'Breaking Dawn Pt 2' New Photos, Interview with Bill Condon

MTV premiered new photos and a short Q&A with Bill Condon for its Fall Movie Preview Week.


MTV News: How are you feeling? What stage of the post-production process are you in?

Bill Condon: We're at the stage of mixing and doing color timing and adding that last big bunch of visual effects shots, and that's where it gets complicated because the [most challenging] ones always come in last, so it's just making sure that they look as good as they can, that's the big thing right now.



MTV: Is there one specific FX shot that you're particularly pleased with?

Condon: Oh man, there are so many that are so beautiful. I love the way, it's very creepy, but I love the way that Alec's mist looks. He has that mist that can make you blind, deaf and dumb, so that's looking really good. It feels like the best Hammer [horror] movie you've ever seen. It's a little different [type of mist] and sort of has tentacles that can get inside you and all that stuff.

MTV: I'm so excited to see all the powers! I spoke with Mackenzie Foy recently, the most adorable person the planet, and she talked about how she had fun filming her "power scenes."

Condon: I know, she's adorable, right? Her power, she touches somebody and she can show them what's in her head and that you develop. There are some visual things, but a lot of that is done through Carter Burwell's score, but then just recently in the mixing Dane Davis, who is a brilliant sound designer, he did "The Matrix" and so many other movies, he had her just speak and read poetry and things like that, and he's turned it into hundreds of tracks. You don't actually hear words but it becomes the chattering of her [voice], it's a very abstract effect that I've never heard before. It's really cool.

MTV: In the last stages of mixing and production, is there something that during filming you liked but have come to love in seeing onscreen?

Condon: There's a lot of that. I would say the whole climax, I feel like it's the biggest musical number I've ever directed. It does feel, when you finally get the rhythm of that right, it makes it, I hope, very satisfying.

MTV: What was the biggest, busiest most fun day on set?

Condon: The biggest and most fun, just because of the surprise they pulled off, we went to the top, top, top as far as you can get in this arena to get the widest shot of the [battle]field with the Volturi on one side and the Cullen group on the other and on the last take suddenly you hear the Eurythmics and they all start to do this intimately choreographed dance that they'd worked out. It was a huge day and the biggest party ever.

MTV: Well we can only hope that that ends up on the DVD.

Condon: I think it is, yeah.

MTV: Have you made any more decisions about the soundtrack? You have so many musicians in that cast.

Condon: Oh yeah, that's interesting. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it yet but we've just now finally firmed it up so that's exciting.

MTV: How about the running time? Is that official yet?

Condon: Yeah. The running time is one hour and 56 minutes, one minute shorter than the first one and as such, I think the shortest of all of them.

MTV: We talked about the biggest and busiest day, what about the most quiet, emotional moment?

Condon: There are a lot of those, I would say. ... I don't want to talk about one scene because that's a surprise but you know what, the scene when Charlie meets vampire Bella for the first time and then meets Renesmee. This is a movie that really only has one fully human person, if you treat Taylor [Lautner] as a magical creature, so Charlie is our way into this whole thing. If Charlie can believe it and understand, I think the rest of the audience can too. Of course, Billy Burke is such an incredible actor who can really humanize any moment, so watching him and Kristen together in that scene, I remember everything was a total pleasure in that.

MTV: It's a little ways off yet, but have you planned a vacation?

Condon: [Laughs] My idea of a beach holiday is going to New York for two weeks, just going and hanging out. I think I'll do something like that.

MTV: What advice do you have for the fans on how to pass the time before the movie comes out?

Condon: Oh that's an interesting question. There's a slight surprise with the score. [They should] listen to all the old CD's of all the composers [of the other "Twilight" films], maybe that, refresh themselves on the different themes.

via MTV. Photo credit: Andrew Cooper / Summit Entertainment