Harry Potter is always one of my favorite series of films. The magic world it creates for us is incredible and fulfills my childhood memories. Therefore, once I saw this assignment about behind the scenes, I immediately thought about Harry Potter. I only knew about how fantastic it looked when the movies were shown to us; it looked so real so I never realized how hard it could be to create this world. I want to know how the film crews turn this large, nonexist magic world into the real one.

The one I watched was about the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which was the one of the last two films of Harry Potter series, so the techniques the film used, the familiarity among the actors were all increased compared to the films finished before. The first improved technique we can see from this movie, or we can call it impressive magic moment, was the scene that had seven Harry in one scene. Seven people, drank the magic Polyjuice and cloned into Harry. Everyone thought this was a great scene described in the book, but it was hard to film it and turn it from the script to the real scene. In order to film the seven people at the same time, the whole film group filmed Daniel Radcliffe (Dan) who acted as Harry Potter since he needed to act other seven people as well. He not only needed to act as Harry Potter, but also Hermione, Ron...with a Harry Potter’s face. While they were filming for Dan, the other actors needed to be around too so that Dan could observe other actors’ behaviors, such as Ron’s walking wiggles, and learn some special tricks like how to take off the bra when he was acting as a girl turned into Harry. Another scene about Dobby also needed the actor to be around even if it was shot with CGI and the final scene would not have the actor’s face appeared. The real actor’s performance would help the other actors to interact with this non-exist creature more naturally and made this figure more realistic and reliable.

If these challenges above were mostly about acting, the chasing scene in the movie would definitely be a technical challenge. This scene was even harder than the others. It took about a whole year to finish it. I was shocked when I heard about this fact; I knew film needed a lot of time to make, especially the fantasy movie like Harry Potter, but I didn’t expect even one scene could take such a long time. The filming team spent about six months for the pre-visualization designing. Besides, they used seven different locations and green screen for this one scene. The precision and perfection of the team could be seen from the improvement of the broom. The newest broom was now using titanium, a material is used for jet engines and aircraft, which secured the actors. The improvement of the material and workmanship indicated the huge amount of cost--they spent about twenty-five thousand pounds on the broom! I now know the world of filming is much more complicated than I thought. But in general, time, dedication, and money are the three most essential things for filmmaking. If I could have a chance to work in a film set, I would love to be a stylist or a director. I enjoy designing the outfit for people so stylist would be perfect for me. In addition, sometimes stylists need to read and refer a lot of history when it comes to a history film. I also enjoy this process. The reason I want to be a director is because director is the person who in charges everything; being a director would help me improve my leadership and communication skills. In addition, the director is the soul of the film since the film is mostly expressing the director’s idea, which means the director not only needs to tell the cameramen how to shoot, but also teaches some actors how to act.