01x10 - The Black Queen

[bunniefuu]

This is an episode that

Miguel and Ryan wanted to push visually.

It's exciting, because

we've only teased Dragonstone.

And there's so much. It's so big.

To see the work and the planning

that went into getting us

onto the side of a mountain.

It's extraordinary.

I don't know how they did it.

Dragonstone, in the original series,

was a northern coastal area

at the top of Spain.

You only saw, really, one face

of the island in the beach,

in the original show, but we needed

this whole realized world,

and we found that in Portugal.

We found our Dragonstone.

The news reaches Dragonstone in ten

Viserys is dead.

And that's where my story picks up.

Dragonstone, we wanted to reintroduce

a bit as a new world in this,

because we'd gotten a taste of it,

I think, in the original series.

We never got

a really full sense of the castle.

We're seeing it in its entirety,

in all its nooks and crannies,

and everything that's here

for the first time.

We're seeing more of this character,

and there's a couple of surprises

along the way.

Dragonstone is again, another style

of architecture. It's more brutal.

It's set on the island of Dragonstone

with Dragonmont,

the volcanic mountain,

in the background.

It's that very, kind of, tricky set to

build, really because of everything

being so angular, and nothing was,

nothing was plumb, so to speak.

Nothing was perpendicular, so it was

quite a tricky one, actually, yeah.

Dragonstone a hundred and

seventy years before the original show

is meant to be quite a populated place,

much like King's Landing.

It's a living place at this point

because dragons live in the Dragonmont.

There are many adult dragons, wild

and tamed, living inside the Dragonmont,

that brings life to the castle that

does not exist in Stannis's time.

I want patrols along the island's

perimeters looking

for any small ships

that might set ashore.

One bravo. Take one, make the mark.

There's steam inside the castle,

even though it's a wind-blasted,

seemingly-cold place.

It's kind of heated from within,

essentially by the dragons.

Feels cavernous, grand, smoky,

hot, bare.

But the singing

I quite enjoyed it, I think, actually.

It's quite an interesting beat that,

luring this very angry beast

out of the dark with a lullaby.

And it's a cut, everybody. Cut.

Rhaenyra's chamber

is dominated by that dragon carving.

Lovely dragon carving

on the screen again.

That was from the original Thrones.

We haven't gotten rid of that room.

We're just saying that room was

the apartment, previously.

Miguel and Ryan wanted this to feel

as if it had been originally made,

carved in stone, and then clad

in Valyrian steel.

The idea was that they wanted

to have adornments onto this dragon,

so it looked like it had expensive

jewelry onto it,

to make this look as if it was

an expensive work of art.

A bit that I loved working

on was Rhaenyra's chamber.

I spent a long time working on that,

because with that one,

we were trying to figure out how

this sort of set decoration would look,

and, you know,

within the architecture as well.

Actually, I do love the bed.

I mean the quality of that,

that's kind of, that's solid wood.

And they've literally chipped

into that

and created the effect

of scales of a dragon.

And because it is set underneath

the dragon itself, we've, kind of,

done it in a shape that really

compliments the dragon behind it.

It's a lot more, kind of, scaly and

textured in a sense of, you know,

rock, and dragon,

and all those comin' in.

It's trying to make it a bit different

to the Red Keep and everything else.

We really wanted to expand stuff,

move stuff around.

We decided that we wanted to take

the painted table out of the apartment,

where it was originally

in the original series,

and move it into a larger,

more grandiose, location.

We're talking about

spending a lot of time there.

That is the equivalent of our small

council chamber.

And so, to have something that was

more user-friendly,

as far as sh**ting is concerned,

made a lot of sense.

We had talked about in the original,

was that you never really got

a good look at the table.

You never really

got to see how the map worked.

And we knew the table existed,

but just thinking

about what would've been the best

days, the glory days, of this table.

We took a casting of the original table

from the original series

with the intent of just, you know,

recreating it, and maybe showing it

with a little less age on it,

or brighter paint, or whatever.

And this was completely a pitch by Set

Dec and the Art Department, which I love.

Well, what if it was made on this

polished stone,

and if we put fire under the table,

it would light a furnace that then

would light the table from within.

And of course, I just leapt at that idea.

Claire had this idea that she

wanted to make it illuminated

from volcanic fire underneath the table.

I just wanted to make it come alive

a bit more in a sense

that we've got all these contours

within the table,

but you can't actually see them.

I really love lighting through things and

the kick that you get off certain things.

So, the main part of it was this

obsidian rock effect,

which has a gold running through

it, it's a bronze.

All the towns, and the villages,

and the roads are carved into the wood,

and it's illuminated from underneath.

I wanted to originally do fire,

but it was too dangerous.

So, the idea, then, of the candles

being rolled under, and then lighting up

some element underneath the table,

then made the table come to life.

So, we had to remold the table

and create a clear fiberglass top.

So, it became a lightbox,

in essence.

The LEDs that are in there A huge,

massive process to get that set up.

And also because of the color of the

pigment of paint that we used on it

to get those contour colors,

you had to really mix

the different light in to get it right.

So, you need to put more yellow into it

to make it a little bit more like fire.

So, yeah, it was a whole, kind of,

process of research and developing that.

The table looks fabulous, doesn't it,

when it all lights up and stuff.

But, again, there are challenges

that come with that

because there's nowhere to sit.

When you read it, the painted table,

I presumed it was gonna be,

like, just a map on a table.

And I'd have been like,

"That's extraordinary."

But what they have it's magnificent.

That would look good

in my garden, too, actually.

Anyway, just putting it out there.

In Portugal, sh**ting all the exteriors

of Dragonstone on Monsanto,

which is just a fascinating location,

was a joy.

Miguel and Ryan had seen it

about a year prior.

I got there,

and we hiked up into this mountain.

And I was looking around,

and I'm like,

"The only way we're going to be able

to sh**t here is to carry everything,

or to helicopter."

Like, as though that was a crazy idea,

and everybody's like, "Yeah."

Monsanto's amazing.

It's a very unique, strange place where

there's like these amazing boulders.

They seem like they fell out from

the sky on top of this tiny mountain

where there's nothing around.

And together, the first day

we scouted it,

we had to park as high as we could drive

the car on the little pebble road,

and then, walk up through

this rocky mountain.

The first thought was like,

"Well, if it rains, this is gonna

become like a slide."

And then,

"How is the access gonna be here?"

It's very high up.

The access is very bad.

We had to helicopter in the whole unit.

They built an amazing mini-base

in the middle of the castle.

The crane, the platforms,

everything was flown.

Everyone put their efforts together.

We asked if the Air Force could help us.

We literally took over the side of

a mountain and built infrastructure,

storage, ways to feed people.

Everything to bathrooms, to equipment,

to be able to take over Monsanto,

to be able to film to work.

Picking the part of Monsanto where

we were going to sh**t Daemon

intimidating the King's guards

with the dragon.

The really first and foremost thing is,

the dragon's humongous.

So, you have to find a place where,

believably, that dragon can be.

And, because it's the Blood Wyrm,

it has this incredibly long neck.

It's important to be able to find

a space, and to have it reach down

and really open its mouth, and be able

to see the fire brewing inside.

Swear anew,

your oath to Rhaenyra as your queen.

Or, if you support the usurpers,

speak it now.

Anytime that we have to do

something that's completely CG,

you really, really need

a lighting reference.

And we had the most-beautiful heads

made up that were sculpted perfectly,

and then painted perfectly,

so that they look as real as possible,

so that we get them in the light,

and we get all the reflections right.

And then, when we give all of that data

over to our visual effects companies,

they just need to match that as well

as they possibly can.

Good. All right guys. So, it looks like

we're wide and we're looking this way.

You have to be on top of a rock,

or wedged between two big rocks

to get the shot, but it was enough

space to work with it.

-Longer lens from there?

-Yeah.

Just being there gives everyone

an understanding of the scope

of the show we're making.

Once you're on top of a mountain at

sunrise, then you see nothing

but, like, an amazing foggy horizon,

an endless view of the sky

with this crazy rock formation.

And your like, "Okay, yeah,

this is unique, and this is epic.

And there's something larger than life

in the stories we're telling."

Monsanto did that.

We did it.

It's a beautiful spot by all accounts.

And cut.

The low point in Rhaenyra's trajectory

turns into the high point

as she cremates her unborn child.

She goes to commit the dead child to the

flame, as befitting any dead Targaryen.

Her people gather around her,

and her father's crown arrives,

in the hands of Ser Erryk Cargyll,

who's defected from the Red Keep

and brought her father's crown to her.

And Daemon puts the crown

on her head and calls her Queen.

We only had a few days there, but we had

one of the most epic scenes take place,

which was a real Thronesian scene.

I think Ryan even told me.

He said, "You know, if anybody asks what

kind of scene they're in,

or what this scene's about, you tell

them, 'It's a Game of Thrones scene.'"

There's a funeral of a dead baby.

There's a knight showing up with a

stolen crown and an impromptu coronation.

There's Everybody at Dragonstone

takes the knee. It's pretty unbelievable.

What's beautiful about Ryan's writing

is that there's five scenes

within every scene.

You know, and a scene like that is, is

there, there's a very quiet mom-and-dad,

husband-wife moment in there.

There's the watchful eye of Rhaenys,

who's watched Rhaenyra since she was 14,

in terms of the moves she's making,

if she's worthy of Queen.

The cast just nailed it, and barely

a word is spoken in the sequence.

I actually was emotional

at the end of Monsanto.

To go to these corners and edges of

Dragonstone you haven't seen before,

and to understand how it's all put

together, was important.

And when you're done,

you accomplish something like that,

and you've somehow conquered

the side of a mountain.

And you've brought the show to life in a

place that nobody has ever filmed before.

It's one of those days

you'd never, ever forget.

This is the joy of this series, I think,

is that there is so many different sets

and different architectural styles.

And Storm's End

doesn't disappoint in that respect.

The clue is in the title, really.

It's at the end of the world,

and it's lashed by storm and lightning,

and wind and rain the whole of the time.

So, another bleak place to inhabit.

I am prince Lucerys Velaryon.

I bring a message

to Lord Borros from the Queen.

We backtracked in, so that the scenes

leading up to Storm's End

would also be shot on The Volume or on

green screen, so that everything,

kind of, kept an aesthetic piece.

Storm's End was a Volume set primarily

'cause there does not exist a castle

that looks like Storm's End,

outside or in.

We wanted to give those final ten

minutes of the show a particular look.

the eyepatch coming off, 'cause

that'll give us a real chance to see it.

Then a moment, and then come in,

and you go and scoop it back.

When we're producing ancient monuments'

interiors with stone walls,

it's a more tricky element

to do convincingly.

You can put a set in,

in that sort of semi-circle.

And I think the trick there, obviously,

is where you merge reality

of a hard set into those screens.

They're just looking through the lens,

and they're sort of lining up a shot.

And, you know, the beauty of it is

they're able to line up that castle

that otherwise wouldn't be there

in the frame,

and really make that a part

of their shot composition.

We made the stone throne,

and we made the benches.

And then, Art Department made

the structures around the edge.

And that was it, really.

And until they put something

up there, it's like, "Is this gonna work?

Is it gonna make sense?"

They put an image up there, and you

stand in the middle and look around,

and you kind of go, "Oh, yes.

I can see how this is gonna work."

Go home, pup.

And tell your mother that the

Lord of Storm's End is not some dog

that she can whistle up at need

to sup against her foes.

The key, really, to Storm's End, is not

so much what happens inside

as what happens outside,

which is our first dragon fight.

The dragon fight at the end

of season one is our big grand finale.

It's the first dragon fight put to film

in Game of Thrones,

and we had to make

it one for the record books.

And you care about, I think, the two

riders riding on their backs, so it's

it's a drama sequence,

but it's also visual spectacle.

And it involves, you know, all of our

best tools with all of our best vendors,

and visual effects and all that

coming together

to hopefully make

a fantastic sequence.

No, I just told them,

"Make sure it's really good,

don't come back to me unless it is.

See you later, I'll be back on Monday."

Yeah, I bought these dragon toys to use

for the dragon fight, and kind of,

with my iPhone, started to construct

and block out what would start to happen.

I was flying them with my hands,

and he was sh**ting them,

and that's how it all started.

It went through a process

of first understanding

what the evolution

of that chase would be,

and what the characters

are going through.

Or maybe get close so that we see

Luke's face looking around.

-And then

-We look down. Right.

And then I have to make

it interesting, visually.

You think Luke, you know,

Luke's fighting a storm, and then,

in this kind of horror movie way, we

start to reveal that Vhagar is lurking.

And now down. We're down

for a few seconds, and Vhagar!

Then it becomes a dragon chase,

and a dragon fight.

It's really about getting, you know,

a more accurate, computer-controlled,

hydraulic buck that can move faster.

And then you've got quite a lot of roll,

left to right, as well, John.

But still safely, it's about finding

ways in which you can composite

your actors from this buck onto the back

of a dragon, and it feel believable.

It's really about the interaction that

these different surfaces

have with the wind and the rain.

We spent days sh**ting

the actors for the final battle,

in The Volume, on the motion base.

And what made it really interesting

is we shot it in wind and rain and smoke.

This was new to us sh**ting

The Volume.

We are all very careful

about how we shot in The Volume.

It's a very expensive space,

and so, you don't really want to keep

covering it in smoke.

You don't want to be

getting them wet too much either.

So then, we talked a lot about

how we could do all the physical

things that our series demands.

We have lots of atmospheric texture.

We talked a lot about how

to do that in The Volume,

and well, I think

we overcame a lot of things.

It's so immersive, being in The Volume.

And even with the bookwork,

to have the rain machine

and the wind machine within it.

It really does encourage you to just

lose yourself in the, in the moment,

and in the character.

It was cool going onto it, being lifted

up, 'cause you actually get lifted up.

And you feel like you're,

you know, flying in the sky.

It was really great fun.

How does it feel to watch

a CG version of yourself?

I know. That's gonna be me.

It's gonna make me cry.

I think what excites me about this show,

and what I'm gonna enjoy

watching over and over when

when it comes out is,

I love this element of surprise

on this show.

And what I mean by that is all

the characters are dimensional.

They all have a heart that you can feel.

What I hope viewers will walk away with

is a deeply-felt and truly-told story

of a family, and I hope there

are moments there

that are really human and relatable.

And that it's not about good versus bad,

that it's about people

who are really all trying to do the best

they can with what they know at the time,

and how that sort of all goes wrong.

It's a great family drama,

but the epicness, and all the scale,

and all the things that people come

to know and love about the show

are in service of this deeply emotional

story that's taking place at the center.

It's so big.

Like, there are bits that I have

nothing to do with that are unbelievable.

So, I mean, that all that size that we

loved in Game of Thrones is here.

I hope that it's gonna be a new series

that just sparks the imagination

and the excitement

that we've had before.

The first episodes of the show tried

to stick a little bit to the visual

vocabulary of what Game of Thrones did.

But, hopefully, what we want

to do on ten

is just push it to the edge

a little more.

I genuinely hope that audiences are open

to watching a new chapter

in the Game of Thrones saga that will

evolve to earn its own right,

and have a place in, you know, the Game

of Thrones, the Westerosian world.

I'm really, really proud

of the job that everybody did.

The crew seems to be,

like, very at home here, which is great.

Work's near my house, so it's great for

me. It's You know what I mean? It is!

Genuinely, I couldn't

have done this in a different country.

I wouldn't have made it.

Listen, there's just a few things

I wanted to say.

Firstly, from myself, from Ryan,

we can't thank you enough.

Thank you so much.

You have all worked above and beyond

the call of duty. It's been amazing.

That's become our

House of Dragons backlot,

so we can stay there and develop

over the years.

They're building more stages next season.

It's new, it's contemporary,

it has all the facilities,

so it's a joy to work on

a space like this.

I can watch behind the scenes stuff

on all the shows, and go,

"Wow, that's amazing," you know.

It's been great working

among sets with real things,

and cutlery,

and the world around you.

It's been a joy.

The most rewarding moments working

on this show is really with the actors.

I really enjoyed delving into

the characters, working on the scenes.

It was a true collaboration.

And by the end of it, we were just

working very instinctively together.

What I've liked most is actually

getting to know all these people.

Relationships that I've had with

the cast has been extraordinary.

People who are now my mates.

And I think what's, again, what Miguel

and Ryan have done,

and all of the directors

that we've had

I don't think there's one person that

I've come across where I thought,

"Oh, he or she is a bit dodgy."

I don't know.

That's an incredible thing, to create

in an atmosphere like that.

That's extraordinary.

It's been really nice to be

all together, like a family.

Just being able to do this job, too,

achieves what I certainly would've,

20 years ago, called my dream job

is another thing entirely.

So, it's really amazing.