David Yates (born 30 November 1963) is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter franchise. He helmed the series’ fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth instalments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially successful British director in recent years. His final Harry Potter film garnered the highest critical acclaim of the series and his direction of the four films gained him accolades, notably the BAFTA Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing. Yates has revealed that he has ambitions to develop a mix of small and large films and has stated that he has “so many scripts piled up” that are a part of his potential upcoming projects.
Early in his career, Yates achieved international attention for his award-winning short films and became a prolific television director with credits including the acclaimed political thriller State of Play (2003), the BAFTA-lauded two-part drama Sex Traffic (2004) and the Primetime Emmy Award-winning HBO production The Girl in the Café (2005). Due to the success of these dramas and various other projects, Yates is considered to be one of Britain’s most celebrated directors of film and television. He has been recognised for his smooth transition from dramatic programming to budget cinema and his works have displayed political and social themes with stylistic realism; his use of hand-held cameras is noted as one of his directorial trademarks. Yates is one of the founding members of Directors UK, which was established in June 2008.
Early life
David Yates was born in St Helens, Merseyside, England on 30 November 1963. His parents died when he was young. Raised in the village of Rainhill, Yates was inspired to pursue a career in filmmaking after watching Steven Spielberg’s 1975 movie Jaws. Before her death, Yates’ mother bought him a Super 8mm camera. He used this to shoot various films and videos in which his friends and family featured. One such video, The Ghost Ship, was shot on board the vessel where his uncle worked as a cook. He attended St Helens College where he completed the courses of sociology, political studies and literature before moving on to the University of Essex and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Film and television projects (1988–2005)
In the 1980s, Yates made his first serious film When I Was a Girl with the assistance of Cre8 Studios in Swindon. The short film, which was shot in Swindon town under a grant from Southern Arts, entered the festival circuit where it was named Best Short Film at the San Francisco International Film Festival, in addition to obtaining other awards. It also contributed to Yates’ acceptance into the National Film and Television School and led to the BBC hiring him to direct Oranges and Lemons, a short drama film in 1991. Before completing film school, he began to direct, produce and write the screenplay to the dramatic short The Weaver’s Wife. He also made his fourth short film Good Looks, which was presented at the Chicago International Film Festival. After graduating in 1992, Yates directed an episode of the film studies programme Moving Pictures, which oversaw low-budget filmmaking in Britain.
From 1994 to 1995, Yates directed several episodes of the ITV police procedural The Bill (Full Contact, Death and Taxes, Other Voices, Feeling Guilty and Life’s a Bitch), before directing and producing three episodes of the television documentary Tale of Three Seaside Towns alongside producer Alistair Clarke. The programme followed media personalities Russell Grant, Honor Blackman and Pam Ayres visiting and exploring the South Coast towns of Brighton, Eastbourne and Weymouth. Yates directed his fifth short film Punch before making his feature film debut in 1998 with the release of the independent historical-drama film The Tichborne Claimant. The film, which was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, was written by Joe Fisher and based on the true events of the Tichborne Case. It starred Stephen Fry and Robert Hardy and was shot on location in Merseyside and on the Isle of Man.
Yates returned to television in 2000 to direct the episodes of Greed, Envy and Lust for the BBC miniseries The Sins, starring Pete Postlethwaite, as well as The Way We Live Now, the acclaimed four-part television adaptation of the novel of the same name by Anthony Trollope. Yates directed many cast members in each episode including David Suchet, Cillian Murphy and Miranda Otto in their roles as Augustus Melmotte, Paul Montague and Mrs. Hurtle respectively. After the project was met with positive reaction, Yates shared the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial with screenwriter Andrew Davies and producer Nigel Stafford-Clark at the 2002 BAFTA Awards. The serial became available to buy worldwide on VHS on 22 April 2002.
One year later, Yates attended the 56th BAFTA Awards with a British Academy Film Award nomination for Best Short Film for the fourteen minute production, Rank, which expressed the social elements of racism, friendship and adolescence through the story of a street gang that cross Glasgow to witness the arrival of a group of Somali refugees. Yates said that even though The Way We Live Now was “a very big production” and “enormous fun to do”, Rank was an opportunity to “shake all that off” and “get back to [his] roots.” Of the casting, Yates said that he “wanted to use non actors to tell the story, to create a reality … the kids we cast in Glasgow had never done a film before.” The film was noted for its gritty style and cinematography, with a review from Eye For Film stating that “such intelligent use of camera and cast lifts Yates out of the pool of promising young directors into the front line of genuine hopefuls. This work demands respect.”
The 2003 six-part thriller State of Play was Yates’ next achievement. He directed a mix of acclaimed actors such as David Morrissey, John Simm and James McAvoy in the main roles of the BBC serial, created by Paul Abbott. It was a major turning point for Yates’ career; he collected the TV Spielfilm Award at the Cologne Conference in Germany and won the Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. The serial was recognised by various award ceremonies, notably receiving the Peabody Award for Broadcasting Excellence and being presented with two British Academy Television Craft Awards. The quality of the serial sparked Hollywood film bosses to consider adapting it into a film, with producer Andrew Hauptman declaring that “it’s a blistering political thriller and we want to make an equally blistering movie.” State of Play is regarded by critics from The Guardian and The Times as one of the best British television dramas of the 2000s.
Yates then moved on to helm more high-profile projects such as the television adaptation of nine-year-old Daisy Ashford’s novel The Young Visiters, starring Jim Broadbent alongside Hugh Laurie. Broadbent gained an acting nomination at the BAFTA Awards under Yates’ direction, which was a different approach in comparison to his immediate previous work. According to a review by Variety magazine for BBC America, Yates and his team yielded “a warm and surprisingly unsentimental production that has ‘evergreen’ written all over it”. The Young Visiters tells the story of a bumbling man (Broadbent) seeking help from an aristocrat (Laurie), who attempts to improve his social graces for him to be accepted by a high society woman.
In 2004, Yates’ two-part drama Sex Traffic was broadcast on Channel 4. It won eight BAFTA Awards including Best Editing for Mark Day, who regularly worked with Yates on many of his television projects and short films. Day commented on his collaboration with Yates saying that “we are very good friends because we have spent so much time together.” He also said, “David shoots in a similar style from piece to piece, although this wasn’t quite as frantic as State of Play.” Yates was nominated for another Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for his direction of Sex Traffic and won his second BAFTA for Best Drama Serial at the British Academy Television Awards. Being a British-Canadian production, Sex Traffic gained four wins at Canada’s annual television award ceremony, the Gemini Awards, including Best Dramatic Mini-Series. Spanning across two parts, the three hour long drama reveals how the trafficking of young women into slavery is a big business which operates throughout Europe; both parts were acclaimed for their “shocking” portrayal of such a sensitive topic.
Also in 2004, Yates was involved in plans for a film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited for Warner Independent Pictures. He was set to work with Paul Bettany, Jude Law and Jennifer Connelly on the project, but pulled out in the later stages due to constant budget issues affecting the film’s production.
Yates then directed Richard Curtis’ script to The Girl in the Café, a television film starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald. In June 2005, the film was aired on the BBC in Britain and was also broadcast in the United States on the premium cable television network Home Box Office. The Girl in the Café achieved three wins at the Emmy Awards, most notably the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, and gained a total of four nominations including Outstanding Directing for Yates and Outstanding Casting for Fiona Weir. The film became widely known for being conceived to coincide both with the BBC’s Africa Lives season of programming and with the global Make Poverty History campaign. The message of the film is conveyed through the character-driven story of Lawrence (Nighy) and Gina (Macdonald) dealing with their feelings for one another while challenging political concerns at the G8 Summit in Reykjavík.
Harry Potter series (2006–2011)
During the period of working on plans for Brideshead Revisited, Yates was told by his agent that he had made the director shortlist for the fifth Harry Potter adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s series. He was then confirmed to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by Warner Bros. Pictures, with production scheduled to begin in early 2006. When asked how Yates got the job, producer David Heyman (who is “a big fan” of Yates’ television work) said, “actors in David’s television projects give their best performance, often of their career. It’s important to keep pushing the actors, particularly the young ones on each Potter film. This is a political film, not with a capital P, but it’s about teen rebellion and the abuse of power. David has made films in the U.K. about politics without being heavy handed.”
Before production began, Yates invited Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell to a pub and “picked his brains about what it was going to be like to step into someone’s shoes on a movie of this scale.” The first scene Yates shot featured a giant interacting with human characters. The scene was the very first high-scale visual effects piece Yates filmed in his career. After the film’s post-production material was well-received by the studio, Yates was selected to direct the sixth picture Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which according to Yates was going to be “a cross between the chills of Prisoner of Azkaban and the fantastical adventure of Goblet of Fire”.
Order of the Phoenix opened to positive reviews and achieved commercial success, with Yates winning the title of Best Director at the 2008 Empire Awards and collecting the Best European Film Award from the European Film Academy. Yet the film was criticised by fans for having the shortest running time in the series; Yates said that the original director’s cut was “probably over three hours”, resulting in much footage being chopped to fit within the studio’s preferred time frame.
During production on Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros. President and COO Alan F. Horn announced that the seventh and final novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was to be split into two cinematic parts with Yates, once again, as the director. Yates spoke of the decision to appoint him as the director of the final films, remarking that “they wanted to do a Harry Potter that felt … more grown up. What’s smart about the studio and the producers is they have always wanted to push it a bit. Chris [Columbus] did a wonderful job of casting and making this world incredibly popular. But rather than do more of the same, they said, ’Let’s bring in Alfonso Cuarón and let him run with it. Then later, let’s bring in David Yates, who’s done all this hard-hitting stuff on TV.’ It’s a testament to their ambition to try and keep the franchise fresh. The bizarre thing is, I did one [film] and they asked me to stay for three more, so obviously they liked something.”
After attaining widespread “Oscar Buzz”, Half-Blood Prince became the only film in the series to gain an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Yates worked alongside French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel on extensively colour grading the “incredibly rich” picture, making it look “very European” and drawing influences from the Dutch painter Rembrandt. The film garnered a mix of accolades and was acclaimed for its stylised character-driven approach, but some fans complained about the script’s deviation from its respective novel and the slight romantic comedy nature. In response to this criticism, renowned BAFTA member Mark Kermode praised Yates for “getting a sense of an impending catastrophe” and ranked the film “second best” in the series.
Yates began to film Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Deathly Hallows – Part 2 back-to-back in early 2009 and finished reshoots in late 2010. He stated that he had shot the two parts of the final adaptation differently, with Part 1 being a “road movie” and “quite real”, “almost like a vérité documentary”, while Part 2 is “much more operatic, colourful and fantasy-oriented”, a “big opera with huge battles.”
Part 1 was released worldwide in November 2010 to commercial success along with generally positive reviews, some of which reflected on Yates’ directing style. The Dallas Morning News affirmed that “David Yates’ fluid, fast-paced direction sends up the crackling tension of a thriller” and The New York Times analysed Yates’ approach to J. K. Rowling’s character development by saying that he has “demonstrated a thorough, uncondescending sympathy for her characters, in particular the central trio of Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter himself.” The film was praised for its “dark” atmosphere and its loyalty to the source material, but it was criticised for its slow middle act, the handling of exposition, feeling like the “prelude it is” and the somewhat disjointed pacing.
Part 2 was screened in July 2011 and became an instant record-breaking success with universal acclaim. The Daily Telegraph described Part 2 as “monumental cinema awash with gorgeous tones” and Total Film wrote that Yates combines “spectacle and emotion into a thrilling final chapter.” Yates was praised for the “sharply directed” film and was acknowledged for his “genuine visual sense”, with author J. K. Rowling remarking that “everyone who watches Deathly Hallows – Part 2 is going to see that he’s steered us home magnificently. It’s incredible.” Part 2 is the only Harry Potter film to pass the $1 billion mark during its original theatrical run, making it the highest-grossing film in the series.
David Yates has worked in production on the Harry Potter film series for six consecutive years (from 2006 to 2011). All four of his pictures have been a success financially and critically. Yates attended the 64th British Academy Film Awards in February 2011, where he was joined by J. K. Rowling, David Heyman, Mike Newell, Alfonso Cuarón, David Barron, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in collecting the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema on behalf of the Harry Potter films. Daniel Radcliffe commented on working with Yates, saying that he “added his own sense of grit and realism [to the films] that perhaps wasn’t there so much before. I think we all had a fantastic time working with David. I know we did.”
Future projects
Yates is developing a war film called Saint Nazaire, based on the St Nazaire Raid in the Second World War. The movie is reported by The New York Times to be written by Joe Fisher and produced by Heyday Films through Warner Bros. Pictures. Yates has stated ambitions to adapt his TV drama, Sex Traffic, for cinema. During an interview with Collider.com in November 2010, producer David Heyman revealed that he is in talks with Yates about upcoming projects. It has also been suggested that Yates will work on an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand or a film about Al Capone.
Collaboration
Throughout his television and film work, Yates has collaborated with a number of people from cast to crew members. He has worked with film editor Mark Day and composer Nicholas Hooper on a range of projects including his Harry Potter films, all of which Day edited and two of which Hooper composed. Yates has also worked with director of photography Chris Seager, one of the Vice Presidents of the British Society of Cinematographers, numerous times during his career. Seager was originally considered to provide the cinematography for Yates’ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but the job went to Sławomir Idziak instead. Other collaborators include choreographer Paul Harris, casting director Fiona Weir and writers Joe Fisher and Steve Kloves. As one of “The Three Davids” (alongside David Heyman and David Barron), Yates may collaborate with them for future works. —Wikipedia
