Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire
Leavesden Studios - 2004
British filmmaker Mike Newell (Four Weddings & A Funeral) was entrusted with what I think to be the most accessible roundly warm film of the series, with minimum plot convolution. Ironically this is the one episode Jo Rowling says she found the most difficult to write. Mike was a booming beaming confident presence, a blend of Brian Blessed and Stephen Fry with contagious enthusiasm for the work which made each day breeze by. At this point I had largely been absent from movies for the past 8 years while working on TV commercials for the Middle East, an interesting period filming in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi. Having managed to retain contacts in the film business I was invited to begin work on the Potter gravy train and asked to attend a press briefing in the Great Hall at the studio on the outskirts of Watford to be introduced to the Gryffindor trio.
I had not read any of the books but of course the films were by now established events and the characters universally recognisable. I will admit that while not ever particularly star struck standing talking to these screen icons proved mildly disarming as they were so well cast and for a frozen moment it really was like meeting the trainee wizards of Hogwarts. I snapped back to business and introduced myself although as this would be their fourth film I doubt they cared who I was or what I was doing.
Filming began shortly after that meeting and the first task was to try to get to know the enormous crew most of who had worked on all the other Potter movies; I was the new boy. The other new boy was on the other side of the camera, Rob Pattinson who was chosen by Mike Newell to play Cedric Diggory, one of the transient characters JK Rowling deposited in all her Potter novels. He was a little shy and mildly awkward when not on camera, like the new boy at school, but joining the Potter factory, sorry 'family', must have been intimidating for a 19 year old actor relatively fresh to the business. He was a tall skinny figure with a thick set of black eyebrows that nearly met which canopied a devilish pair of eyes. You could see why he was cast as vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight series as there was a brooding cryptic quality to his features. But he did laugh a lot; not sure if that was nerves. The girls in the publicity office had dubbed Rob 'Himbo' although I doubt they spent much time talking to him to devise that epithet. Perhaps his Harrovian posh boy accent and model good looks coupled with the not unusual social awkwardness of a teenager attracted this unfair view. For clarification Vanessa Davies who was the key publicist was not part of that nonsense.
I recall the first day Rob filmed we were on location at the Ashridge Estate close to the studio. He had to drop from the bough of a large oak tree and take after take Rob just launched himself off the branch that was clearly 10 feet or more off the ground. What surprised me was they did not prepare the ground below him with hidden 'crash' mats which are usually buried into the soil then the grass replaced over the top to cushion the landing. Had he broken an ankle, it would have made for an interesting schedule rethink? Rob never made any complaints and there was no stunt double. I doubt given his current box office status he would ever be allowed to do this again. With such a reed thin role to work with it's great that Rob has gone on to prove his acting skills, outshining the entire junior cast with his eclectic choice of post-potter movies. On the contrary Dan's acting range appeared to span that of Roger Moore's eyebrows. He was quoted in a magazine as saying he can see that reviewing his performance in the penultimate Potter his eyes were just dead, well sorry to refocus your view but it's because in my opinion you couldn't really act that well (at that point). It was like watching rehearsals for the school play. I have a proposal for Dan though, dump acting and move into film producing?
I'm sure Producer David Heyman would mentor that path, and his well known foot would get projects in the movie door. The prolific Hollywood Producer Robert Evans who commissioned such favorites of the seventies such as; Love Story, Chinatown and Marathon Man, was also an actor of restricted theatrical range but went on to find his metier in getting films made as the head of Paramount. So perhaps Dan should stick his head back in the Pensieve and review the future. Potter fans will no doubt run that one round the Internet 'forum of fire'?
It's of note that such a wealthy young man would not want to swan around in a Bentley or Porsche; after all he was at this point effectively the David Beckham of cinema. Although as he can't drive that indulgence has been self-denied. He claimed to be dyspraxic so that may explain his reluctance to get behind the wheel. So he will never know the joys of pottering around in an Ice-cream van which is the pastime of the eminently quirky and lovable Rupert Grint. A warm and funny guy who was the king of cracking up during takes. Rupert would manage to find the most obscure moment during a take to get the giggles, which would then infect Dan and finally Emma. I'm convinced Rupert would just occasionally have an out-of-body experience where he realised what lottery luck allowed him to get paid so much for so little and this would ignite a mid-take laugh. I think Emma probably became addicted to being chauffeured everywhere which no doubt suited her increasingly constricted view of the world the rest of us muggles inhabited. However of the three she did appear to be the one with most potential as a performer and I can tell you that Emma really is Hermione! She is confident, assured, professional and clearly highly intelligent. If Rupert & Dan did ‘corpse’ during a take, which they did often as I mentioned, then Emma would be the one to admonish them before the director intervened. She was like an older sister to 2 naughty schoolboys even though they where all roughly the same age.
Perhaps Dan's dyspraxia was also responsible for his morning ritual before coming to set. One of the symptoms of dyspraxia is difficulty with dressing and grooming activities, such as putting on makeup, shaving, doing hair, fastening clothes and tying shoelaces (from The Dyspraxia Foundation) so his dresser would do the buttons and laces I assume, and makeup would shave him, which always seemed a bit weird to me but I suppose they just could not risk letting him loose with a razor?
The general procedure for covering any one scene would be for stand-ins to go through the motions of the scene so the camera and lighting crew could perfect the shot Mike Newell wanted and this work would expand to fill whatever time was available if the cast were still in their legally allotted education time. Dan at this point had been removed from his Fulham School and was being privately taught at the studio on his own in a classroom attached to his dressing room. I suppose 'home schooling' is not an uncommon practice so this similar setup was not so unusual, but can't have really contributed to honing his social skills?
Once time was up the dynamic trio would arrive on set, usually Rupert would amble on first wearing a suitably bemused grin, then Emma and finally Dan followed a respectful couple of meters behind by his dad Alan Radcliffe, AKA Mr. 10% as parents of child actors are allowed a percentage of their kids earnings for their upkeep, although at least Alan did not need to fork out for a box of scotch as Dan subsequently admitted he had that one covered himself. I think one outstanding quality Dan exuded was a fearless approach to stunts which he approached with relish. Dan completed all the underwater filming himself done in a purpose built tank at Leavesden. Fortunately I was able to film this from behind a ten inch thick glass viewing panel, but it all looked fairly dangerous and surprised this was not done against green screen or with a double, but Dan dived into the task seemingly without care. Anything physical he would propel himself into with gleeful enthusiasm.
Pity ‘fencing’ lessons was not a part of Hogwarts training as I could imagine a dynamic sequence being achieved with Dan's love of physical challenges, not actual sword fighting as such but wand fighting? Given that wand fights with Voldemort and the Dementors were features of many episodes a wand fight training lesson could have been included somewhere. That was a trick I think Jo Rowling missed from the books in my humble opinion. Even screenwriter writer Steve Kloves could have suggested such an addition but maybe any deviation from the Rowling blueprint was unconscionable.
I recall the final days shooting the Yule Ball sequence was also the end of the overall film shoot, and it really was just before the Christmas holiday. The Great Hall was transformed by Production Designer Stuart Craig from it's gritty grey stone to a suitably frosty festive stage. Filled with Hogwarts students culled from the four corners of every stage school in the south of England and a band led by Jarvis Cocker playing a final song. The atmosphere on set was truly festive and as the last shot was completed I will admit it was emotional, tears were shed across the sea of students that had danced their final days on Goblet of Fire; friends made from a never ending term-time at the imaginary Hogwarts boarding school hugged each other, the cameras had stopped rolling but I kept recording the emotional event to the end. Not sure if this shot ever made the DVD.
One of the great privileges of working on these 'behind the scenes' documentaries is that you get to visit every aspect of production including the music recording sessions and I did this for Goblet. Music was recorded in Air Studios a converted church in Belsize Park, London. Patrick Doyle had composed the score and to my interest and ignorance I didn't realise a separate conductor works with the orchestra while Patrick listens to his score performed. Dan turned up during the day to listen and watch proceedings for no reason other than interest in the process. As ever the ambassador he stayed on at the end to talk to the orchestra and sign books they had with them, he was never off duty. It was interesting to see these adult musicians as giddy to meet him as the younger fans that came to the set occasionally.
I will admit I had no great affinity or interest in the world JK Rowling had imagined but the completion of filming on, 'Goblet of Fire' was curiously unsettling as it had been such an enjoyable experience, it really was not like work, in hindsight I put much of that feeling down to the fact that the director, Mike Newell, made the shoot light work for all, and when you hear interviews where the cast talk about the crew being one big family I think probably true, credit which goes to producer David Heyman.
My involvement in the following episodes deceptively drifted into a mill of monotony that perhaps was the beginning of the end to the best years in the industry I had greatly enjoyed over the last 25 years.