The date for the Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2 London premiere has been set as July 7th! According to the press release it is set to be the most spectacular premiere yet.
“Warner Bros. Pictures today announced that the world premiere of the final instalment of the Harry Potter film series, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – Part 2, will take place in London’s Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square on 7th July 2011.
This will be the first red carpet film premiere event in Trafalgar Square, the instantly recognisable landmark providing the iconic backdrop for one of the biggest film premieres to ever take place in the capital.
The cast, filmmakers and guests attending the final Harry Potter premiere will begin the night on the red carpet in Trafalgar Square with the world’s media in attendance. Special areas will be reserved within the square for fans and competition winners from all over the world to see the actors and creators of some of the most beloved characters of all time. Cast and guests will then make their way to Leicester Square’s cinemas to watch the film.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “For the last decade we’ve been gripped by the on-screen battle between Harry Potter and his arch enemy Lord Voldemort and this is one of the most eagerly awaited films in history. As befits a great British triumph, I can think of no better venue than the iconic surroundings of Trafalgar Square in which to stage the most spectacular of send offs for this dramatic finale.”
Josh Berger, President and Managing Director of Warner Bros. Pictures UK commented “We are delighted that our plans for the finale of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will take place in such a spectacular venue. We pride ourselves on the creativity of our premieres and the space within Trafalgar Square will lend itself to being a magical experience for both guests and fans.”
Luckily, I will be in London that week, YAY! So if Magical-Menagerie is invited again I will be able to cover the event myself.
Today there are a bunch of versions of the ‘Tiny Ball of Light’ video that was featured on the Oscars last night. This was the best one I found. Enjoy:
As most of you know, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I was nominated for 2 Academy Awards. The awards were given out tonight and the first award to be presented was Art Direction. Deathly Hallows lost the award to Alice in Wonderland. Helena Bonham Carter was also nominated for Best Supporting actress and she lost to Melissa Leo from The Fighter. Next up was Best Original Score where Alexandre Desplat was nominated. Unfortunately he lost to The Social Network. Finally, the film was also nominated for Visual Effects and lost to Inception.
They also showed a mix of movies where they turned certain parts into songs and Deathly Hallows was one of those featured. If a video makes its way online I’ll be sure to post it.
But don’t lose hope everyone! Deathly Hallows: Part II can always pull a Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and be nominated for 11 awards and win them all!
Nominations for the 37th Annual Saturn Awards have been announced and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I has been nominated for five awards! Those nominations may be seen below.
Best Fantasy Film
Alice in Wonderland
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Clash of the Titans
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Best Director
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
Clint Eastwood (Hereafter)
Christopher Nolan (Inception)
Matt Reeves (Let Me In)
Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island)
David Yates (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1)
Best Costume
Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Milena Canonero (The Wolf Man)
Isis Mussenden (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
Jany Temime (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1)
Michael Wilkinson (Tron: Legacy)
Janty Yates (Robin Hood)
Best Make-Up
Howard Berger, Gregory Nicotero (Splice)
Andrew Clement, Donald J. Mowat (Repo Men)
Andrew Clement, Jennifer McDaniel, Tarra Day (Let Me In)
Mark Coulier, Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1)
Rick Baker, Dave Elsey (The Wolf Man)
Lindsay MacGowan, Shane Mahan (Alice in Wonderland)
Best Special Effects
Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Karl Denham, Nikos Kalaitzidis (Tron: Legacy)
Angus Bickerton, Barrie Helmsley (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Nicholas Ait’Hadi, Christian Manz (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1)
Chris Corbould, Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Peter Begg (Inception)
Ken Ralston, Tom Peitzman, David Schaub, Carey Villegas (Alice in Wonderland)
Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright, Daniel Sudick (Iron Man 2)
The VFX Supervisor for the Harry Potter Films, Tim Burke, recently sat down with StudioDaily to discuss the visual effects for the Harry Potter series. Some snippets may be read below.
F&V: What were the hardest shots to accomplish on Deathly Hallows, Part 1? I think the hardest things were the characters. The creatures and Dobby. People had to relate to Dobby, to empathize with Dobby to believe he would die. People are used to seeing good and bad CG characters. If Dobby didn’t look like he had a soul, we would have lost the emotional moment at the end of the film. I thought Dobby would be the hardest character, but with the skills of our brilliant animators at Framestore, he wasn’t that difficult to execute. And we had brilliant reference performances, which helped us nail the characters.
The hardest shots were the abstract and conceptual shots of the destruction of the evil horcrux creature. It was a lot of work for Rising Sun. What does it look like to rip a soul apart? David Yates had it in his head toward the end of shooting, and we had to invent something. All those subjective things are open to interpretation. But we kept sticking to it and translated his ideas into Houdini effects. We drove the faces, which are hidden, through facial capture from Ralph Fiennes. We used Mova, the same motion-capture system used for Benjamin Button, to drive the distorted faces of Voldermort into this writhing mass.
F&V: When you think back to the previous films, what were the hardest effects? We’ve always pushed all the available technology at the time as hard as we could. When I think over the group of films, the giant in the fifth film wasn’t our best and there were all sorts of reasons why he didn’t work. The character changed halfway through the film and we had to throw out all our reference because the director didn’t like it. So all of a sudden we didn’t have a character. When we lost that we were drowning, so as a result, all those shots feel hard. I’ll hold up my hand and say it didn’t look good enough.
We’ve had other difficult things that did work. The Hippogriff was an incredible challenge to pull off, and it was the star of the last film. But the abstract subjective effects are the hardest. And all the Potter films have had them. It isn’t like matching a real environment that you have to keep working on until it looks real. If you’re destroying a tortured horcrux soul, that’s hard.
F&V: How did the role of visual effects change in this film compared to earlier films? […] For Part 2, we’ve done away with Hogwarts. It was such a major job to stage the battle of Hogwarts, and we had to do it in different stages of production. We had shots with complex linking camera moves from wide overviews, to flying into windows and interior spaces. So we took the plunge at the end of 2008 and started rebuilding the school digitally with Double Negative. It’s taken two years – getting renders out, texturing every facet of the building, constructing interiors to see through windows, building a destruction version of the school. We can design shots with the knowledge that we have this brilliant digital miniature that we can do anything with. With a practical Hogwarts, we would have shot it last summer and been so tied down. Instead, as David Yates finds the flow and structure, we are able to handle new concepts and ideas.
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