Hey folks, Harry here with our man in the mix of the HARRY POTTER press conference yesterday... The most interesting tidbit to me is the multiple filmings of sequences to film a UK and a US version... lovely... Like that. And then the group of effects companies... Damn fine group... damn fine. That is the right mix... and then of course we've all heard the John Williams doing the score news... Exciting times for Harry Potter fans, eh?
Hey there,
So the world's press gathered in a London hotel in Knightsbridge yesterday to come face to face with Harry Potter and friends and hear what they, and Chris Columbus and David Heyman, had to say for themselves. And I was there with a front row seat, well fifth row but hey…, to report for AICN.
Of course being that this was primarily a press conference to introduce Daniel Radcliffe (Harry P), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) to the world there was as awful lot of What spell would you do if you could? and How did you react to the news? type of questioning which failed to reveal anything of great interest other than that Radcliffe doesn't know what happens in the books because he only read the first two and that was ages ago so he can't remember them! Oh, and he didn't know who Robbie Coltrane was, good start then! (By the way we can judge him as a performer when he appears as the tailor's son in The Tailor Of Panama with Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush later this year).
However there were one or two interesting points to note. I shall tackle these by the numbers (I'm afraid I mean that literally!)
1. Effects - seems WB and Columbus have assembled a crack team to handle effects, splitting different parts of the story between different houses including ILM, Sony Imageworks and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The SFX advisor is the man behind Titanic and Apollo 13, the prosthetics by the guy responsible for Phantom Menace, so expect pedigree.
2. Title - Interestingly Columbus revealed that WB are so determined to remain faithful to the book they will be faithful in both the US and UK. Columbus will shoot two versions of the film (actually only six of seven scenes will have to shot twice) to provide the UK with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and the US with Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Each version will reference said Stone according to its' territories' title.
3. Columbus confirmed the adult casting of Maggie Smith, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw and Robbie Coltrane but could not confirm Alan Rickman yet.
4. Heyman and Columbus revealed that they hope to do 6 or 7 Harry Potter movies (in accordance with JK Rowling's plans for the book series) but refused to say how many they had signed the young cast to. A point possibly let out of the bag by Radcliffe who intimated he had been signed to do two by saying he'd go back to read three and four after finishing these two - only a rumour but seems likely to me - this is course could have been misconstrued I don't lay it as fact.
That's all I have to say really. I have a ton of quotes but nothing else of great interest so I'm outta here.
motta80
