Scenes from the soon to be released Warner film “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” were filmed at the Cliffs of Moher.Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Production Designer Stuart Craig has revealed how the production crew went about filming an epic cave scene in the film. The cave is one of the places that main characters Professor Dumbledore and Harry Potter must visit in order to start figuring out how to bring down Voldemort.
Stuart Craig recalls, “When we were doing our location scouts, we found the Cliffs of Moher in the west of Ireland and immediately thought they would be spectacular for the entrance of the cave.” The filmmakers wanted the cave interior to seem vast beyond measure, “so there was no possibility of building that physically,” Craig acknowledged to scarpotter.com. “Apart from the point at which Harry and Dumbledore first arrive and the island formation on which everything inside the cave happens, the set is entirely virtual, designed in the computer. We’d had our first totally virtual set on the last film, so we approached this one with a bit more confidence.”
The interior of the cave appears to be made up of geometric crystal formations, so Craig and his team began by researching various rock formations. They also visited a quartz crystal cave and a salt crystal cave to study the properties of crystal surfaces. “Reproducing salt crystals requires some major R&D and a lot of experimenting with synthetic resins,” the designer remarks. “The challenge was to create something that was magical but credible at the same. It was also a challenge for Tim Burke and our visual effects team and also for (director of photography) Bruno Delbonnel", explained Mr.Craig.
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is released next month.
Watch the CLIFFS OF MOHER in the official
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer
