02x05 - Regent

[bunniefuu]

I think that's what really gives this
the proper kind of scale.

This used to be my favorite set.

Like, that's... that's it.

You know,
I was nearly crashin' the car

'cause it was just so beautiful.

Blows my mind.

Someone told me that in Spain.

It gets messy.

It just makes everything
a little bit more excitin'.

Episode five is called "Regent."

And it's, you know...

that, obviously, refers

to Aemond taking control.

And cut. Thank you, guys.
Thank you very much. Thanks.

This episode
is very much a power grab.

People vying for power

but also, it's very much about
that happening through grief.

So, when we meet Corlys
in episode five, he's devastated.

She gets the death,
I guess, that she would want

in the sense that...
I think Baela says it

you know, she dies by dragonfire.

But, of course, that doesn't
take away the pain.

Sitting in the Hall of Nine,
but it means nothing to him anymore

because she's gone.

Steve is an incredible actor.

He has such deep soul
to all of his performances.

When you're dealing with grief

I don't really talk to them
that much about it.

It's such a vulnerable place

to be mining your grief
of your own personal life

which is kind of what you have to do

and then, let them find it
and you see what they bring.

And, with Corlys

I had no clue that he was
gonna have this tear.

Like, this silent tear
roll down his face.

It was incredibly moving to see it.

Yeah, that was a beautiful scene.

Corlys was shot in the Hall of Nine

which had to be a blue screen

because the original big set

we don't have it anymore.

So what we did is we built part of it

and then everything else
was blue screen.

So that was a nice challenge.

The advantage was
we had shot on season one

so we knew what the set was,
we knew how the set felt.

And also, the actors,
or Steve himself

obviously, had worked
in that set extensively

on season one, so he knew

kind of where he was

even though 90% of it was blue.

So, this used to be my favorite set

and I don't know
what they've done with it.

It's now a warehouse,
and I'm embarrassed and hurt.

Personally offended by it,
but I'm sure with the CGI stuff

it'll look wonderful.

The Cyclops is really helpful,
especially in sets like Hall of Nine

because the cameras and us
understand exactly what we're seeing

wherever we place the camera
in that environment.

The Cyclops
that visual effects guys use

is enormously important

and, especially, for directors

and actors as well

to be able to look

around a blue screen stage

and then see

what the final image will be.

- Rolling!
- Rolling!

That's brilliant!

This is the best set, you know?

We had a fully textured
scan of the set

and I remember
opening the scan and going

"Wow, like, that's... that's it."

You know, like, literally

the kind of the fine detail.

So it was a pretty

straightforward rebuild for us

'cause we had all of the material.

The cost of rebuilding
the whole set for that

as opposed to picking
our angles and saying

"Right, we need this angle

we need that angle,
we don't need that."

We worked it out

what was essential to build

and what could be put in digitally

to recreate the set

and not have
to build the whole thing again.

And that, hopefully,
has proved very successful.

Cut. Thank you.

Behold! The traitor dragon Meleys!

Parading Meleys's head,
it's sort of grotesque.

It's also a reminder of
a battle gone bad.

And also,
Cole perceives quite quickly

has the reverse effect
of what is intended.

It's intended to be
a sort of rallying call

to the people of King's Landing
and, "Look how we're doing."

But, of course,
the people of King's Landing

see the beginnings of nuclear warfare

and they're like, "I wanna get out."

'Tis an abomination.

Don't they realize we won the battle?

Strange victory.

Yeah, I mean, it was amazing.

Any time I get to work
with Clare Kilner is a joy.

And she makes me laugh

very, very much

and I think she takes

some sort of small pleasure

in watching me and Freddie

struggle on these horses.

It was...
it was really, really great.

The way we shot it is big parade

streets of Spain

streets of Trujillo,
and streets of backlot

and the whole procession.

And it's Meleys's head

which it was just, like,
a big, blue... head.

But I think once
the whole scene is finished

and once you can actually
see that dragon head

it's gonna be quite amazing.

Rhaenyra will answer this.

So that obviously will be
a fully CG dragon head

kinda more complicated
than some in that, you know

lot of blood and guts and gore.

In all of our sequences

the starting point is always
an incredible concept.

And so, there was a lot of iterations

that went through to get
the right type of dragon head

the right amount of gore and blood

and we'll, literally,
be taking that, you know

those concepts and,
you know, making them real

but the dragon head was created
from our real dragon head model

and then scaled down a little

and we had the horns on it
because it's got massive horns

and it's a big show, big dragons.

Slain at Rook's Rest by your king.
To Aegon!

The victory parade
with the dragon head

was a massive amount
of wagons and horses

and characters that needed
to march through the streets.

It was a challenge to move
that parade back and forth.

You could never turn it 'round

and reset back
to a first position easily.

You had to unhitch all the horses

push the wagons back,
push the horses back

re-hitch again.

It was 15 minutes before
you could roll the cameras again

so that was challenging.

Trujillo was built

for medieval parades for sure.

A lot of our street...

street-based sh**ting
was actually done in Trujillo

'cause it offered
these wider streets

and these grand squares

and the right looks
of the buildings.

So definitely lend itself,
you know, very well

to staging this action.

The dragon Meleys!

I thought the dragons was gods.

It's just meat.

sh**ting in Spain was surreal

because the set is just...

it's just there, you know?

I can understand
why they sh**t there.

The other thing about Spain
is it was an opportunity

to spend time with some of the cast

and it's always nice
to meet your costars.

But I find the stuff that they manage
to do when we're away

like dressing up Cáceres...

That's how you pronounce it.
Someone told me that in Spain.

Don't tell anyone.

Pretend camera.

You know, to look like

the Game of Thrones film set

or Trujillo, which we shot in
as well, or, you know...

I find that stuff pretty amazing.

I think that's the key factor

to sh**t on real locations.

It has the feeling of reality,
of course, but once you arrive here

it feels like the birth of the sets

where all of these
locations started here

so you really feel that
you are in King's Landing.

And action.

And also, going back to the stage

back in England, it's weird because

you can feel that
this is there, somehow

so you kinda feel both worlds
in the different locations.

I think you always go
through that process

right at the very beginning.

Should this be a location?

So it had been my ambition
on this season

to build part of King's Landing.

So, everything
that you're about to see

is season two.

So let's walk through.

And you can see the colors
of the Red Keep

now blend into the sandstone

of Cáceres and Trujillo
with streets going off

and, clearly, blue screens goin'
behind the background there

so we can extend and put in
the streets that we filmed in Spain.

King's Landing, large set

now occupying several acres
on the backlot.

This section still remains dressed.

We complete photography
in three more days

and then, all of the dressing will go

and the sets will weather
their way through the winter.

And now if we look back from here

you can see the approach
to the Red Keep

and how this set all ties together.

So it's quite an expansive set

and allows us
to play a lot of action out

and to change it and dress it
and replicate the areas

of King's Landing
to flesh out the story.

Aegon's story here is
absolutely tragic

so they hide Aegon's body.

I wanted to really
sh**t Aegon's litter

and really get the sense
that he is dead, you know

so that when they pull him out

it's a shock, one, that he's alive

and then to see the state
of disrepair that he's in

how burnt he is.

We also elongated
that journey from the script

because we wanted to follow him
with Steadicam

into the Red Keep, up the steps

through the hallways,
and into the room.

Then, I wanted to sort of
see the lid come off

but still not see what was inside.

So, really sort of tease the audience

with the mystery
of what's inside that box.

We always thought about it
as a dark scene.

It's really gritty.

Even the script talks
about curtains being closed.

It's supposed to be
a grim and dark scene

so we always saw it that way.

We wanted to leave a lot
for the imagination

so somebody that's been...
half the body's been burned

you can only imagine his wounds.

Dracarys!

No! No!

Things like breastplate
being stuck to the flesh

or, you know, things like that
that we wanted to show

but not too much,
so the dark environment helped

but it was a lot about the amazing
prosthetic work that they did.

It's... it looked
really, really good.

I think people are gonna be
a bit in shock when they see Aegon.

When we did the return
to the Red Keep with Aegon

after he's been burnt,
him coming back

and everything being peeled off him

and I see what's actually

happened to him was...

yeah, a big one for Clare

so we wanted to make sure
we sold that enough

and made it kind of
disgusting enough.

So we start with
our kind of pussiest version

because he's been brought
straight off the b*ttlefield.

So that would've been time
for infection to set in

so we've got a lot of pus
going on, a lot of wetness.

Then we kind of reveal,
in stages, how burnt his chest is

and how extensive the damage is.

- It's all f*ck' melted.
- What's happenin' here?

What's this? Oh, psoriasis. Sorry.

- I don't like that bit.
- Get up.

My self-esteem is rock bottom.

Move it there.

It was great.
Tom was really into it as well.

The whole thing of his burn is
it's not a direct burn.

It's not a burn from the flame.

It's where his armor
has become super hot

and it's burned into his face
like a hot plate.

Valyrian armor,
in Game of Thrones lore

is flame-resistant

as opposed to a normal armor,
which will just melt.

So that was a big breakdown job
for Tim

our chief of breakdown.

And so, he blackened it.

He did some really

lovely techniques on it.

And then, David,
who does sort of specialist jewelry

and he made some of the chainmail
look like it was melted

tried to make it look
as real as possible

of somethin' that had
been up in flames.

We love getting to those moments
in the script.

And you see that
and you think burns and think

oh, well, you know there's gonna be
burns in a story like this.

With dragons,
there's gonna be some burns.

And it's great because
that's allowing us to play

and to find those characters
and to research.

We've gotta think about

the sh**ting schedule as well.

It's gotta be viable

that it can work every day.

With the severe burns,
it's a six-hour makeup.

You can't sustain that
over the course of a whole show.

Tom's been brilliant.
He's been amazing.

He's sat there
and allowed us to do it.

It's amazing.

The team I have around me is...

are just phenomenal.

They're an absolute dream team.

The detail they can see that they go,
"Oh, yeah, this needs doin'."

I just can't see that sort of thing.

But we've all got to know
each other very well.

There's been
a lot of time in the chair.

We had a day where
it was, like, close to seven.

It's a process, but these guys
are so good at what they do.

If it looked rubbish,
then you'd be devastated

that you were in the chair
for that long, but it doesn't.

It looks incredible.

These guys put
their heart and souls into it.

Blows my mind.

The hour is late
and my dragon is hungry.

Our terms are simple, Lord Bracken.

Renounce the false king Aegon
as a usurper

and bend the knee to me.

Or your house burns.

These are not a people that
can be forced into submission.

And then he's shocked here
to learn that the Brackens

would rather burn in dragonfire
than submit to the Blackwoods.

And he's frustrated, but he also says

"Hey, I kinda like these guys

and I could use people
like this on my team."

We really believed in that scene.

We really thought
the tone of the scene

can be really fun,
but yet really sarcastic.

We created a lot of tension

but it was just, like,
a really nice acting scene.

I would sooner be
the Lord of Bones and Cinders

than bend my knee before
some heathen Blackwood c**t.

There was a lot of help from VFX.

We previs'd that scene
because that dragon was

you know, played such
a big role in the scene

and it's just a dragon standing,
which we haven't seen much.

So it was very challenging
but it was really cool.

We choose fire.

It was storyboarded
by Alejandro and Clare

and with the Cyclops
there on the day of

that was quite kind of involved

in setting up

just the staging of the scene.

How big is Caraxes in that space?
Is he gonna fit?

We kind of previs'd that.

And on the day,
it just, with every shot

it's kind of, you hand over
the iPad and you can line it up.

So we talked with Matt
about this buck

so he could sit really, really high
up in the saddle

on this mechanical buck
that would move as he moved.

Yeah, that was an interesting one
where we started as a blue screen

you know, shot at the studio,
and we were like

"No, no, we wanna do it there."

And the location
was just stunning, so

you know, the performances
were all heightened

I think, because of that.

It was very different
from our usual buck work.

Matt, he enjoyed it. He loved it.

Every location
gave the show the scale

and these amazing landscapes,
so it was great.

I just love being

on a big, grand location like that.

It was lovely to be outside.

And it was raining
and I was on a plinth.

And it was, like, sideways rain.

I think that's what really gives us
the proper kind of scale

those beaches and those vistas

and it's a show
that really needs that.

And so, it's good.

I think as much location
as we can have, really

I think really adds to it.

Having North Wales as this
really dense set of locations

that could play Dragonstone
and the Riverlands

and the Crownlands was really useful.

And I, honestly, I don't know that
we would've been able

to produce a season two as we did
without the abundance of North Wales.

It just opens up the doors

'cause, you know,
as wonderful and as beautiful

as these sets are and designed

you can't fit a dragon in Dragonstone

but you can definitely fit it

on the
Welsh countryside hillsides.

I spent a lot of time
on the Welsh sh**t

but any time you're sh**ting

on location

the thing you're gonna come up

against is the weather.

And Wales gets

every kind of weather there is.

And I think that we have been,
overall, very lucky

in that the weather we've got
seems to have perfectly matched

the scenes that we had to film it in.

This rich scenery.

You know, we're on top of mountains
with the wind in our hair.

Like, you can't fake that.

There'd been torrential rain

but we were lucky not to be
in that torrential rain.

Locations are
a big logistics operation.

Just creating the... the facility
to be able to sh**t what you want

and build what you want there.

They are headaches and those places
are often inaccessible to equipment

and we are not a small footprint.

We have heavy equipment and cranes
that we haul everywhere.

Some of these locations
are quite tough in that

they are special places.

A lot of them are SSSI locations,
which means they are protected.

And so it limits
some of the work, you know.

Some of our greatest ideas,
you can't achieve them.

And action.

There was a lot
of remodeling, recontouring

of the landscape
to get those sets in.

Other problems there is

they're all SSSI

which is, you know

special sites
of scientific interest.

So, certain plants you can't move,
you can't touch, you have to protect.

So, there was a lot,
a lot of juggling going on there

right, and that was just like
a bit of a playground for us.

Clearing, leveling,
bringing in, redressing

just changing it
to what we required really.

I think whenever you go
to a different space, it informs you.

You know, the history is ingrained

in the woods
and the stones of a place

and that just influences you.
You can't help it.

When I saw the work, and I saw
the artwork of season one

I said to guys,
"You have to go to Wales.

The mountains are bigger.
It's visceral.

There's something magical about it."

This does not belong to humans.
It does not belong to us.

And I think that fits in the world

of House of the Dragon so well

about what is ours

and what we can claim

and what is bigger than us.

Staring into nothing
but landscape and nature

with no man-made things,
it does something to ya.

It's amazing sh**ting in Wales.

I mean, first of all, it's incredible

that those kind of landscapes

we don't have to fly

a million miles away.

They're right here.

I remember I was driving up
and I was like a tourist.

You know, I was nearly
crashin' the car

'cause it was just so beautiful.

Unimaginable how they...
how they got an entire crew

of, I don't know, maybe


that was kind of almost impossible.

I don't know... I... Yeah, brilliant.

It makes you feel like

you're in that period of time.

There's not really any cars.

There's no roads.

It's all just scenery.

It's nice to have
a change of scenery.

I think if we was all in the studio
for the whole sh**t

we would start to go
a little bit crazy.

It's like going to school
and goin' on a school trip

because it just makes everything
a little bit more excitin'.