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Video: David Yates & David Heyman talk life on the Harry Potter set
In a half hour video interview with DP/30, David Yates talks going to film school, his career prior to the Harry Potter film series, the story behind how he got offered the job to direct Order of the Phoenix and what it was like being on the Potter set for the first time.
David Yates: It was a really exciting challenge. It was fabulous. Huge crew, huge project. Storyboard artists I could work with to create sequences. And a very nurturing environment with a studio [Warner Bros] that was thousands of miles away. My first experience of the studio visiting the set was halfway through shooting. They’d fly in on their Warner jet and they’d pop in. They’d just wander around and say hello and be very supportive and then they’d fly home again. It was like, “Oh, okay. I can do this. I can make big Hollywood films if that’s what it involves.” (laughs) But it’s because the series had been so successful. They were very relaxed.
He also spoke a bit about his apprehension on working on a huge film with huge teen actors.
David Yates: You’re looking at a massive movie making experience, with a main unit, second unit, model units, visual effects units. So even with a certain level of infrastructure in place, it’s still a pretty scary challenge to take on.
I love the cast. I love the young actors. They were brilliant. I was thinking, “God, when I start are they going to go through that difficult phase? You know where kids get to a certain point where they just start to kick off a bit. Typical. I’m going to arrive just as they start to rebel.” And they were totally delightful, and have been right through the six and a half years.
Yates also explained why he decided to stay with the series through to its final conclusion.
David Yates: I had to stay with it - because I wasn’t going to be the director who did the two in the middle. (laughs) It’s too frustrating. You can’t show what you can do when you’re really just easing the story through toward its ultimate conclusion. Guillermo del Toro said, “It’s like being on a roller coaster. You want to at the front or at the end. You don’t want to be sat at the middle because the front and the end are where you get the real fun.
Midway through the interview, producer David Heyman joined in the interview. The pair spoke about the atmosphere on set whenever new ideas were initiated by the cast and crew.
David Yates: You never ignore a good note. If it makes the material better. If it pushes the thing forward, it would be crazy to [ignore it]. We get lots of notes. Some of them you can just quietly forget and some of them are gems. It doesn’t matter where they come from. They can come from someone passing by bringing the coffee in. We’ll take that good note, if there’s a good note.
David Heyman: I think one of the things that’s remarkable about Potter is that it’s an incredibly – this isn’t an English word – but an “unhierarchical” environment. There is a real sense of “we are a family” and everybody is a part of that family. It’s actually one of the hardest things to leave behind, is that family. But it’s a place where there’s great communication. There’s an ease of communication where people can say what’s on their mind and what they’re feeling without being made to feel small. In fact, they’re supported in that.
David Yates: Dan, Rupert and Emma … were growing up and developing their craft in an environment which is free from ego, whereas the quality of ideas and the quality of exchange of ideas that matters over who wins the point. [No] I’m right, you’re wrong. I think it’s a wonderful way to work, frankly.
I envy the fact that the young actors grew up in a world, as yates says, free of ego. The world is overpowered by ego and competition and stuff like that. It must have been fun to grow in an environment where only the artwork and creativity matters.
Video: David Yates & David Heyman talk life on the Harry Potter set 
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