "Harry Potter 1,"

Jo hadn't actually written
the last books.

So we couldn't possibly design
all the things into the castle

that would be required
for the forthcoming films.

- Originally based
on the Romanesque architecture

of Durham Cathedral
in the northeast of England,

Cuarón was leaning more
towards a Gothic look

for "The Prisoner of Azkaban."

- He went for a very
kind of darker, sinister look.

And so, we sort of
inherited the model,

and we really re-textured it,
replaced a lot of stuff.

All the roofs on the area

that's based on Durham Cathedral
were removed,

and we replaced those
with really tall, thin spires

so that in aerial shots,

they had kind of a menacing,
spiky feel to it.

- It was 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."

- Cuarón's instructions
to model builders

like José Granell were simple.

- "Make it a little bit
more dramatic."

And that was it.
You know, it was, "Right."

We went back, and we started
to have a bit more fun with it.

- Hogwarts started to feel less

like this sort of, warm, golden,
glowing castle

that it was
in the first two movies

and more like there were cobwebs
in the corners and shadows.

There's gonna be things
to be scared of in a castle.

- We don't know
whether it's safe or not.

If teenage anxiety could
be physically manifested...

- They take the shape of whatever

a particular person fears
the most.

- ...it would surely take
the shape

of Harry Potter's new villains.

- The Dementors of Azkaban.

- Adding that at the time

when the protagonists
hit adolescence

really did add a darker,
more sinister edge to it.

- It was clear
that "The Prisoner of Azkaban"

was a much darker movie.

And for those of us on set,

the mood wasn't much better.

- It was a new crowd.
It was a new crew on the ship.

And it was like Snape
had taken over from Dumbledore.

Which is...
- Riddikulus!

- With Alfonso,
there may be some people

that think he wasn't the easiest
of the directors to work with.

- Very particular.

- He's demanding.

- And everyone just needed
a sort of moment

to get that settled.

- The crew needed to find
their feet with the new boss.

- He was hard work to work with.

- I had a meeting with him.

One of the producers came
to the meeting.

And I said,
"I don't want to seem rude."

I said, "But would you mind just
leaving Alfonso and I to talk?"

And Alfonso watched
the producer leave.

He said, "Hey, man.
That's good."

- He really liked that.
And I said,

"Well, you obviously
never had a second unit.

I'm sure you don't want one.

I can tell you,
you do need one," I said.

"'Cause very few people
have filmed the way we film

and how involved it is

and the hours with the kids
and this and that," you know?

And it worked very well.

- Peter would remain in charge
of second unit.

- That second unit was the place
to be on "Harry Potter."

- And while the new director
was bringing the changes...

- He had ideas
for every sequence,

very clear ideas on things.

- ...there was no doubt
Cuarón had a clear vision.

And he soon found his crew had
the requisite eye for detail--

emphasis on "eye."

- We were looking at storyboards.

It was the Hogwarts Express.

And suddenly,
the rain turned into eyes.

- Bloody hell! What's happening?!

- The Dementors are coming, and
the sky is filled with eyeballs.

- It's like, "Wow.
That's really weird.

That's a really surreal thing."

- Even Cuarón was confused

when presented
with his surreal storyboards.

- He picked this up.
He looked at it.

He said, "Why are there
eyeballs all over the sky?"

And they said, "You said
then the rain turns into eyes."

And he said, "No."
I said the rain turns into ice."

There was a lot of laughing.

They put a lot of work
into those eyes.

- Sure, not everyone
had their ice on the ball,

but Cuarón was willing and able
to do something

Chris Columbus
was very cautious about--

adding flourishes
that were not in the book.

- "Hey, wouldn't it be great
if the choir were holding toads

and they did the bass notes?"

He also came up with ideas
as he went.

"Could you make
the Monster Book of Monsters?"

And it was like, "Well, okay.
We'll try and do that, then."

Suddenly, you've got
a whole factory making books,

and you think,
"I'm making books.

How did that come about?"

- With Cuarón,
the devil was in the detail,

especially when it came to the
film's most mysterious demons.

- The Dementors were something
he was very keen

to sort of develop.

- His description was very clear.

- And these devils would
bedevil his art department.

- This dark, death feel to it,

this macabre sense
of flowing fabrics.

- The fact that they float was
kind of difficult to achieve.

- It became clear
that this was gonna have to be

a fully digital character.

- That magician was the man

who'd just been promoted
to Visual Effects Supervisor,

after having done such
a good job with the spiders

on the last movie.

- My name's Tim Burke.

- For Tim, creating
digital costumes for Dementors

was an entirely new kind
of creepy-crawly.

- Doing cloth back then
was very complex.

- It was figuring out how
to get that complex animation

that had tremendous personality
to it,

yet felt almost random.

- Ironically, it was back to the
practical drawing board first.

- He wanted to explore
how cloth moved in water

and then played around
with reversing the footage

and over-cranking
and under-cranking.

It's something that we then
took across to the C.G.

and used as reference for how
the cloth itself would move.

And it took the computer wizards
at ILM

to figure out how to do that,
basically.

- That's
Industrial Light & Magic,

who'd brought Dobby to life
in the last movie.

But for
"The Prisoner of Azkaban,"

one of the most difficult
characters to create...

- Exactly what is that?

- That, Ron, is a hippogriff.

- ...would be Buckbeak
the hippogriff.

- A mixture of, you know,
bird and horse.

- Also a mixture of C.G.
and practical.

And as usual as it comes
to mythical horsey creatures...

- "I don't want to do the snake.
I want to do the unicorn."

- ...Nick Dudman's hand
was aloft.

- "Oh, I'd love to build
a flying hippogriff."

- And so that's exactly
what Nick and the team did.

They started building
the full-size Buckbeak.

- Building Buckbeak took a huge
chunk of the production time,

because we basically
have to build something

that's gonna look good
from any angle.

- Every feather had to be put in.

A phenomenal piece of work.

- But no matter
how much it looked the part,

mechanical Buckbeak
couldn't play it.

- The fully mechanical one,
which was insane--

it only had cables
coming out of one hoof.

Other than that,
it just stood there.

- But this mythical
flying horse-bird needed

to flap and gallop
across the skies of Hogwarts.

And for that task,
it was back to the computer.

- Yeah, Buckbeak
was a big challenge.

When Alfonso looked me in the
eye and said, "Can you do it?",

I said, "Yes, we can do it."

Again, big leap of faith.

- There was
yet another mythical creature

for the team to bring to life--
the werewolf,

And this time,
Nick Dudman was confident

he could pull it off
completely practically.

- And they thought
they could create the werewolf

as a practical effect
in a suit, a man wearing stilts.

- The design was really unusual.

- He's very willowy, tall, thin.

- But after careful constructions
for each stage...

- You know what?
We can make all these bits.

- Bits that would need
to come together in time

for the werewolf's fast
approaching onscreen debut.

- I'm not sure a human being
can actually do this.

- It was 2003, and filming
on "The Prisoner of Azkaban"

was well under way.

And years into filming
the "Harry Potter" franchise,

Leavesden Studios
had come a long way

from its humble beginnings.

- It was a dump.
- Diabolical.

- So run down.
- No. It was a nightmare.

- Or maybe not.

Nonetheless,
for "Harry Potter's"

now teenage cast,
it was a second home.

- As children
and as older teenagers,

we were always desperate
to drive the golf buggies.

Cast were absolutely forbidden

to get behind
the steering wheel.

And that is because
of Michael Gambon

and Johnny Depp
on "Sleepy Hollow,"

because they wrote off
two golf buggies.

That is why we were no longer
allowed

anywhere near the golf buggies.

Michael Gambon--
he was so glorious,

and he always had
such wonderful stories to tell.

I think most of them were lies.

- Well, Michael Gambon
was a master actor, after all.

- I remember us
having discussions

about what accent he would have.

- But, just hours from shooting,

Gambon was still
thinking about his predecessor.

- Well, on the first morning,
he came in, and he said,

"Should I try doing it Irish,
David,

as a kind of tribute
to Richard?"

And I said,
"Surely, you've come--

It's your first morning filming.
You must have thought of that."

You know?

- The new professor
would have to find his feet

one step at a time.

- It's meaningless to those
who've forgotten how to listen.

- There's more of a wicked side
to Dumbledore.

- I always refer to him,
Michael Gambon,

as "Battle Dumbledore."
- Good luck.

- You needed that danger
that Gambon brought.

I did express concerns
about your appointment of...

- We have the scene where
myself, Alan Rickman,

and Mike Gambon were patrolling,
like, late at night,

waiting for the Dementors.

- I'm quite convinced
the castle is safe.

- At one point,

the sound of a fart
came from one of the beds.

A few seconds later,
another fart noise came out.

And after about four,
everybody was laughing.

And they were all pointing
at Daniel.

And Michael Gambon

had placed
this electronic fart machine

underneath his sleeping bag
without telling him.

Daniel realized it was him.

He just jumped out
of his sleeping bag.

He says, "Gambon!"

- While Gambon
provided the tricks on set,

Alfonso Cuarón
would bring the magic--

as in actual, real magic.

- He said, "I want to have
real magic in this scene."

And everyone was quiet,
like...

"The -- There is no real magic."

- But what about real magicians?

- He goes, "But I want
real magic in this scene."

He goes, "I want all the extras
in the pub to be magicians."

- This wasn't
just unbridled enthusiasm.

- And everybody
is doing something magical

so that we don't use
visual effects at all.

- He wanted to keep
little magic things happening.

While an actor
would be playing a scene,

something would be going on
behind them or in front of them,

just to keep the whole
screen looking interesting.

- The director's sleight of hand
worked.

- In an age where anything is
possible with digital effects,

to actually employ real magic
is a pretty cool thing.

- You know,
things that were unnecessary,

but just added
that extra level of realism

to the magic that was around us.

- It also helped create magic
of a different kind

for the adolescent cast.

- It gave us better performances,
for sure.

- Harry, open the door!
-

- But there was no sleight of
hand when it came to Aunt Marge.

- The big thing for us
was doing Aunt Marge.

- When Aunt Marge...
- What are you smirking at?

- ...became the subject
of the young wizard's wrath...

- Shut up! Shut up!

- It was all practical.

There's no digital stuff in it
at all.

- ...she needed to be blown up,
literally.

- I was very worried.

I thought,
"Oh, this could look terrible."

- She had a fat suit,
but we also made

an enormous, full-body, latex,
inflating suit that she wore.

- It was a complex rig
that literally

we fired compressed air into
at high speed,

and it just inflated up.

- A process that put the squeeze
on actress Pam Ferris.

- We quickly realized
that when you inflate

a giant balloon
around somebody's torso,

your body kind of suffers
the compression.

So when we first fired it up,
it was a bit like --

- Bernard! Bernard, do something!

- We basically had to make
a little cage around her torso

so it would stop anything
actually pushing against her

and actually inflate outwards.

It would just kind of go--
phoom!

- It was quite good fun to do,

maybe not for her,
but for the crew.

- But the problem
with practical effects

is they have to obey
the laws of physics.

And physics would make or break
one of

"The Prisoner of Azkaban's"
favorite vehicles,

the triple-decker Knight Bus.

- What are you doing down there?

- I fell over.
- What'd you fell over for?

- I didn't do it on purpose.
- Well, come on then.

- The plan is to build
a three-story bus

based on the 1950's London bus,

which we did
by cutting up two London buses,

putting the two decks of one bus

onto the top of
the first deck of a second bus.

- But there's a reason

triple-decker buses
only appear in "Harry Potter."

- We had to put into the base
of the chassis

six tons of steel cod weight to
give it stability at the bottom

so that it was more stable
going around corners

and couldn't tip over.

We then had to look at the
challenges of filming in London.

- Limited to night shoots
in just a small section

of the city's Square Mile,

London's sprawling
public-transport network

wouldn't be relevant here.

- Because you can't drive
the bus into London,

and you couldn't drive it
between sets in London,

because it was too high
to go under any bridges.

- Nobody wanted to lose
the top half of the bus.

- So every time
we moved the bus,

we'd have to take it apart
and do it all really quickly,

because it was all
night shooting,

and obviously,
you can't waste the time.

- Second unit director
Peter MacDonald

had a headache...

the size of a bus.

- It was probably
the toughest sequence we did.

I mean,
we had stunt drivers driving it,

but you see it lean over
as it goes around corners

and just think, "Oh, shit."

- You get in.

- To capture "Harry Potter's"
famous Knight Bus,

Second Unit Director
Peter MacDonald

commandeered
the streets of London...

- Probably the toughest sequence
we did.

- ...to create something
London already has in spades--

slow-moving traffic.

- The difficult was, really, to
try and make the bus look fast.

So what we had to do,

the camera ran at quite a slow
speed, more than we normally do,

to speed up the bus
by at least two to three times.

But then every other car has
got to go 15, 20 miles an hour

to make the bus look fast.

- It was no dream gig
for the stunt drivers.

- We were just creeping along the
road while this bus zips past.

- This slow dance
was necessary

to avoid the top-heavy bus
capsizing.

- 'Cause it was literally
leaning like that, you know?

- And obviously, when
they speeded it up for the film,

it looks like the cars
are doing 30 miles an hour

and the bus
is doing 90 miles an hour.

- This scene
wouldn't be complete

without Cuarón
adding his own special touch--

at the very last minute,
of course.

- Suddenly, you know, he wanted
a shrunken head in the bus

that has to talk.

- Take her away, Ern.
- Yeah. Take it away, Ernie.

- What?
Where was that in the book?

Was that in the book?

- Cuarón had stepped onto
treacherous ground,

because nowhere in the book

is there a shrunken head
on the bus.

- I think he's taken a leave
of his senses.

Um, then, the next thing,
actually, it's really cool,

and it has a good beat,
and it works, and we built it.

- Certainly one of the best
sequences I was involved with.

-

- Escaping Leavesden Studios,

location shoots for the cast
were like a stand-in

for the school camps
they couldn't attend.

We went up to Scotland
on location,

and we filmed there, I think,
for about five weeks.

And it was truly, like, just I
think my favorite memories.

Production Designer
Stuart Craig,

was in his element
in the elements.

- One of the things
that Stuart always says,

he says, "My favorite
is building a set on location,

because then you have nature
doing all the heavy lifting.

You've got all the beauty
of a natural environment,

but you've also got
exactly your set."

So that's where, I think,
you know,

Hagrid's hut up in Scotland
worked beautifully well.

- Even if
the production designer's dream

was a crew member's nightmare.

- It was a spectacular location.

It was a horrendous place
to film.

They were up a mountain.
It was pretty horrible weather.

- In the Scottish Highlands,

one false move could
throw everything into disarray.

- I'm glad
I wasn't at that shoot.

- Well, I was there,
doubling Hermione,

as was David, doubling Daniel.

- Oh!
- Good punch.

- But on one icy day
in the highlands,

David took on
a far more important role

when Malfoy copped one
in the face from Hermione.

- I was there, just making sure

the distance between
the two of them were safe

so she didn't actually
clock Tom in the face.

- Hermione punches him.

And I remember just throwing
the most non-believable punch.

I've never punched anyone,
obviously, before in my life

and still haven't.

So, like, throwing a punch,
to me,

was like, so foreign.

But Emma Watson
had no troubles at all.

-
- When you see it in the film,

it's got a bit of conviction.

- That felt good.

- Well, Malfoy did deserve it.

Let's be honest.

But I wasn't the only double
failing to land a punch.

Daniel's double, David Holmes,
was having struggles of his own.

- They're coming out
the back door. Go!

- I messed up my timing
for the shot

where there was two Harrys
in frame.

That exact shot,
we obviously needed

a double and a stunt double,
or two Harrys.

So I was one of them.

It was the one gap in the clouds

that we needed
to get the shot done.

I went too early.
The gap in the clouds closed up.

Couldn't get the shot.

And 'cause my timing was wrong,

it meant the crew
had to stay there all weekend

and then get that shot
on a Monday.

So there's a certain crew
member that got me very drunk

and encouraged me to break
into the hotel swimming pool

for a late-night skinny-dip.
So, yeah.

Do you know
how they made me pay for it?

It's my knuckles
that get pecked the crow

when they're releasing Buckbeak.

Ow!

- Now, speaking of Buckbeak...

When the time came
for Nick Dudman

and the practical animatronic
team's

glorious moment to shine,

well, merely getting the puppet
on-set proved challenging.

- Couldn't actually get it
up the hillside on a vehicle.

- Quick. Come on.

- It did get to make
one triumphant flight.

- I think they helicoptered
it in in the end.

- But for Visual Effects
Supervisor Tim Burke,

creating digital Buckbeak
was hardly any easier

than wrangling
the practical bird.

- I was confident
we could do the animation,

but the technical aspects
of creating

a flocked, feathered creature

and then controlling
all the feathers

and doing the dynamics
on the feathers--

it was a massive challenge.

- The biggest challenge for Tim
was not animating the bird.

- It was very difficult
to make him look like

he was actually on the creature

and interacting
with the creature.

- It was putting Harry on it.

- And there was many times

where we were having
to cut his hands out

and reanimate them
to give the illusion

that his hands were interacting
with the wings.

- A problem lessened
by some simple,

hands-free choreography.

- Whoo-hoo!

- The recurring theme of flight
in "Harry Potter"

continued with the Dementors.

- Because they're flying,

they're not really interacting
directly with anybody.

So actually, filming a scene
like that is not too difficult.

- Sirius!

- But always ready to bring
things back down to Earth

was John Richardson's
practical effects.

- I was kicking myself
for opening my big mouth.

- When it came
to putting the Dementors on ice

in the final showdown
at the frozen lake,

John had an idea
he knew his director would love.

- I thought
it would be really good

for what was needed
for the film

if we did it with real ice.

- That's ice...
- Why are there eyeballs?

- ...not eyes.

- Normally, for a frozen lake,
you know,

we'd coat them with wax.

- Wax doesn't require freezing.

- So, I talked Alfonso
into real ice.

- But what John had in mind

would require
special permission,

because freezing the set
wouldn't be cheap.

- We brought in
an ice-rink company,

and we created an ice lake.

It added a reality to the scene

that may not have been there
otherwise.

- The crew
were in complete control

of the "Harry Potter" set,

but only one person
had total control

of the "Harry Potter" story.

And J.K. Rowling was about
to change the script on everyone

with the release
of her fifth book.

It came out
that a character dies.

- The fifth book
in the "Harry Potter" series,

"Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix,"

dropped in June of 2003...

- We had to wait three years
for this.

- And bookstores were ready
for the onslaught.

By now the launch
of a new "Harry Potter" book

resembled a film premiere,

as eager readers anxiously
counted down to midnight

to get their hands on a copy.

And as if readers
weren't exuberant enough,

J.K. Rowling had an incredible,

and yet darker still twist
for this book.

And it landed like a bombshell
on the set of the third movie,

"The Prisoner of Azkaban."

It came out that J.K. Rowling
had killed off a character.

Everyone on-set
had the same question.

Who is it gonna be?

Somebody's getting
their contract cut.

The race was immediately on
to speed-read the new book

and solve the new mystery.

I'm in hair and makeup.

My hair station was next to,
like, Gary Oldman's station.

He just comes in,
and he was like, "Oh, it's me!"

Like, they kill me off.
Like, Sirius dies."

And I remember just being,
like, so upset.

Not because Oldman's Sirius
character had been killed off.

'Cause I hadn't got to that bit,
so I didn't know who it was.

I was thinking,
"I cannot believe

he's just come in here without
even asking if people knew yet

and, like, ruined it."

I remember going back
to the dressing room

and saying to my mum, like,

"Gary Oldman just told me

that he's the one that's killed,

that Sirius is the one
that's killed in the book,"

And my mum just saying, "I know,

but you'll never forget
that that's how you found out

and that Gary Oldman was the one
that told you."

And now I see him
in so many films,

and I'm like, "I'll never forget
that you did a spoiler."

Gary Oldman does spoilers.

And that wasn't the only time
Mr. Oldman caused a kerfuffle.

- We were filming Gary Oldman
for the Sirius Black poster.

It was just a green-screen shoot

to put him into the poster
later on, basically.

And Alfonso was trying to get
a performance out of him

and wanted him
to get really angry.

So the two of them
were shouting

and being quite abusive
to each other.

But sadly, at the same time,
a party of schoolchildren

were being brought 'round
in the background

on their Make-A-Wish Tour.

And they were witnessing
these two grown men

swearing and shouting
and screaming at each other.

And I don't think
it quite fit the sort of idea

of what
the "Harry Potter" world was.

In fact,
from shriveled, shrunken,

dismembered heads,
tormented Dementors...

-

- ...and werewolves,

the world of "Harry Potter"
was becoming a nightmare--

a sentiment shared by the team
making the werewolf suit.

This horrific hound

had become less of a problem
for Harry

and more of one
for the schedule.

- I have nightmares about it.

- It was supposed to be shot
a lot earlier in the schedule,

but because the people
in the suits weren't ready,

they were still
having to rehearse,

they kept delaying the schedule,
kept pushing it down the line.

- I think what they wanted to see

and what they wanted to see
of the performer

was, like, just out of reach
of what could be delivered.

- It was a bridge too far
for a performer.

They could wear the stilts.
That was fine.

They could wear the head.
That was fine.

They could wear
the long fingers. That was fine.

Put it all together,

it was so restricting to the
performers that it didn't work.

- It was so hard
to take it seriously.

- The full power
of this character

was just being compromised

by the practical challenge
of doing it.

- And Alfonso's style
of filmmaking

wasn't exactly helping either.

- His style of filmmaking
is challenging,

because he does rely
on longer shots.

He relies on very naturalistic
camera movements.

- Spent a week trying to film it

before they decided
this is not gonna work.

- And so that became
an expensive pivot.

- So that was a definite
sort of bump

towards the end
of the schedule, late turnover,

trying to fix something
rather than, perhaps,

doing it the right way
from the beginning.

- I sat back afterwards,
and I thought, "Yeah, yeah."

And I wish now I sort of think
I should have spoken up more.

- Running out of time,

Cuarón had an emergency
on his hands.

And the only option was to make
the werewolf completely C.G.

- We kind of got
a bit of a 911 call

that we had to do them digitally

and do them
as full C.G. characters.

The frustration with that
was it was late in the day,

so the werewolf
was a bit of a rush job.

- Luckily...
- Professor?

- ...the state of the art
of visual effects had evolved.

And now with the kind of tools
we were relying on,

it became more suited
for Alfonso's filmmaking style.

- The werewolves weren't
the only figures changing form.

As Tim Burke scrambled
to perfect a digital hippogriff,

werewolves, and a magic bus...

- A little bit of C.G. in there

when it squishes
between the two, red buses.

- ...the squeeze
was on visual effects,

and the seams
were becoming exposed.

- Some of the shots
where he's flying on Buckbeak,

the lighting on Dan himself

didn't quite match
into the background plates,

so he doesn't quite
look like he's there.

It just feels a little bit
like a processed shot,

like he was on blue screen,
which of course he was.

Didn't quite work as well
as we'd hoped.

With all films, you know,

not everything gets finished
the level that you want,

and there are always
some great-looking shots,

and there are some shots

that aren't quite as good
as you want.

But you run out of time,
basically.

- Warners
could live with imperfections.

But would audiences
be happy to live

with the darkest "Harry Potter"
yet?

- That's not possible.

- As "Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban"

premiered in May 2004,

Warner Bros.
waited anxiously to see

how audiences would react
to the first dark

and mostly grown-up
Harry Potter.

- When we were doing it,
I had questions in my mind

about certain directions
and things.

- This is not at all
how I envisioned it to be.

- But when you saw it, I thought
it was absolutely splendid.

- I just love the story,
and I love the look of it.

There was no doubt
Alfonso Cuarón

had taken "Harry Potter"
to a new and unexpected place...

I like the darkness.
I really like that.

...just as each
of J.K. Rowling's books had.

- It felt like you were watching
a different film franchise.

- He was the right person
in the right time.

- It helped ensure that
the franchise didn't get bland.

- You know,
Alfonso created just a movie

that I think was transformative.

- "Harry Potter" had come of age.

- Then it started to mutate.

- "The Prisoner of Azkaban"
grossed

nearly $800 million worldwide.

- I know people really liked it

because it was
artistically different.

- However, it's worth noting
that for all its success,

Cuarón did deviate, ever
so slightly, from the books.

And people noticed.

- One of the reasons why
I didn't like the third movie

is I felt like they left out
backstory of Sirius Black

and his father's friendship

and the history
of the Marauder's Map.

So the movie to me
didn't make as much sense.

- What's this rubbish?
- "What's this rubbish," he says.

- I think it's a really weird
thing to balance.

How much
do you want to overexplain

for people
who don't know the books?

How much do you want
to under-explain

for the people who do
and don't want it repeated?

- Well, for Alfonso Cuarón,

there would be
no more repeating,

because after
just the one movie...

- Because the movie
is not mine anymore.

Now it belongs to the audience.

- He was done.
- He moved on.

- Whether it was Alfonso's
decision...

- They wanted to get,
you know,

other directors in,
have their visions.

- Cuarón
wasn't the only departure.

The custodians
of Harry's big-screen canon

had reached a crossroads.

- Either we choose to stay here
for another 10 years

or we go home.

You know,
the three of us talked about it.

You know,
we did three really good movies.

- David was there.
David now knew,

you know, how to manage a movie,
I think, of these sizes,

and they're in good hands.

Let's go home
and do something else.

- Warners
had an even bigger problem.

- When we were finishing
the third movie,

the cast had some doubts
if they were gonna come back.

- The class of 2004
had several members

who were ready to now leave
school in order to go to school.

It really wasn't
an easy decision.

To stay doing tutoring
at the studios

meant that I wouldn't have been
able to do a full range of exams

that you would do in, like,
the English school system.

This is a big thing when you're
13, to be thinking of that.

- We knew
there was gonna be seven books.

And at that point,
the movies were popular enough

that we pretty much knew
there was gonna be seven movies.

- And I think I just was like,

"I'm not 100% sure
I want to do this."

- Thanks to U.K. regulations,

none of the adolescent cast
could be confirmed

for all seven films in advance.

Suddenly, Warners
had a commitment problem.

- Dan--
his parents weren't sure.

- Daniel Radcliffe's father,
Alan,

who, along with his wife,
had to be convinced

to let their son
become Harry Potter,

were starting to ask questions.

- His dad, Alan,
had given up his job

to look after Daniel, really.

And he spent
a lot of time with him,

making sure he was
where he was supposed to be.

- But exactly where that was
remained up in the air.

- They really wanted him to go
to school -- regular school.

And he wanted some time
to go to regular school.

- But Daniel Radcliffe
wasn't a regular boy.

In fact, by now,
he was a household name.

- All the media intrusion
and stuff written in the papers.

- Fame had caught up with
the world's most famous wizard.

- And Alan said, "I just tell him

not to read anything
about himself.

If it's negative and bad,
it might upset you,

and if it's positive
and glowing,

it might go to your head.

So just keep your head down,

do the job, and just--
you know, just enjoy yourself."

- But whether he was enjoying
himself was the question.

Best to leave wanting more

than to be, like,
not enjoying it anymore.

After six years, three films,

and more than $2.6 billion
in box-office receipts,

Warners was facing the prospect
of having to go back

to the drawing board.

- And the studio at the time
was like,

"Well, what are we gonna do?
We'll have to recast Dan.

And if anyone else leaves,
we'll recast."