“Technically Speaking, This Is A Well-Done Effect”: Why 1 Harry Potter Movie Magic Change Isn’t As Effective Explained By VFX Artists

VFX artists share their mixed opinions about a Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) scene in the Harry Potter movies. The scene is adapted from the fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Sirius speaks to Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) at Hogwarts through the Floo Network. Instead of physically traveling to Hogwarts through the fireplace, Sirius is able to make his head appear in the fire while he is elsewhere, allowing him to communicate with Harry without physically going to Hogwarts.

In a Corridor Crew video, VFX artists break down the visual effects used in the scene and discuss how it has been changed from the book. In the source material, it is described as “Sirius’s head was sitting in the fire,” with his head floating in the flames. In the movie, his face pushes up and is formed out of the fire’s coals since there are no flames. Corridor Crew explains how this effect is technically changed and what does and does not work well with the change. Check out their comments below:

I think [the face] is an actual 3D model that’s been animated based off his face and his performance, but I think it’s an actual render.

The vast majority of what we’re looking at is full CG. Pretty much all of it has been fully replaced.

It looks like there’s a very clear mask where the embers kind of shift underneath the other logs, so you’re saying all of that burnt wood is CG?

Pretty much the entire bed is CG, and the face itself, Gary Oldman did his performance with tracking marks on the face. They reconstructed the face in 3D, and they basically just caked him in dynamic wood pieces. And I do believe that there is also a certain level of compositing in his performance footage too, specifically in the eyes and the nose, the contrast there, I believe they did some sort of filtering on that footage to layer it in.

It just looks so bizarre with the pupils standing out so clearly like that.

I feel like these days you could do this pretty quickly by using lockdown and after effects, just get a wood-like texture on somebody’s face using an AI-style transfer, or literally just putting stuff on it, grabbing patches of bark, and then you can use lockdown, and you can still do the physics simulations around it with a much simpler face model.

I know it’s not what it says in the book. His face appears in the flames. What do you do when there’s no flames, though? Granted, they could have had the fire, but it’s coals, so this is kind of a fun, unique way of showing it and I really like the aesthetic.

What This Means For The Harry Potter Movies

The Visual Effects Are Not Entirely Effective In This Scene

After Sirius escapes Azkaban and plays a major role in the previous movie, his role in Goblet of Fire is smaller, and in the movie is condensed to this one conversation. Depicting Sirius’ head through the coals is a visually distinct way to depict the scene. However, some of the focus on Harry and Sirius talking, and the valuable information Sirius shares, is overshadowed by the visual effects, making them more distracting than helpful in this scene.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter with a purple background with sparkles.

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To a certain extent, this was always the case due to the creative decision to portray his face through the coals instead of having his head sitting in the flames. The distraction is now further amplified due to the visual effects now being somewhat outdated, with simpler, more efficient, and more effective tools now available to bring the scene to life. It is not a bad scene by any means, but one that has not aged as well as other scenes in the Harry Potter movies.

This Is A Scene That Could Be Enhanced In HBO’s Harry Potter Show

This is an example of a scene that could be improved on in HBO’s Harry Potter television show. The advancements in technology and visual effects could allow Sirius’ head appearing through the fire to appear more convincing and to be less distracting than in the 2005 movie. Other Sirius scenes that were cut from the Goblet of Fire movie can also be included in the television series. With a season being dedicated to each book, there will be more time to include scenes cut from the movies, another reason the Harry Potter television series has narrative and visual potential.

Source: Corridor Crew