Behind the Magic: Deathly Hallows Special Effects Revealed

Techland has released an interview with Tim Burke, the visual effects supervisor for Deathly Hallows. Burke has been a part of every film since Chamber of Secrets, and has been the lead supervisor for the fifth, sixth, and seventh (parts 1 and 2) films. He revealed things about the torturing and death of Charity Burbage in the first scene, Nagini, the seven Potters, the chase scene from Privet Drive, the horcrux destruction, AND a sneak peek of part 2! Here's a look at some highlights of what he had to say.

I think the most interesting part was about the "Seven Potters" scene:

"We used this technique, this new facial capture technique called Mova, which uses ultraviolet makeup. It allows you to capture real time facial expressions during the performance from the actor. We used it to capture the expressions of the actor who was becoming Harry Potter so we had their reactions to when you've drunk Polyjuice potion then used the original performance of the actor to drive that so the characteristics of the behavior was the real actor. It was great that those impressions came through and it doesn't just look like seven Dan Radcliffes.

We did these little transformations, then when we got through to the seven Harry Potters, we used Dan Radcliffe seven times. We used a motion control camera to film him seven times. To convince people hat there were different people inside a Harry Potter-looking body, for each shot we rehearsed what was going to happen with each of the real actors. Dan would study the way each of them behaved and would mimic the way they acted, copying their performances. He really got into the character of each one of them and then we would shoot separate passes and combine each of those layers afterwards into the computer. It was a very long, complicated thing to shoot. Each pass for Dan playing the other actors was at least ten takes, so we ended up doing up to 70 takes for each shot, which was obviously incredibly difficult for Dan, but he's a great actor."

On Charity Burbage:

"It's actually the real actress (Carolyn Pickles) suspended in a very uncomfortable position. (Director) David Yates wanted it to be like invisible torture, like she was bound with invisible ropes. We actually bound and suspended her with ropes that we digitally removed later. She was shot separately on a green screen stage later on and then she's complicited into the shots with the death eaters."

On Nagini:

"We actually redeveloped her character a little bit. For this one, we based her on a real python, but gave her more scary characteristics, so she's is slightly different from previous films. I felt that when we'd last seen her, she wasn't quite a real snake. She was a hybrid of a python and an anaconda – 20 feet from tip to tail. This time her design is based on a real python, but we gave her the eyes of a viper."

On the chase scene:

"We did as much in-camera stuff as possible using stunt men to really try to get some great moments. We used an old airstrip, a runway near the studio and had a stuntman for Hagrid and Harry and stunt drivers. We filmed for a week of nights, shooting as many stunts as we could get. We created a CG version of Dartford Tunnel to digitally drop in around them and did face replacements. If we got into a big close up with Dan maybe firing his wand, we did that back on the stage with a green screen, with Dan in a sidecar that was sitting on a big motion base, which would allow it to turn and twist as if it were really being driven along. We did end up turning a real bike upside down so there were real shots of Dan hanging upside down out of the sidecar. But we added the CG backgrounds in but shot them all and then put them all back together again."

On the horcrux destruction scene:

"We had to consider how to kill a part of some one's soul and what that would look like. We were trying to create something very amorphous – abstract, but quite sinister and evil. We did some great performance sessions with Ralph Fiennes. We used his face, while he's rolling and writhing around, to make this evil Horcrux creature. The idea is that the Horcruxes create themselves out of the surrounding environment, and in this instance it was dragging a lot of the dead, mold and detritus from the bottom of that pond, literally forming itself out of what was around it. Inside the liquid, we created faces that were almost pushing through. ... The faces in there are driven by Ralph Fienne's performance, but then they're being distorted and twisted. It's pain, it's agony, it's excruciating. He's having his soul ripped apart. The idea was to avoid an obvious creature and give a suggestion of an emotion more than anything else."

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