Special effects supervisor Tim Burke talks Dobby, Hogwarts, more on “Potter” series

In a new interview, Senior VFX Supervisor Tim Burke discussed his work on the Harry Potter films.

On the hardest parts of Deathly Hallows – Part 1:

“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.”

“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.”

On some challenges with the final installment:

“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.”

For further detail, check out the full interview right here.