[intense orchestral music playing, narrator speaking] If you like Harry Potter movies and behind the scenes trivia then you’ve come to the right place
because in this video you’re going to learn 10 unbelievable behind the scenes facts about part 1 and 2 of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, such as why Harry was almost the one to fight Snape instead of Professor McGonagall.
[flip clapper sound]
One of Daniel Radcliffe’s most complicated scenes in the whole series
was filming the Seven Potter scene.
To create all the characters’ transformations, each actor was filmed while getting dressed,
and then Daniel Radcliffe watched all the footage to try and duplicate everyone’s mannerisms in his own performance.
He was able to copycat some people like Emma Watson quite easily, but others took several takes to get it right.
By the end of it all, it took 90 takes to finish filming the scene.
Since Nagini was a CG snake, they needed to give Daniel Radcliffe something to react to
to make his performance in Godric’s Hollow look more authentic,
so they built a pole with a boxing glove tied to the end of it to give Radcliffe something to dodge.
However, during one take the snake pole hit the chair Daniel was holding, sending it backward into his mouth
and gave him a fat lip for the rest of the day.
The last time we saw the Ministry of Magic set it was blown to bits, but for Deathly Hallows part 1 it was all rebuilt again with only one difference,
which was a creepy statue that was used to reflect the movie’s darker times.
The statue was based on sculptures from Soviet Russia and pre-war Germany and depicts the oppression of muggles.
There were 50 muggle figures in the sculpture and each took two weeks to handcraft, and were all made by one person.
To create the illusion of a frozen lake when Harry retrieved the Sword of Gryffindor,
they used large, thick sheets of Plexiglass with frosty texture on them to make the lake look frozen.
For the shots when Harry is looking up while submerged in the water,
wax was used to float on top of the water to create the look of an icy surface.
The director David Yates was surprised to find out how competitive the three leads turned out to be
while filming them running through the woods.
For each take the three teenagers were less concerned about acting and more concerned about trying to out-run each other.
It got to be so bad that at one point Yates stepped in to remind them
that they were there to film a movie and not a sprint race.
60 short people were hired to be goblins in Gringotts bank,
which created a huge logistical challenge for the make up artists
since all 60 actors had to be on the set at the same time.
Before shooting it took 8 months to make the prosthetic masks because they were all made to look unique so that no two goblins looked the same,
and every single hair on each mask was individually threaded.
Professor McGonagall is the one that confronts Snape in the book, but in the movie this almost didn’t happen
because an early version of the script had Harry fighting Snape instead.
The screenwriter did this because he thought it would be very exciting to finally see Harry get a chance to avenge Dumbledore’s death.
However, JK Rowling was not going to let that happen
because she wanted one of her most powerful female characters to show what she was really capable of.
Over 2,000 wands were created for all the actors and extras on the set.
With hundreds of kids on set at one time, each needing a wand,
it required the crew to stay very organized to know which one belonged to which actor,
and to make sure that nobody tried to steal them.
To keep track of the wands, the crew had each one numbered and stored on a wooden peg board
where the actors picked them up and dropped them off before they could leave the set.
However, it was reported that someone “accidentally” took a wand off the set,
and once security found out, they stopped every car at the exit gate and search them all one by one
until the missing wand was found.
Most of Hogwarts gets destroyed during the final battle
so the set designers had to come up with a way to decorate the sets with truck loads of fake rubble
since it would’ve been too difficult to move around real rocks from set to set.
So they spent three weeks making 400 tons of fake polystyrene rocks,
and it took 10 people another three weeks to paint them and lay them into piles around the sets.
Voldemort’s speech was brilliantly acted by Ralph Fiennes
and he kept all the cast and extras on their toes
because he was given free reign to call anyone out from the crowd to mock them during each take.
So if you thought the hug between Voldemort and Draco looked unsettling and maybe even a little awkward,
it was one of those improvised moments and Tom Felton didn’t know how to react.
If you want to check out more amazing facts about the rest of the Harry Potter movies,
click the playlist you see on the screen or down in the descriptions below.
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