Harry Potter director David Yates is set to receive a very prestigious award from the BAFTA at the at the 2011 BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards. He will be the recipient of The Brittania Award, which is, a celebration of achievements honoring individuals and companies that have dedicated their careers or corporate missions to advancing the entertainment arts. More specifically he will receive the John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing. The awards will be taking place on November 30th of this year.
“John Lasseter and David Yates are master creators of joy and imagination,” says Nigel Lythgoe, Chairman of BAFTA Los Angeles. “Their high standard of art, perception and pure entertainment is unparalleled. The worldwide success of Mr. Lasseter for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Mr. Yates’ contribution to the final four parts of the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise makes them global wizards in their own right, and are delighted to honor these remarkable filmmakers with this year’s Britannia Award.”
In a new interview with Hero Complex the Harry Potter Visual Supervisor Tim Burke, who has been with the series since Chamber of Secrets, talks about the final film in the epic series. Some snippets from the interview may be read below:
NC: How is the 3-D?I think it’s good, actually. I think people are going to be really pleased. I know everyone’s a little nervous and skeptical of 3-D these days, but the work has been done very, very well. We’ve done over 200 shots in 3-D and in the visual effects as well, because so much of it is CG, so the results are very, very good. I think everyone’s going to be really impressed with it, actually.
NC: Is there a particular sequence you’re most proud of?There’s so much work. I think, hopefully, it will all be good. There’s some great stuff very early on with the dragon in Gringotts. There’s some great fun in that. The battle sequences are epic, and just continuous. It’s almost wall-to-wall work, that’s the thing. So it doesn’t really stand out as being one scene. We did a lot of the design for the school itself. And the school has been completely rebuilt as a CG model. In the previous films we’d always used a miniature model to do that part of the work. But in order to give ourselves sort of a lot of flexibility and scope with the actual battle sequence itself, we decided to rebuild it all as a CG model, and the surrounding sort of Scottish landscape, models so we could put the camera wherever we wanted. And because it’s all these different action sequences happening in the landscape, and in parts of the school, we needed to be able to link these together, and some of them were on practical sets. … We were able to basically build this whole environment in the computer, and then link all of these different things together in CG in this kind of virtual world. So that in itself was a massive undertaking. As soon as they get back to Hogwarts and the battle starts, every single shot is an interior or an exterior Hogwarts set-piece, and so it’s an environment that we’ve done something to. It’s just the sheer volume of work, and that environment work, and then the animation on top of that. It’s really worked as a whole piece. It’s not just one individual little thing. It’s an amazing amount of work.
As I posted a few weeks ago, Larry King would be having a special on the Harry Potter films, today we have some more information on the program to share. It is entitled Larry King Special- Harry Potter: The Final Chapter, and it is airing on July 10th at 8pm and 11pm ET. Also, an extended clip from the film will be shown exclusively on CNN days before the movie releases. We have also been sent a photo of Dan and Larry King during their interview that you can see by clicking the thumbnail below.
Some information on the special is as follows:
Everyone’s favorites- Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, Helena Bonham Carter and Robbie Coltrane will all be a part of the show. They’ll be premiering never before seen footage from the film as well as a tour of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter led by the Weasley Twins (James and Oliver Phelps) and an exclusive behind the scenes tour with the special effects team who bring our magical world to life.
Parade has posted a new interview today, this time with James Phelps where he discusses his character Fred. BEWARE: the interview contains spoilers if you haven’t read the books!
On filming his character’s death scene.
“It was surreal. I feel like a really close friend has died. It was more like a Saving Private Ryan scene than Harry Potter, so it was kind of cool, because every guy wants to be in an action movie and that’s what this is. But I pretty much just laid there and fell asleep. I think it was more of a challenge for the other guys than me. Rupert [Grint] and Oliver [Phelps], they really upped their game for that one. Hopefully people will like how it’s been done.”
On how his real-life brother, Oliver, handled the dramatic scene.
“I think that it was an emotional day for everyone when we shot Fred lying there. We did about five takes total, and then Oliver was done because it had emotionally drained him. It’s really hard to put yourself in that position and imagine that kind of thing.”
On seeing the series come to an end.
“We always thought that we wouldn’t know what it would be like until we were on the promotional tour, so now it’s starting to really sink in. I think the London premiere is going to be quite emotional.”
Apple have posted a new featurette on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II entitled “Where We Left Off” where the cast and crew talk about the final film. The clip is a little under 4 minutes long and features producers David Barron and David Heyman, director David Heyman, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint talking about what has happened in the lead up to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. Watch the new clip here or below.
Seventeen Magazine have emailed to let us know that Emma Watson will be featured on the cover of their August 2011. So far we have a picture of the cover and some photoshoot outtakes which you can see in the gallery. Seventeen also have a page set up with a ton of information on the cover, including a behind the scenes video from her cover shoot and some quotes! Make sure to check out the page on their site to see it all!
“I’ve never understood having crushes on people who you don’t know in real life. I only crush on people I meet. I mean, I can appreciate that someone is good-looking, obviously, but I don’t intend to fantasize about people I don’t know!”
“I dance a lot and I run and do yoga and play field hockey and tennis. I like to be active. I don’t always have time for that stuff, but I do always feel better afterward.”
“Reducing your life down to three pairs of jeans, two skirts, a couple of shirts, and a few pairs of shoes was so nice for me. I really loved living in this tiny room where I didn’t’ have space for anything. It sounds really lame, but it made me feel a lot more free, because I just didn’t have as many choices.”
I’ll make sure to post again when the issue is available for purchase (July 5th) and you can run out and grab your copy! I know I can’t wait to get mine!
