In order to keep the budget on both parts of Breaking Dawn reasonable, even though it is substantially greater than the previous installments in the series, much of the film was shot in Louisiana.
Shooting in Louisiana provided larger tax credits, which a small studio like Summit Entertainment would find favorable. Summit announced in a press release on July 9, 2010, that filming was to take place in Baton Rouge and Vancouver. Both parts will be shot back-to-back as one project.
Cast Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black
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The film will attempt to keep its PG-13 rating, and it will not feature any of the gruesome scenes from the nove with Kristen Stewart confirming that the birth scene wasn't as grotesque as described in the book and that she didn't "puke up blood", though director Bill Condon said that they shot everything as "powerful and potent as they could".
(Left-to-right) Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Bill Condon shooting in Lapa District, Rio de Janeiro.
Filming officially began on November 1, 2010 in Brazil, with locations in Rio de Janeiro and Paraty. The first scenes were shot in the Lapa District in Rio de Janeiro for one night. A long city block was rented for shooting, and Summit Entertainment paid residents 50 to 500 reais (30 to 300 in American dollars) to not allow paparazzi or fans to overlook filming from their windows. Moreover, owners of bars and restaurants were paid 10,000 and 20,000 reais (6,000 to 12,000 in American dollars) to stay closed for the evening to eliminate noise and provide a clear street.
Shooting then moved to Paraty where the honeymoon scenes were shot. According to Paraty's Tourism Office, filming took place in the Taquari area, near an unidentified waterfall and in Saco do Mamanguá beach where a mansion is located. It rained on everyday of shooting. In late November, shooting moved to Baton Rouge, Louisania where most of the indoor scenes were shot on a sound stage and in a house. Stewart had to wear heavy make-up to look thin and ghastly to show Bella through a phase of pregnancy where the baby starts breaking her bones. The birth scene took two nights to shoot after the cast had a long conversation with Meyer, a midwife and a doctor to discuss the mechanics of the scene, particularly to decide the area where Edward should place his mouth to bite into Bella's placenta if this situation could ever occur in real life. An animatronic baby was used to film a few scenes of newborn Rensemee. The cast and crew spent two months of the filming process shooting in a green screen room on fake snow. Reportedly, a few scenes were shot in Aresnal Park using green screens too. It took about four to five weeks to shoot the ending sequence of Part 2, which would consume about twenty-seven minutes of the film. The sequence required 75 actors on set, a green screen, and fake snow as well. Stewart thought that the Louisania shooting was "kind of more emotional. More based in reality. Not that anything in the story isn't".
In late February and March, filming of most of the exterior shots, along with Bella's vampire scenes, occurred in Canada .The film's first shooting location in Canada was Vancouver. However, the cast and crew were evacuated from the set due to the tsunami advisories resulting from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. Toni Atterbury, a spokeswoman for the film, said that "the crew was moved to higher ground" as a safety precaution and "the shoot was delayed for a few hours, but the day’s work was accomplished". Therefore, filming relocated to Squamish, British Columbia, but a few scenes were shot in the Orpheum theater in Vancouver with the Vancouver police covering all the entrances of the theater.
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