New Breaking Dawn Part 2 stills plus an interview with Bill Condon where he reveals the running time!!

MTV have shared new stills from Breaking Dawn Part 2 with us today, as well as an interview with Director, Bill Condon! Read it - and see the new images - below:

MTV's Fall Movie Preview continues in conjunction with "Twilight" Tuesday to bring you brand spankin' new images from "Breaking Dawn -- Part 2". Our fancy new photos feature more new vampires along with a swoonworthy shot of Edward (Robert Pattinson) looking postcard perfect.

And that's not all, we've got a double dose of "Twilight" goodness with a few juicy details about the film straight from director Bill Condon, during which we learned the official running time, which vampire power has the coolest visual effect and why the film's climax will take your breath away.

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.

Kristen Stewart is 'Electric' in Breaking Dawn Birth Scene!

Via Fandango.com

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn director Bill Condon graciously took the time to talk to us about what's on the mind of every Twilighter now that we're nearing the final weeks before the film. He's continued to remain tight-lipped about some details (which will make for a better moviegoing experience, of course) but he had much to say on the birth scene (his favorite), the highly anticipated wedding, as well as additional scenes from Edward's point of view! 

Warning: This interview contains spoilers.

Fandango: Fans are really looking forward to the wedding, the honeymoon, the birth and Bella's transformation scenes. What was your favorite to film and why?

Condon: They're all really fun but I have to say the birth. There was something that happened on those nights, but specifically the first night – there was something electric about it, so intense. Kristen [Stewart] was so powerful. Obviously, it's a very feverish scene with everybody kind of getting into that mode. It happens on a movie set sometimes. Everyone gets very hushed, and after and between the takes everyone's walking around, whispering and not talking – it was one of those. Kristen didn't get up. She was on that gurney and spent hours and hours there. That scene is the one I will remember more than anything.

Fandango: What is Irina doing at the wedding (as seen in movie photos)? That's noticeably different from the book.
Condon: In that case, it's just about good movie storytelling. Just imagine if she's not there and then in the second movie, she shows up, sees Renesmee and freaks out. No one will know who she is. People will talk about who she is, as they do in the book. Or you'd be stuck with some clunky flashback. To make something really cinematic, you put it into the present tense. She doesn't want to come, she's convinced to come, she gets there, she sees something that upsets her and she leaves – so that you see, you experience what it is that's bothering her. It's because her problem with the Cullens is the lynchpin for the entire second movie. Part of it why it's there has to do with servicing what's going to happen in the first half hour of the second film.

Fandango: You mentioned that Kristen Stewart cried when she read the wedding part of the book. Why do you think it resonated so much, and what other parts resonated with you?

Condon: I think so much of it resonated because the stakes were so high. A wedding is always a really moving thing, but [Bella] is walking down that aisle knowing she's never going to see her parents again. That's the thing that I think adds this extra kick of emotion. It's one thing to say goodbye to your dad and your mom and to thank them as you're going off to your honeymoon, but when you know you're going to be a vampire and never exist in [human] form again, it's something else. I think that was a big one – just talking about the movie a while before we started. Forget about the vampires and werewolves and everything. What are the human challenges? One of them is that first difficult year of marriage. You've had the fantasy, you've had the dream, you've gotten your dream, now it's a reality. Now you're waking up with him or her every day. What adjustments do you have to make when you change this fantasy to reality? That's an interesting human question. There's a lot of resonant stuff through the book that was very real on that level.

Fandango: You've also said there's going to be a choreographed dance number at the wedding.

Condon: It's very brief, but absolutely! It was a lot of fun. All I can say is that Jackson [Rathbone] and Ashley [Greene] are incredibly good dancers. They should make musical films.

Fandango: Was it an actual musical number?

Condon: This is not a musical number on a stage or anything. This is just people dancing at a wedding, that's all. It's just that we had a choreographer to help us.

Fandango: How excited are you for fans to see the wedding scene? It must've taken high-security to keep the wedding dress from getting leaked.

Condon: I know! We're three weeks out and it still hasn't leaked. I'm so happy. Oh, I can't wait. We're going to have our premiere two weeks from Monday and I'm just so looking forward to being there with fans and just getting a sense of what they think. It is a challenge. There are other surprises in there too that we've been able to keep, but it's harder to do it these days.

Fandango: This being a PG-13 film, how challenging was it to find the balance of being appropriate and yet sexy and romantic during the honeymoon scenes?

Condon: I think it was hard. I think the crucial thing was keeping it romantic because that's what it's about. You'll see it's done in a slightly different way. I don't want to give it away. It's in pieces, let's say. You don't get it all at once.

Fandango: We get so much of Bella's and Jacob's view in the last book, but what specific parts do we get to see more of Edward's point of view?

Condon: There's something that we put in there that's referred to in an earlier book. We actually get to see Edward in his early life as a vampire and hear his thoughts about that. There's a glimpse of him in Twilight describing how he got turned, how he got changed by Carlisle, but this is more extensive. I do think we get more inside Edward and he changes a lot, too. The wedding has an effect on him. There's an aspect of self-loathing to him about what he did when he was a vampire [earlier] that he releases through Bella's love. I think that's a fun thing to watch.

MovieFone Interviews Bill Condon

[Bill] Condon rang up Moviefone on Friday to discuss 'Breaking Dawn,' his lengthy hiatus from the big screen after 'Dreamgirls' and when you can expect to see his Richard Pryor biopic.

This will be your first feature film since 'Dreamgirls' in 2006. I know you did a lot of television since then, but what made you step away from filmmaking for the last few years?

It's the same reason that anyone does, I suspect. I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. Richard Pryor, I wrote for -- gosh -- over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, "God, five years have gone by." It's really a scary thing.

Is that what led to 'Breaking Dawn' or did Summit come to you?

They came to me. I was getting ready to do another movie -- and I worked on that for about a year, and some casting and a bit of financing fell out. Suddenly, there was this thing. The one thing I knew about 'Twilight' was that it would actually get made. [Laughs] But more than that, I was actually interested in it; they had come my way once before. So, I read it and thought about it and met with them, got excited about the possibilities and jumped right in. That was like March and we were shooting by November. There was only an outline for a script at that point.

Were you familiar with the books and movies, or did you have to do a crash course before shooting?
The movies -- the movies, then the books. But the movies I knew.

So, during that time when your were reading the books and watching films, did you stumble onto anything in particular that you thought you could bring to the franchise that wasn't done before?

I don't think it was about what hadn't been done before. What I did think was interesting is that these movies are really different, one from the other. Based on the director. And that excited me. It didn't feel as though you were fitting into any template, which would have been as interesting. For me, I was really turned on by the first movie, and how the first half is a real classic Hollywood romantic melodrama -- a kind that doesn't really get made anymore. Soulful and about a women's concerns, which are more interesting to me maybe than a teenage boy's concerns. Then it turned into a flat-out horror movie in the second half. I have a background of that and a love of that. Then the second movie is this epic story that was interesting in another way. It was on a canvas I had never been involved with before. A lot of things added up to make it appealing.

Franchise films have really become appealing to some pretty major filmmakers -- you, Christopher Nolan, Marc Webb, Sam Mendes. Why do you think these big blockbusters, which in the past might have seemed like a producer's medium, attract such talent nowadays?

It's interesting. I don't know. Part of it for me -- and I got a taste of this for 'Dreamgirls' -- is that there is something really appealing about knowing you have a very committed audience. It sort of feels like, right from the beginning, you're in a dialogue with them. I was, literally, on Facebook, but more than that, you kinda know how much people care. There's something exciting on the other end of that. With 'Dreamgirls,' you'd see that kind of buzz in the audience, and a visceral reaction in a theater. That is really thrilling. I've only seen this with a tiny little friends and family group of Twi-hards, and we kind had the same reaction and that was really exciting.

You can read the rest of the interview over at MovieFone.

Source / via

Bill Condon Explains Using ‘Flightless bird’ on the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack

Fans of the original “Twilight” soundtrack got a pleasant surprise when the recently released track list for "Breaking Dawn – Part 1" revealed that Iron & Wine’s melancholy ballad “Flightless Bird, American Mouth (Wedding Version)” was among the cuts. 

Twilighters — who are no doubt gearing up for Thursday’s “MTV First” with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner at 7:56 p.m. on MTV and MTV.com — will recall that the song made its “Saga” debut in the closing moments of “Twilight” as Bella and Edward shared their first dance. And according to Breaking Dawn director Bill Condon, the retread of this memorable number was an important reference for him to make. 

“I always thought of this movie as the bookend to the first movie, and that was such a great powerful, romantic song for those characters,” he told MTV News during a phone interview last week. 

“It just felt right to kind of refer back to it at this important, important moment,” he added about “Breaking Dawn – Part 1,” the first of the two-part finale. 

Of course, Condon wouldn’t reveal exactly which important moment this song will accompany in the November 18 film, leaving fans to wonder whether its delicate strains will find their way into the wedding itself or perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Cullen’s first dance as man and wife. 

Condon did divulge, however, that the song is just one of many callbacks to earlier “Twilight Saga” films. “[There are] quite a few,” he confirmed. “Musically, I would say at the wedding there’s a jazz quartet that plays a couple of tracks from ‘Eclipse.’ 

Carter Burwell has come back to do the score. He did the first movie, so ‘Bella’s Lullaby’ features in this movie too.”
Source / via / via

OH MY GOD! How excited are you now? I absolutely LOVE that Bill Condon thinks this way!!!
Only 17 days left to go!
(well technically, at time of post, there's 16 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes until the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn... but who's counting?!)

HitFix interview with Bill Condon: How Kristen, Rob and Taylor Surprised him

via HitFix:

Few directors can say they've made films back to back for a beloved franchise. It may be cost effective for most Hollywood studios, but it's a rarity... but the latest filmmaker to join that exclusive club is none other than Academy Award winner Bill Condon. 
The man behind acclaimed films such as "Kinsey", "Dreamgirls" and "Gods and Monsters" has jumped into the world of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" with "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1" and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 2." The first of the films hits theaters next month and, not surprisingly, pre-release polling shows the interest in the lives of Bella and Edward Cullen hasn't waned since "Eclipse" was released 16 months ago.

I first met Bill just a few weeks after he returned from Sundance and the premiere of "Gods and Monsters" (way back in 1998). A lot has happened since then, but through a ton of success on the big screen and co-producing the best Oscar telecast over the last decade (no bias, it's the truth), nothing may have prepared him for jumping on the "Twilight" train. 
 With "Breaking Dawn, Pt. 1" completed and only a few weeks away from opening, Bill was kind enough to jump on the phone this morning and chat about the ride so far.

Interview

Congratulations on finishing 'Breaking Dawn, pt. 1' Do you consider this the halfway mark?

Oh, easily, more than that because we shot both movies back to back. I've got a pretty good cut of the second movie so we're in the good 3/4 plus mark. I started this with just outlines, so yeah, almost there.

You see yourself in the homestretch?

Yes.

Most moviegoers and 'Twilight' fans wouldn't realize that you've come from working on another movie where there was this hardcore fan base. On 'Dreamgirls' there was lots of pressure to get it 'just right' from fans. Did you take anything away from this before you worked on 'Breaking Dawn'?

That's a really interesting question and I suspect it's part of the appeal of getting involved with this. When you work on something that does have a huge fan base there is the potential for a lot of pitfalls, but there is this incredible thrill of seeing that kind of movie with an audience. If you somehow connect to their dreams of what this could be were I think there is a special anticipation that you don't get in an everyday moviegoing experience. I wonder, I hadn't thought of that before, but that's probably part of what turned me on about doing this. But, yeah, there is this sort of thing you have over your shoulder of trying to -- you can only do it in your own way and your own take of what the material is, but because it means so much to so many people you hope you tap into the collective unconscious and visualize it in a way you might imagine it. Or sometimes different just as satisfying.

By the time this is over you will have made one long four-hour movie, perhaps over four hours?

Little under.

I'm just curious, anyone can consult with other filmmakers who have made movies back to back or producers who have made films they knew were going to take six months to shoot and feature elaborate long editing process. At this point, however, has it been a tougher endeavor than you thought or easier?

I would say it's right amount the middle of that. It is grueling to spend six months shooting, no question. But there wasn't -- people have wondered was it confusing to go back and forth shooting a scene one day between movie one and movie two, but it wasn't because the second movie starts at the moment the first one ends. It's one long movie, without end titles maybe one 3 1/2 hour movie. And that's what I did early on. I put the two scripts together. So, it wasn't about where a scene came from it was all this one continuous story I must say.

You're talking about jumping between one movie and another did it make it hard to add things or be spontaneous on the set?

No, not at all. I think a lot of that happened. I did rehearse. I did talk about the script with the main actors for many, many weeks and certainly everybody else through their scenes, but you get on the set and, my god, an easy day was a scene with just nine vampires in it. Then there were the hard ones with 27 vampires, y'know? Certainly in those scenes with the Cullens, because of the challenge of having so many people who have so many important things to do, it was always like 'How do we loosen this up? How do we remember that these people are real?' So, that became a fun exercise on the set. You always have to be open to those moments, because those moments are the ones that become most memorable.

You talk about a scene where you have 27 vampires on set and I believe in the second movie there are more set pieces than in the first. Am I correct?

Yeah, I would say that's true. Absolutely.

It's funny, I think some fans would have had trepidation because some of your previous work doing 'Dreamgirls' or producing the Oscar telecast, but my guess would be, did those projects where you have such elaborate numbers or scenes that have to be worked out, did that make it easier for some of the action scenes in this film?

I think you're probably right and it's not just action. As anyone who has read the novel knows, we end up in a big set piece with maybe 27 or 30 vampires on one sided aided by a dozen or so wolves against 80 vampires on the other side in this big confrontation. It's mostly a discussion, but many dramatic beats within that. And that was like staging a spectacle on a stage almost, because we shot that for a month and not even counting all the second unit stuff. The sense of spectacle and moving fluidly through that, I did feel like I was calling on my musical roots there.

Did you storyboard this movie out more than any you had before?

Yeah, well, it's an effects movie. We have as many effects shots than 'Avatar' or more in the two movies. Especially with big things like the wolves or Renesmee and everyone's powers so it lead to a lot of pre-vizing [pre-visualization] too so that you really are getting a sense of what you need and what visual effects companies are going to be doing the work.

You actually haven't had that many movies with a good deal of visual effects in them previously. Was that exciting to work on?

It was. Because, let's face it, there is so much you can do now and I think our most spectacular effects I don't think it's even worth talking about before the movie opens, but it's what happens to Bella in the last half of 'Breaking Dawn, pt. 1' and it's just real. If you were making a real movie about a vampire pregnancy and there were no other vampires involved -- if you were making 'Rosemary' Baby' today -- just the subtle things you can do to really communicate the sense of a body under attack and getting weaker and weaker? It's extraordinary. So, learning this stuff has been one of the great joys of doing this movie.

So, something that would give any director pause would be the fact you're the fourth director these actors have worked with. In TV, where directors come and go, you always hear the actor saying, 'Eh, the director just tells me where to stand. I know the character.' How open were the actors to actually taking more direction than you'd expect?

Well, I don't know about more, but certainly exploring with me and they were incredibly open. Y'know, I keep calling this 'Twilight grows up,' but in a way it is. All of the characters take tremendous steps in this story and that's part of what turned me on to the material, to collaborate with Kristen Stewart as she goes from being the Bella we know in the first three movies to being a bride, being someone who finally has sex, gets pregnant, gets sick, gives birth, dies, become a vampire, becomes a warrior? Just think of that journey. I guess for none of them it was just playing the same old thing. Jacob becomes a man in this movie. He moves away from being the third leg in a triangle and breaks free of that and his background and his family and his pack and becomes his own person. So, that was a journey all the actors were eager and open to collaborate on.

Was there any actor who surprised you?

I think people will be surprised by everybody. In general, Kristen has such a huge journey to take and to watch her become this fierce, protective, powerful mother figure? I think that will surprise people. Taylor surprised me with his commitment and the dark places he goes to in this movie. And Rob, I think there is some sense that he has relaxed into this part and finally willing to show more of himself. His own charm, wit and grace are in evidence in this movie. It surprised me in how relaxed he seemed in something he's fought a little against before.

You mention you think of this as 'Twilight grows up' because of the events that take place in the film. Is there anything you did with the vampires or werewolves that reflects this as well? Are they more sinister or fearful?

I think certainly that really comes into play in the second movie. These movies so far have mostly dealt with these vegetarians who don't attack humans except for some of the newborns in the last movie and some of the people in the first couple, but here it's a collection from around the world of vampires with specific gifts. So, I think yes, there was a sense of maybe seeing a darker side of them. And I also think we spend a lot more time in the final movie with Arro and his more overtly sinister group of Volturi.

I think you know this, I was on the set of 'New Moon' when they shot those first scenes with Michael Sheen and the Volturi and it seemed at the time that it was the funniest thing to him. To be playing this character. Is he just having a ball when you work with him?

Yes, he is. That whole group. It's interesting, because you spend chunks of time with just Rob, Kristen and Taylor and then the Cullens. And there is a moment when it's Volturi time and it just brought a completely different vibe. It's British camp at its best. I don't mean camp in a bad way, I mean just people who are having a blast and being very clever all the time.

One of the other things that's interesting for fans of your work and fans of the first movie is this is the first time you've worked with Carter Burwell since 'Kinsey,' right?

Yes, that's right.

I know that the last two scores have gone in radically different directions than the first movie, but what did you want to do with the score for these two movies?

First of all, I was just so thrilled that Carter wanted to do it again, but Carter is someone who is just so original that for him it's not about repeating or getting back to the sound of 'Twilight.' That was a specific sound for a teenage story and I think you'll find it's more romantic and more lush. However, I always think of this fourth movie as a bookend to the first and it did give us a chance to play around with Bella's Lullaby, the theme he had developed for the first movie and bring it full circle, because obviously things are coming full circle for Bella. In general, the one of the things that is consistent in all the different approaches that Carter is taking -- and he's taking his cue from what he sees -- but it happened over and over again. It's thrilling. It happened to me when I heard sketches and when we were in London recording the score, he is an actor's best friend. I saw it happen with 'Gods and Monsters' and 'Kinsey' and I saw it happen here. [He can] get so deeply inside a character and it just fills out a performance and bring what sort of happening underneath to the surface. I think he's a hidden weapon. I think actors should request him in their contract. He's extraordinary in that.

Hardcore fans will recognize Bella's Lullaby I'm guessing?

Yes, it definitely plays a part.

Is there a theme that's repetitive through the movie?

If I say there are three, I probably mean five. There is a Renesmee theme that really comes to fruition to movie two that is quite prominent in movie one. There is a Bella/Edward love them that plays a lot throughout the first half of the movie. There is Jacob's theme and there is a theme that suggests the love of everyone around Bella at the wedding, especially her parents and that's really lovely. I probably am missing one, but those are the big themes.

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Check out all of the video's (including cast interviews and greetings) after the jump!

Bill Condon Talks Everything Breaking Dawn

A few lucky fansites got to interview Bill Condon this past Summer, and the result was one really great interview.
I am giving you a warning now, though, that it is a HUGE interview!
TwilightLexicon has split it into two parts, but I have put them in the one post for convenience.


Oh yeah, and it also contains spoilers, so continue at your own risk!!

Bill Condon (BC) Interview

June 3, 2011

(Just finished seeing clips and trailer. 

Introductions of all present just concluded)

Interview Part 1

BC: So what did you all think? Any thoughts?

Q(From Brazilian Blogger): I can’t find the words to explain seeing them where I am from, in my favorite movie. Seeing Kristen out in Rio—to see Kristen there was like…

BC: Yeah, it was great to go down there—

Brazilian Blogger: I’m trying to recover.

(laughter)

BC: It was so fun. That’s how we started the movie, too. We spent our first couple weeks there, you know. And it was so great to actually feel, you know—it was actually our biggest experience of fans, kind of being on the set or tracking Rob and Kristen. It actually calmed down after that, but you really felt the excitement when you were there, you know?

Q: Was the fan interaction—I mean that was the one scene where it seemed like there were a lot of people around during filming.

BC: Right.

Blogger: Was that distracting or did it help elevate the mood?

BC: Uh, it was weird ‘cause that was again like our second night and it was—I didn’t know what to expect and actually, it turned out to be the most extreme of anything that happened through the whole movie. But when we’re on the streets of Lapa, suddenly, you know, we’re shooting something and this girl suddenly jumps into the shot and throws herself on Rob, goes “ha ha ha ha”, gets pulled off, and I think she was beheaded. I never saw her again.

(laughter)

BC: Something happened to her. But after that—but yeah, it was a little crazy there. Yeah, definitely.

Q: How much of the fandom did you know about before you jumped into this?

Bill: We’d gotten big lectures from all the people at Summit about what it was going to be like. And I actually have to say, in Baton Rouge we were in the studio the whole time, so it was actually really under control, you know. It was actually only being on the streets in Brazil that we saw it.

Q: How much fun was it scouting the locations? I mean, I guess next to Chris Weitz getting to go to scout out in Italy—

BC: I know! Can you imagine? Yeah.

Blogger: —you probably had the next most exciting things to go scout. How involved were you in the scouting of the locations?

BC: Well, I mean Richard Sherman scouted first. He spent a month there ‘cause it was tough to find Isle Esme, you know?

Jack Morrissey(Bill Condon’s partner): Richard Sherman’s the production designer.

BC: And then I got to go to the last five possibilities or something like that. But it was great. I mean, scouting in a boat and stopping off for lunch at the little fish place on an island…No problems there. It was fun.

Q: How familiar with the series were you before you decided to pop into the last installment?

BC: Right. Pretty familiar, I guess. But not you know—I wouldn’t say I was a student of it but I was aware of them all and had seen them all. But then obviously once I jumped in it was really about Twilight Lexicon and it was the books and rereading and just making sure that we had everything right. You know things like—you saw the—Rob’s thing about( referencing a clip showing a glimpse into Edward’s past where he is at a movie theatre stalking “human monsters” )“I haven’t told you everything about myself” and there was a moment when I moved away from Carlisle. That’s only one line I think in the first book, you know, and he’d mentioned it one offhanded comment in one of the movies. But that was an example of something where the first time I met with Rob we had a long great night, many, many, many beers [laughter] and um, he said that one thing that had frustrated him a little is that—I guess that had been more developed in the first book, that was from Edward’s point of view, and it kind of informed the way he was playing the part throughout the whole movie. This sense of self-loathing and guilt that came from having killed humans for that period and yet, it had never been explored in the movies. So it felt like then I went back and looked at the section that described it in Twilight and I felt like, God, what better time right before a wedding to lay out the last objection, you know? And to have it also explain who he’s been, and then in the wedding you’ll see he has a toast where he said—he talks about the fact “to find that one person who can look at you, know everything there is to know about you and still accept you for who you are. I’m ready to move on”. So that being caught in this perpetual 17, and this perpetual kind of—I think you’ll see starting from the moment he gets married he moves on. The performance changes. It’s about him becoming a man. So I think that will be an interesting shift for people, you know? So that—the whole idea of just sort of, between discussions with him, going back finding a line in the first book and then deciding to dramatize that with an episode of him being someone who was on the hunt for human blood felt like something we hadn’t seen before.

HQ Breaking Dawn BTS still of Rob, Kristen & Bill Condon in Brazil

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Bill Condon talks about Rob working with David Cronenberg, and the PG 13 Rating for Breaking Dawn

Speaking to Box Office Magazine recently, Bill Condon briefly mentions Rob working with
David Cronenberg, as well as how he managed to keep the birth scene PG-13:

BOM: We interviewed Robert Pattinson a while back and he said the only other director he could imagine handling the blood of Breaking Dawn was David Cronenberg [The Fly, Naked Lunch].

BC: And then he went to work for him! [In 2012's Cosmopolis] But I know what he means because it is very, very intense in the last part—it's almost like a horror movie. And he's certainly delivered the most intense images in the last decade or so. I tried to get my Cronenberg on a little bit and I think within the confines of a PG-13 rating, I think we've got something that's pretty powerful. 

BOM: Everyone has been saying for years how hard it would be to make Breaking Dawn PG-13. How did you pull it off?

BC: The whole movie is very immersive, kind of like in the book, which is in the point of view of Bella and Jacob [Taylor Lautner]. We tried to do the same thing in the movie—there's a whole chunk where you get inside the head of a wolf. And in terms of the birth, it was, "Let's do it from Bella's point of view. Let's see whatever she can see." Once you decide on an approach like that, it's amazing how powerful you can be without being overly explicit. She gets glimpses of a lot of things—and hears everything—but it's not the cutaway to teeth clawing through flesh. But you certainly know what's happening.

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