….
"God…"
Regal puffed through his nostrils, folding his arms across his chest, and locked his gaze on the pre-vis monitor that had shown nothing different for three days.
"I am gonna go insane if this doesn't change soon."
He wasn't conversing with anyone, yet the atmosphere felt dense, almost as though it required a disturbance to lighten it.
Some crew members walked past, making an effort to appear as if they hadn't heard a thing.
He was gazing at a group of initial concept boards for Quidditch.
Still in pre-production.
And still, this was already causing him to have more of a headache than anything else they had dealt with so far.
They might have been several weeks, even months, away from actually filming the cursed thing.
Children on broomsticks, stunts done in midair, the physics of chasing a winged golden sphere, trying to catch it while also trying not to be hit by colossal cannonballs.
It seemed idiotic when one vocalized the sentiment.
When done correctly, it was enchanting. When done incorrectly, it was a catastrophe.
This was the first thing on which he started to work when the production started.
From the start.
That is how profound it was.
The groundwork for the Quidditch scenes had started even before the majority of the sets had been constructed, all under the watchful eye of the Unique FX studio.
Even so, he still wasn't convinced.
The real problem?
It must appear to be realistic.
Unlike a PlayStation 2 cutscene, which, if he were being honest, was how the first movie's match had aged.
Even now, after finding himself in this warped second existence, he recalled it perfectly.
Four movies featured the sport, and honestly? The later ones weren't half bad. The World Cup sequence had genuine magic to it, and that final match still gave him chills.
However, those initial efforts...
God, the first Quidditch match in Philosopher's Stone…?
Those wide shots of the pitch that looked like an early sports sim, camera angles that floated too perfectly, lighting that didn't belong to the space, players that felt pasted on instead of belonging in it.
Yeah, he remembered.
…maybe a tad bit too clearly then he wanted to.
And it was those shots, those early, clumsy ones, that stuck in his mind as what not to do.
The worst aspect? He lacked superior technology to depend upon. Not in any significant way.
It was 2011.
The tools he had were nearly identical to those of the original team who first took on the challenge of Quidditch over 10 years ago.
Without an unreal engine and sophisticated volumetric lighting pipelines.
...and don't even inquire about the actual global light bringers that can render everything in real time.
Only straight modeling, compositing, and layering: painstaking, almost impossible work, and a lot of guesswork to match light and momentum.
Still, he couldn't blame the team entirely.
The resources they had were being used and stretched as much as possible. They were working with what they had, schedule-crunched, half-broken rigs, overworked artists trying to render high-speed chases on machines that would freeze just opening Photoshop.
It wasn't a lack of effort.
It was about surviving.
These things were always said to be about imagination.
It was all just as it should be. The lights, the colors, even the simple things: those needed to have form and texture too. That all you needed was vision.
But that was not the truth.
Regal had said it a hundred times already - sometimes out loud, sometimes under his breath, and sometimes in meetings that made people squirm in their chairs.
It's not about imagination.
It's about time.
You provide a team with four months, they will give you a miracle.
Similarly, when they are given four weeks, and what you are getting is a GIF.
That's why Regal didn't want to repeat that cycle.
Initially, when he had introduced the scene to Unique FX, they had predictably recommended the same old, tried-and-true method that, while sure to work, was painfully straightforward and lacked any real flair.
Actors were shot in front of blue screens. They sat on mechanical rigs that could simulate the most basic movements of flying. Up and down. Gentle turning. Nothing too dynamic, since these rigs couldn't handle choreography that would provide the illusion of aerial action without looking ridiculously fake.
For more comprehensive images, they would combine miniature constructions of the Quidditch pitch with digital doubles of the players.
The issue was clear to anyone with functioning optics: the illumination never synced correctly between components, the virtual actors performed with video game rigidity, and the sense of size was just plain wrong.
Players resembled playthings adrift in a diorama rather than living, breathing competitors engaged in a sport where the stakes couldn't be higher.
Close-ups were slightly improved but still did not convince him.
Hair movement was provided by wind machines, but high-speed flight couldn't be replicated in physics.
The actors' performances felt disconnected from their supposed environment – how could they react authentically to something that wasn't there?
Classic technique.
And it worked.
Technically.
But it was never enough.
No… Actually he might have been satisfied with it before…
Before that dream he had… that vision - the one that still left a knot in his chest when he thought about it - had changed something in him.
Before the dream where he was in that stadium, flying not as Harry or any other character, but simply there.
The roar of the crowd like thunder inside his bones.
The wind was biting at his cheeks.
The sun flashing off the Snitch like a golden flicker just out of reach.
The beat of wings, the sheer drop beneath his broom, the dizzying speed that turned every breath into fire.
He remembered feeling like he was flying.
Actually flying.
And now? The bar was set.
By a dream.
By what it felt like.
So, no.
He couldn't lie to himself.
Couldn't shrug and say. "Eh, it's good enough." Not anymore.
He wanted his audience to be blown out of their seats or gasp at every frame.
He wanted them to feel it.
Even a little.
A flicker of that rush.
That thrill.
That soaring ache in your chest when you are watching real magic.
That was the goal.
Just a trace of what he felt that night, wrapped in silence and wind and golden air.
Even if he only got close… it would be worth it.
Even a tenth of it.
…and if he failed here, everything else might… collapse.
So he said no.
"We are not doing blue screens." Regal had announced to his bewildered team last month. "At least, not primarily."
His approach was radical for 2011, borrowing concepts that wouldn't become mainstream for years.
First: practical flying rigs that could actually move.
Not the static platforms everyone else used, but gimbal-mounted systems capable of genuine three-dimensional movement.
He would hire engineers from the theme park industry – people who understood how to make humans feel like they were really flying.
The rigs would be suspended from a massive crane system, allowing for swooping movements across a practical Quidditch pitch set.
Not a full-sized field – budget wasn't infinite – but large enough sections to provide genuine spatial reference points for the actors.
For the impossible shots – the truly aerial sequences – he was pioneering a hybrid approach. Instead of purely digital backgrounds, he would capture real footage from helicopters and drones which can be considered cutting-edge in 2011, then composite actors filmed on his advanced rigs against these authentic aerial plates.
The real innovation was in the details everyone else ignored.
Multiple wind sources to simulate realistic air currents at different altitudes.
Specialized contact lenses that would make actors' eyes water naturally from wind exposure.
Even custom-designed Quidditch robes with hidden weights that would behave properly in flight.
Most ambitious of all was his lighting approach.
Rather than trying to match CGI lighting to green screen footage after the fact, he was reverse-engineering the process.
His team would pre-visualize every Quidditch shot, calculating exact sun angles and atmospheric conditions, then recreate that lighting on set with an array of powerful HMI lights and specialized filters.
It was expensive, complicated, and pushed every piece of 2011 technology to its breaking point.
But if it worked, audiences would finally experience Quidditch the way it was meant to be felt.
He really wanted to make this one special…
….Quidditch was the first time Harry really felt like he belonged to the magical world.
He exhaled again, slower this time.
Behind him, the sound of wires being fed through pulley rigs echoed faintly.
Someone from Unique FX called his name from the rafters - testing the balance system for the broomsticks.
"Yeah!" He called back. "Just give me a second…"
The echo of Regal's voice hadn't even faded when the crew kicked into motion.
The soundstage lit up like a living engine - grips scrambling with cable coils, lighting techs adjusting giant HMI rigs on cranes the size of train arms, air handlers humming to life as smoke testers confirmed atmospheric dispersion.
Up in the rafters, the Unique FX team coordinated like ants on scaffolds, speaking in short, clipped commands through radios as they prepped the broom's balance system for its first live test.
At ground level, six massive monitors blinked to life, showing different angles from the mounted RED EPIC cameras.
A steadicam crew stood ready with stabilizers that cost more than a car, while two aerial specialists hovered by a large control board, managing the robotic crane sweeps and programmed motion tracking.
It didn't look like a movie set - it was a hybrid of an engineering lab, a stunt gym, and a film studio.
Regal, standing near the center of it all, tugged at the cord on his hoodie, watching the chaos with a quiet sharpness that didn't miss a single step.
He had to remind himself to blink.
This had to work and he doesn't have any fallback plan. No "fix it in post."
Someone called his name again, louder this time, from above.
"We are ready down here. Balance test green!"
"Copy that." He called back, shielding his eyes from the overhead lights.
He exhaled - slow, focused.
He glanced over as the stunt performer approached the platform.
Lisa Martinez - early 30s, sharp jawline, hard eyes softened only by her humor.
She had done work on Star Wars, Power Rangers, even the old Xena sets, but this rig was a different beast.
"First time on this sort of thing?" Regal asked, half-kidding, but half-genuinely concerned.
The arm was massive, almost skeletal in its long jointed structure, and the control system was still something between a prototype and miracle.
Lisa adjusted her gloves and clipped the final carabiner into the gimbal vest.
"First time I have been given this much freedom." She admitted. "Usually it's 'stand here, we will hoist you up and wave your legs.' This thing? This thing wants you to fly."
Regal gave a half-smile, the kind that didn't quite reach his eyes. "That's the point."
Lisa gave him a mock salute, then nodded to the crane operator above. "Let's go."
The rig hissed, the support arm creaking as the counterweights engaged. Lisa's boots left the platform gently - with no jerk, pull.
Just clean lift, straight up.
Regal didn't breathe.
For the first few feet, it looked like every other wire stunt in
Hollywood - controlled, stiff, safe. But then the gimbal kicked in.
And something shifted.
The rig twisted, banked, responded like it was reading her body - not pulling her, but following her.
When she leaned left, the crane bent smoothly with her, swooping in a wide arc just under the mocked-up goal hoops.
The motion was fluid, with a strange, animalistic grace.
She didn't look like she was suspended anymore but like she had wings.
From the viewing station, the feed screens displayed what the cameras were capturing, and they confirmed the illusion.
There was depth, real weight.
The shadows fell correctly.
The broom didn't jitter against a fake backdrop.
It sliced through the real wind.
Her robe fluttered in precisely the way a robe should when breaking forty miles an hour.
A silence spread across the stage.
Even the drone operators forgot to breathe.
Lisa dove, hard, carving an arc through the air that skimmed just above the pitch set floor.
A collective gasp rippled from the crew, like they had all leaned forward at once.
"Whuuuuuummmm."
The tailwind hit, a clean, sweeping push from the fans as her body twisted midair, almost horizontal, before the crane rig tilted again and reeled her gracefully back into the sweep.
She spiraled, just once, and then straightened.
The final descent was almost too smooth.
Her boots touched the platform like it was home.
Silence.
No sound from the rig.
Just Lisa, still grinning like a ten-year-old who had gotten away with something.
She peeled off her goggles, blinked at the lights, chest heaving.
And still… no one said anything.
Until—
Clap.
A lone grip near the camera pit started clapping.
Then another joined.
Then three. Then ten.
Suddenly it spread like wildfire.
"Holy hell did you see that?"
"Tell me someone was recording B-cam!"
"That's flight, man, not a stunt!"
"She just rolled in midair - and stuck the landing?!"
"Yo, playback! Playback now!"
Even a sound tech holding a boom mic overhead broke protocol and whooped: "That's what the hell I'm talkin' about!"
Cheers and applause swelled, echoing through the stage rafters.
Someone near the monitors pumped a fist in the air.
A pair of junior interns high-fived like they were at a football match.
The drone team on the catwalks above whooped and slapped each other's shoulders, one of them leaning over the railing to shout: "Lisa, you're a bloody legend!"
Down below, Regal stood dead center in the chaos, arms still crossed, lips tight - barely holding back the smile.
That damn knot in his chest was unraveling faster than he thought possible.
Darren, leaning on a Steadicam harness, wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and muttered through a chuckle. "That looked… amazing. Worth every bloody penny. If Simon was here, man… he would be stomping up and down yelling like a bloody wild bear."
Regal finally let the corner of his mouth twitch.
"Yeah." He said, just loud enough to be heard.
Then his gaze drifted, past the monitors, past the pitch set, to nothing in particular.
Indeed, Simon should have seen this.
But he couldn't.
Because right now Simon was neck-deep in location logistics in the UK, building something just as crucial.
And he wasn't alone.
Gwendolyn was there too, overseeing the real Hogwarts interiors, wrangling craftsmen, old manor permits, ministry paperwork, and probably knocking down someone's ego at the same time.
He hoped they were doing alright. He trusted them.
But for now…
Regal stepped forward, raising his voice above the noise.
"Alright." He said calmly, but it cut across the soundstage like a conductor raising the baton.
"Reset the rig. This time, we are rolling full coverage - A, B, and drone three. Get wind two and four back online, I want a full atmosphere this round."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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