Director of four 'Harry Potter' movie, David Yates has some words of wisdom to share with whoever is in charge of the upcoming HBO Harry Potter television series. He was in London for the UK premiere of 'David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived' which tells the story of a stunt performer who suffered a life-changing injury on the set of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Report by Burtonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 We're here for David's story today.
00:01 - Yes.
00:02 - And obviously it was one of the films
00:04 which you were at the helm of,
00:05 of when he had his accident and everything.
00:07 I mean, just if we can, to look back,
00:10 what were your memories from that time?
00:13 - It was very, yeah, I remember the day very well.
00:16 It was, there were multiple units as there always were.
00:19 So those days are packed full of things.
00:21 Everyone's working in their own zones.
00:24 So the stunt department, the visual effects department,
00:26 the model unit, the main unit.
00:29 And so I got the message fed through to me
00:32 that there'd been an accident.
00:33 And then slowly you start to get more
00:36 and more information coming through.
00:38 And I mean, you know, a film production, as you know,
00:43 is a, it's a sort of machine that keeps turning.
00:47 And so we got all the help we could to Davey
00:51 and Davey was taken to a hospital.
00:53 And you just, you just had to keep going.
00:57 'Cause there were many sort of layers to the production,
01:01 but it affected everybody, I think,
01:04 especially Greg, who was there for that particular stunt
01:08 and everyone who knew Davey and particularly Daniel.
01:12 So it was, and things changed after that.
01:15 There was a big shift in how that gag
01:18 or that stunt was performed.
01:21 It was a massive learning process for everybody involved.
01:25 And rather worryingly, we'd been doing that particular stunt
01:30 with actors as well as stunt people.
01:33 So it's but for the grace of God, you know,
01:36 but it was a very, it was a very distressing day,
01:42 but we pushed on with a lot of the work that day,
01:46 knowing that in one of our departments
01:48 and one section of this big factory machine
01:51 of making this big movie, this event had happened.
01:55 - And finally for me, I did hear you say
01:56 that you're a bit Harry Potter down
01:58 and therefore may not be involved
01:59 in the upcoming HBO series.
02:02 Would you give your two cents if you're asked for it?
02:04 Are you happy to contribute if anyone can?
02:05 A direct or direct to you, like how did you do it?
02:08 - Do you know the most important thing
02:09 is to interpret those books in the way
02:12 that you feel is right for now.
02:13 And that's the great thing about those stories.
02:16 They feel universal.
02:18 Whatever culture these films and these books land in,
02:21 people get it.
02:23 And so the thing is to just honor your own vision for them
02:27 and stay true to that.
02:29 And the one big piece of advice I would have
02:32 was when we were making them,
02:33 it was quite challenging for a young cast
02:36 to be guided through that process.
02:39 And we were very lucky.
02:40 We had a great publicity coordinator called Vanessa
02:43 and David Heyman producing,
02:44 and there was a sort of firewall around them
02:48 to sort of protect them really.
02:50 We didn't have social media then
02:52 in the way that we have it now.
02:54 And so now my one big bit of advice in terms of,
02:58 and I know they'll do this without question,
03:01 is to sort of protect them from all the kind of,
03:05 everyone will have a view and a perspective.
03:07 And it seems to me since we finished the films 10 years ago,
03:11 the kind of public discourse
03:12 and the sort of people offering opinions about things
03:16 has somehow become much more, I don't know,
03:20 confrontational and aggressive.
03:22 And when we were making it with our young cast,
03:25 we didn't have that degree of interrogation or sort of,
03:30 and that's the only thing that I would be worried of
03:33 is to protect that group
03:36 and help them through that process
03:38 because there'll be a lot of stuff coming at them
03:42 and they need to be protected.