Chapter 52.5: Blurred Eye View (Patreon)

Chapter 52.5: Blurred Eye View

Leavesden Studios, UK. January 2010.

Lights. Camera. Action. These are the three necessary ingredients to make the perfect movie.

While Yates was stirring the proverbial pot, there was also the spillage of a certain accidental chemical X into the Harry Potter cauldron. The X stood for a liberal sprinkling of Xanax - because throughout his tenure, he’d done his level best to put audiences to bed. Though, full credit to him, not in the typical way Hollywood liked to tuck people in. Talk about X-rated.

Cuarón, our Mexican jumping bean, was hopped-up on an entirely different narcotic. 

He was never found without a steaming cup of café de olla - brimming with coffee, cinnamon, and clove, that gave the series the kick in the pants it needed. Caffeine induced fantasies had him seeing the series with sugar, spice, and everything bright.

Granted, the versions I was in were a great deal more visible than the ones I remember watching through a squint. But Yates had his tastes, and there’s only so much post-production can accomplish by itself. I’m sure he had his ideas and inspirations, but it becomes a lot easier to see when a director respects the visual medium for more than just mood. 

The editing bay wasn’t the only section of the warehouse that Cuarón had been creeping around in prior to his full reveal. 

Nick Dudman, who according to Mrs Stephens, the kids back at the home still referred fondly to as the zookeeper, had handed our director the keys to the creature vault while he was still skulking around. Both of them went in, fiddled around with their hoard’s worth of plasticine, fibreglass, and animatronics, and out came a fire spewing dragon.

“Everybody in place?” The men in question peered down at us from a gigantic hole in the ceiling. Their heads blocked out the spotlight that was casting the sole source of illumination down the crater they’d stuffed us in.

“No,” Emma responded while scrambling to find grip on the leathery hide of the dragon.

“It’s dark in here.” Rupert, she, and I had been strapped in for our stunt.

“Ey! Watch the hands.” But we were experiencing some technical difficulties.

“Stop complaining, Bas. It’s me.” Yes, Emma, I’m intimately familiar with your touch. “Surely you don’t have a problem with that.” However, unless you’re prepared to divulge our dirty little secret, you might wanna drop the indignant girlfriend act.

Thankfully, her on-screen boyfriend was right there for me to redirect any suspicion. “Rupert can touch me all he wants, you keep those Japanese salaryman fingers off my seat!” God, I’m good. I can even dodge bullet trains.

“I’m glad it’s dark in here.” 

“Excellent. The energy is perfect. So, one more time before we start rolling. The three of you are making your escape from Gringotts with the dragon-”

Nick quickly cut in to administer a final safety briefing. “Please remember to be mindful of your limbs and any other extremities you’d rather keep attached on the way out - this is dingy and dangerous. Goes double for you Bas. As far as I’m concerned, my head’s attached to yours. The animatronic neck is going to wave in a calculated arrangement while the entire rig simultaneously lifts up through the shattered flooring of the bank set from the underground vaults. Gap’s narrow. It’s gonna be a tight fit; and foam or no, the dust and debris flying isn’t going to help matters. So, hands inside the ride at all times, folks.”

“Also, I want the expressions we discussed - we have drops to clean your eyes even if anything irritates them. Frightened but hopeful. Determined but relieved. After all, an important symbol I want to highlight in the scene is our story’s transition from the darkness to the light. From the depths of the dungeon, to the one sunny day Britain gets a year. We have to represent hope.” And a new colour palette. “Let us get this rollercoaster ride underway. Quiet on set.”

–

Leavesden Studios, UK. February 2010.

The amusement continued thereon. 

“Hop in, the water’s fine!” Although, as I leapt, the sound was less splash and more clatter. Nobody wanted to deal with waterworks anymore, so I was restricted to merely the ball pit these days.

Bellatrix Lestrange’s bank account was a kaleidoscope of precious metals and glittering jewels. Meticulously measured track lights were angled precisely overhead. Multicoloured rays beamed at specific prisms hidden amongst the mountain of prop riches to cast a reflective rainbow - tinged primarily gold - inside the cavern, like a real treasure trove ought to. Actually attractive enough to want to abscond away with - thus kicking in the curse. Not some drab, motley collection of half-rusted junk that even thieves would refuse to risk touching for fear of contracting tetanus. 

Emma and Rupert had followed (swim) suit, and dove in as well. We were snuggled in between a jumble of blue spheres buried under a layer of shaped aluminium props that were employed as cloned cups and doubled doubloons. 

There really wasn’t a sedate way of finding our markers underneath all this. Mine, in particular, required some muscle. It was all the way at the back, and on top of the pile. I knew I was in the right spot when my head bumped against the false mechanical wall that’d been set to move and scoop us three, along with the innumerable pieces of paraphernalia. Practical effects which would be later augmented by CGI to simulate the duplication curse. 

“Puha!” I popped my head out, gasped like I was surfacing from underwater, and bonked my head against a goblet that went clanging to the floor.

 “Take it easy, Scrooge McDuck. Those aren’t liquid assets.” Warwick Davis dressed fully as the duplicitous Griphook had legitimate cause for concern. Something as small as a bump or scratch would set the makeup department scrambling to readjust my damage cosmetics to maintain continuity. Which, in turn, would result in him having to spend extra time in his gnarly, itchy get up.

“Keep your beak on.” I let both Warwick and our on-call cosmetologists know that neither he nor I would need our noses powdered. 

–

Leavesden Studios, UK. March 2010.

From the literal and metaphorical depths below, I’d been tossed up in the air.

Stunt wires hung from the rafters, clipped on the harness under my jacket. A crane arm was fastened to the broom I had between my legs. Both technical apparatuses worked in tandem to suspend me in mid-air. 

Which was more than could be said for Tom Felton; who only had me and a tether helping him keep balance. “I yearn for the days when it was you on the brooms, barely hanging on for your life.” I agreed. No matter how hard he clamped on to my forearm, his own clammy hands were undoing all that effort. 

Tom was teetering on top of a table. The table itself was stuck at the very apex of a single pillar of cobbled together items, which was all designed to topple over in a flood of broken furniture.

“Hakuna matata, Felton old chap. It’s the circle of life,” and death situations. My job was simple. All I had to do was catch him, yank him up behind me, and sweep us away on my broom as the spire loses its Slytherin and becomes engulfed in a pyre. 

What had Tom tap dancing on his desk, however, was that if we didn’t get a good enough grip on each other, he’d be in for a bungee jump. 

To my sensibilities that didn’t sound too bad at all - exhilarating, on the contrary. Tom, though, was of a different mind. Irrationally afraid that a slip in the wrong direction would have him veer too close to one of the pyrotechnic jets shooting twenty-foot flames, he was worried that his product laden hair would burst into a chemical fire. 

Gruesome to think about, but I guess the green room dyed burning shades of red and orange had him seeing things. He and the audience alike would gulp, seeing vibrant visions of hell, as the room of requirement is swallowed in a crimson inferno.

Made me wanna drop him in - just once to see his reaction. Ever so slightly, I loosened my hold on his wrist. “Don’t you dare!” The lighter my grip got, the tighter Tom wound up and grasped at me. “We’re mates, aren’t we? Surely you’ll pull me back any moment.” His body jerked back, his feet slid across the tilted wooden surface, as my sleeve served as the last anchor against his human avalanche. “Bas, I swear to god, if you drop me, I’m giving you a scar for real!” Threats, is it?

Never had the iconic gash on my forehead felt more appropriate. “Long. Live. The king!”

“... Script change! I demand a script change this instant! Get Grint or Watson to fly me out instead!”

–

Alnwick Castle, UK. April 2010.

Felton was hardly the last bloke I’d caught falling. The beginning of the battle of Hogwarts would see many bodies hit the floor. 

Production assistants carefully peppered stone-painted crash mats with a fine layer of grey chalk and talcum powder. Job done, they stepped back and, whumph, gymnasts in green jammies splashed down in a plume of grit - including their clenched teeth when they fell purposefully to their knees. 

McGonagall’s final magical flex of the series would see her bring the stony knights guarding the castle to life. 

“Confound it all. What’s that ludicrous line again? Pinkscrotum locomotion-?” Maggie Smith irritatedly brushed a stray strand of her grey hair under McGonagall’s pointy cap.

“It’s Piertotum Locomotor, Maggie.” Our durable script supervisor delivered the correct line without batting an eye. Unfairly, I thought. Had it been me, she wouldn’t have hesitated to swat me with rolled script, as if that would’ve made any dialogue stick inside my head.

“Quite.” Maggie Smith responded with an arched brow and pursed lips. “Latin unfit for even pigs, I swear. Very well, let’s get on with it. Someone get me my wand, so that we may be done with this waving about.”

A full row of ornate scaffolding had been built to act as alcoves for the jumps. The responsibility of exchanging real men, and extending the heights of their jumps, would be handled in post by our CGI teams. They could have done the entire sequence digitally, but our director wanted to capture the visceral impact on camera instead. No-one complained because it would actually end up saving on budget.

Least of all me, because I was a firm believer in practical effects over the alternative wherever and whenever feasible. 

The only downside was that despite how much I’d begged to participate in the tuck and roll - production had told me, rather emphatically, to fuck and stroll off. So, all I was permitted to do was watch from the sidelines. I wasn’t the only one. Someone else had scurried in to sneak a peek; which honestly stung like rubbing salt on the wounds that I wasn’t allowed to get. 

Julie Walters, without wearing her Mrs Weasley wardrobe yet, stood just outside the foyer of the Hogwarts’ castle entrance, admiring the acrobats in clingy leotards leaping off ledges, practising their superhero style entrances.

Alfonso Cuarón, with his telescopic viewfinder, wasn’t staring as intently as she was. “It’s raining men-” Even though Julie was trying to hide it under her breath, I heard the tune carry over the lawn.

Not one to miss out on the action, I wobbled over, “HAlleLUjah!” and warbled out in deaf tones. 

“Oh! Bas!” Julie jumped as high as my uncontrolled notes. But before I could belt out another chorus, I almost bit my tongue. Something whipped, cracked, and snapped at the back of my head.

“Mercy, me. I will thank you to keep that horrendous caterwauling to yourself, young man!” Julie and I whirled around to find a witch standing and wielding the wand that whacked me. 

“... Ow-!?” 

“Careful, Maggie dear, it appears the years of abuse Bas has forced upon himself have made him rather thick-skulled.” Julie soothed the lump forming on my head, and used her other hand to point at the wandless handle Maggie held in hers. “Don’t know which one of you lost that duel. Either way, prop master’s not going to be happy.”

“Well worth it.” Dame Maggie Smith shuffled her shoulders and smirked in satisfaction. “I’ve always wanted to ring that bell!”