So, is the show completely to mostly off book now--and, technically, yeah, since book six not out yet--or what...?
My opinion. Jon Snow is dead. Yay! He can be temporarily dead then breathe again, knowing he has served his full watch on the Wall and can now move on to higher, greater things to protect us all.
Like discovering that his dad was his uncle and that he is more closely related to the Dragon Queen....
========
Game of Thrones, Season 6: Hall of Faces Tease (HBO) at YouTube
Showing posts with label hbo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hbo. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2016
Monday, June 16, 2014
'Game of Thrones': The biggest differences between the book and the show
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Game of Thrones and the A Song of Ice and Fire series.
When a popular novel (or series) gets turned into a movie or a TV show, the best and worst kind of fan is someone who already read the book.
On one hand, these folks can be great, helping other fans fill in context that can’t be incorporated into a visual presentation of the story. There’s the inner monologue, descriptions of food and far-off places, and the tiny details that just don’t make the cut. And, unless he or she is a complete jerk, a well-read fan can tell you what you want to know without spoilers.
On the other hand, the people who read the book can also be entirely insufferable and obnoxious about it, apt to remind you when things aren’t exactly how it happened in the text. A lot.
I am one of those people. I haven’t received any complaints—yet. For the past couple months I’ve spent my Sunday nights making jokes on Twitter and live-texting with my boyfriend (also a book reader) as Game of Thrones played in the background. Whenever something played out differently from the books, he was sure to let me know.
Now the most popular show in HBO’s history (and currently one of the most-watched shows on TV), it’s had its ups and downs. Some of the hiccups seem to be an inevitable part of trying to adapt a more than 5,000-page (so far) series into a television show.
No matter how much we want some minor character to appear, it’s just easier to consolidate him or her into someone else.
Also, because some characters’ story arcs are further along than others, we sometimes see parts of three different books in a single episode, not to mention some characters still alive in the books are now dead and vice versa.
The changes, as well as any further deviations from the story that result, are all filed under what A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin likes to call the “butterfly effect.”
“There are at least four characters who are dead in the TV show who are alive in the books still,” Martin told Conan O’Brien last year. “Hopefully it will end the same way in the TV show as it does in the books.”
That isn’t to say that Game of Thrones has abandoned the books completely; True Blood, set to take the coveted Game of Thrones time slot following the season finale on Sunday, hasn’t been even remotely faithful to the book series it’s based on for years. And even if the show eventually overtakes the books, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss already know how it ends, generally-speaking.
So in a way, we hope they know what they’re doing when they, for example, killed Pyp and Grenn (who are both still alive by the end of A Dance With Dragons) during the Battle of Castle Black. And I full-heartedly support scenes that feature two non-point-of-view characters sparring words ( Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, and Varys).
But how justified is the frustration from the book purists? With the final moments of Season 4 still fresh on your mind, we’ll look back at the biggest story departures and the angst they have caused.
1) Jaime Lannister isn’t supposed to be at the Purple Wedding.
Frustration Level: 3.5/5
As touching/slightly disturbing as it was to see siblings Jaime and Cersei at their son Joffrey’s side as he struggled to take his final breaths, it just didn’t happen. In fact, Jaime and Cersei don’t reunite until after Joffrey Baratheon’s death at his own wedding to Margaery Tyrell. (More on that later.) So for a couple of episodes we have Jaime’s man-tears and sulking about while Cersei cringes at his golden hand.
On the other hand, Jamie’s presence allows Joffrey to mock him in fantastic manner while he reads from the White Book, a scene that happens internally on the page.
2) Arya Stark and the Hound’s storyline/run-in with Brienne of Tarth and Podrick Payne.
Frustration Level (Arya/Hound): 1.5/5
Frustration Level (Brienne/Podrick): 3/5
After the Red Wedding, Arya and the Hound don’t really have much to do
before she heads off on a ship to Braavos. The inn fight in “Two Swords”
was supposed to result in the Hound’s possibly fatal injury, but you
can’t just have Maisie Williams show up in a couple episodes before her
character leaves the Hound to die.
The result was a buddy comedy spin-off in the making between our two favorite cold-hearted killers, even if their relationship is a lot friendlier in the show than it is in the books.
While the Hound does plan to take Arya to Lysa Arryn, they never make it. There’s never the possibility of another Stark reunion only to end in disappointment yet again; in fact, just stop getting your hopes up until The Winds of Winter or A Dream of Spring tell us otherwise.
They also never run into Brienne and Podrick, who are tasked with finding Sansa Stark and returning her to Winterfell (pretty much a failure). Brienne and Podrick never run into Hot Pie and find out that Arya is alive, although Brienne does eventually hear that the Hound traveled with a girl, mistakenly thought to be Sansa.
It’s just killing time until she and Podrick go on even more adventures, and it certainly feels like it.
Luckily, their meeting was wrapped in a shiny and convenient plot bow: Brienne and the Hound fought for Arya, resulting in the latter’s life-threatening wounds, and Arya still headed off to Braavos after refusing to kill him mercifully. Well done.
3) We don’t actually see any of the Theon/Bolton plot or Yara’s rescue attempt.
Frustration Level (Boltons): 1.5/5
Frustration Level (Yara): 4.5/5
Did you hate all of the gratuitous Theon Greyjoy torture scenes? Well,
in the book you only read about them after the fact when we finally meet
up with Theon and Reek again in A Dance With Dragons. But as
creepy his relationship with Ramsay Bolton is, it’s fascinating to watch
Theon turn into Ramsay’s plaything—something so broken that he ran back
into a cage when his sister Yara (Asha in the books) went to rescue
him.
Which actually doesn’t happen. Yara’s rescue attempt wasn’t at all suspenseful for book readers because we know that Theon’s stuck as Ramsay’s pet for a long while. The decision to add a rescue attempt to the show could also put a damper on the siblings’ actual reunion as it happens in ADWD. Asha doesn’t even recognize Theon until he tells her who he is, and when she does find out, she’s in shock.
The scene in the show does serve to remind us that Yara is still around, as is her and Theon's father, Balon Greyjoy, who should’ve died before the Red Wedding if the show stayed true to the books.
The added scenes with the Boltons aren't all bad, though. They provide a view of what’s going on in the North as well as this Lion King-like scene:
4) Jaime and Cersei Lannister’s “altar sex scene.”
There’s been so much said about this scene that I doubt I could add anything of further value; even Martin was forced to weigh in, and he noted that the butterfly effect was why the scene had changed.
The sex scene between Jaime and Cersei in front of their son’s corpse, while consensual from Jaime’s potentially unreliable point of view in the books, took what fans saw as a decidedly non-consensual turn in the television adaptation. After an uproar, the writers and director couldn’t agree on whether the scene was intended to be entirely consensual or not, which just made things worse.
It sparked an ongoing debate about violence against women in Game of Thrones, which seems to happen more often than in the books (for example, Daenerys Targaryen’s first time sleeping with Khal Drogo is a lot more consensual in the novel). It's unclear why the showrunners made these choices, but fans clearly aren't happy.
5) Ser Pounce shows up once—and never again for the rest of the season.
Frustration Level: 5/5
Even though Ser Pounce isn’t introduced as a minor character in the books—and a kitten at that!—until A Feast For Crows,
he made his only appearance in the show in a scene between Tommen
Baratheon and Margaery that never happens in the text. While we assume
the cat was inserted to break up the tension and any possible creepy
undertones between Margaery and the much younger Tommen, the cat's never
heard from again and fans were understandably upset at losing their new
favorite character.
After all, he is the Pounce that was Promised.6) The White Walkers turn a baby into one of their own.
I rated this change right in the middle of the line because it was
completely polarizing. Either people loved it, in part because it was
something new for book readers (and it confirmed what the White Walkers
did with Craster’s sons), or they hated it because it wasn’t straight
from the books and could’ve potentially spoiled them. (I tend to fall on
the former side of the debate.)
It’s a slow burn of a plot point for sure, but it served to remind us that the Wights and White Walkers are still out there. And whether you think the main White Walker is actually the Night’s King, which HBO quickly removed from the show’s synopsis page, or not is a battle of theories for another day.
7) The whole Craster’s Keep subplot with Bran/Hodor/Jojen/Meera and Jon/Night’s Watch.
Frustration Level: 2/5
More unnecessary rape scenes—we already know that the mutineers at
Craster’s Keep are a nasty bunch—but for the most part, I liked these
added scenes. To be frank, without them Bran Stark and Jon Snow wouldn’t
have had much to do this season.
Bran, Meera and Jojen Reed, and Hodor end A Storm of Swords by getting to the other side of the Wall with help from Sam Tarly. They meet up with Coldhands (who sadly isn’t in the show yet), who then makes Sam promise not to tell Jon. Jon gets back to Castle Black just as a battle is starting.
Both characters are too important to the show (especially Kit Harington) to keep out for that long. So there's a totally new plot that a) offers a way to get rid of the mutineers without having to bring in Coldhands; b) allows Jon to prove himself to the Night’s Watch; 3) demonstrates Bran has more Warging skills; and 4) teases another meetup, especially because Jon knows Bran is alive.
Does any of that happen? Of course not. But considering how thin their storylines are this season it’s a consolation, even if many fans don’t like it and Jon’s story is still rather flimsy until the Battle of Castle Black.
After the final episode, Bran’s story is now in ADWD territory with yet another character’s death who is not yet dead: Jojen. In the books, Jojen knows when he’s going to die, but he was last seen going through a depression. There are theories about whether he’s even still alive.
8) Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth never travel to Braavos.
Frustration Level: 1/5
Stannis meets with Tycho Nestoris to discuss money, but that doesn’t happen until The Winds of Winter, in a chapter Martin released early.
What’s great about it happening sooner in the show is that we got to
see Braavos, a place we only hear about until Arya’s arrival in Season
5. Davos, ever the Stannis fanboy, gets to demonstrate what’s so great
about his king. And even better, it works.
Plus, Stannis really doesn’t have much to do until he crushes Mance Rayder’s wildling army at Castle Black.
9) There is actually a witness to Lysa Arryn’s murder—who is then framed for it.
Frustration Level: 2.5/5
As many have pointed out, Sansa and Littlefinger weren’t alone when
Lysa made her exit through the Moon Door at the Eyrie. There was also Marillion, a singer who was last seen losing his tongue at the orders of Joffrey in the show.
In the book he has his tongue and is a favorite of Lysa’s at the Eyrie. He is there for Littlefinger and Lysa’s wedding, where he attempts to rape Sansa. He also brings Sansa to Lysa at the Moon Door where she can confront her niece, and we know what happens next.
Instead of trying to sell a suicide story, Littlefinger just frames Marillion for the murder, and the singer eventually admits to it after being tortured.
Also, there is no way that Littlefinger’s character in the books would’ve let Sansa go into that meeting with the Council without them being on the same page. The show did allow her to shine, though, making some of us want her to win the game even more.
10) No mention of Tysha, Tyrion Lannister’s first wife, when he is freed by Jaime.
Frustration Level: 2/5
While the deaths of Tywin Lannister and Shae played out largely like
they did originally (even the whole Tywin dying on the privy thing),
some of the emotional context was missing from what was otherwise an
excellent scene.
When Jaime freed Tyrion, he told him the truth about Tysha, Tyrion's first wife who he thought to be a whore. (For context, here's the scene).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGtIgaWapoc
It turns out Tysha was a peasant girl who genuinely loved Tyrion, but Tywin made Jaime lie about Tysha being a whore to punish Tyrion for running off without his permission and marrying a commoner. Tyrion, upset about the news, tells Jaime in return that Cersei’s been sleeping around while he was held captive.
It’s in part why Tyrion finally pulls the trigger on that crossbow; Tywin won’t give him a direct answer as to Tysha's whereabouts and only says that she went “wherever whores go.”
11) No Lady Stoneheart.
Frustration Level: 6/5
Fans waited for the reveal of Lady Stoneheart—Catelyn
Stark brought back from the dead and out for pure vengeance against
anyone associated with the Freys, Lannisters, or Boltons—at the end of
season 3 and were disappointed when the final scene showed the slaves of
Yunkai lifting Dany up and shouting “Mhysa!”
Some figured it might’ve been too soon to introduce Stoneheart because it might’ve cheapened Catelyn’s death if she was brought back only one episode after the Red Wedding. Ending the fourth season with Lady Stoneheart, however, made a world of sense.
After all, the season covers the remaining parts of ASOS—and what an ending it would be.
It’d compare to the White Walker reveal and Dany’s dragons hatching.
Lena Headey’s Instagram account seemed to “confirm” the spoiler, and as the final episode aired Sunday night the hype was never higher.
But, it didn’t happen. Even when the credits rolled following Arya boarding a ship to Braavos, there was hope for an after scene a la the Marvel franchise. But then, nothing. Now fans are inconsolable (just search “Lady Stoneheart” on Twitter), and what may have been the best episode of the season has been tarnished.
Lady Stoneheart, of course, could appear in a future season with a proper introduction and not just a last-minute tease. In the next day or so, Benioff and Weiss will do many interviews, and I’d be very surprised if nobody asked them about choosing not to include her.
They may be angry, but will it be enough to make them stop watching? Probably not.
Photo via Game of Thrones/YouTube | Joffrey heads by Jason Reed
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Writing Visually by Character: 'Game of Thrones:' The Reality of Production on HBO’s Fantasy Series By David Heuring
http://www.creativeplanetnetwork.com/dv/feature/game-thrones-reality-production-hbo%E2%80%99s-fantasy-series/62434
The television phenomenon that is HBO’s Game of Thrones premiered in April 2011 and enjoyed immediate critical and fan praise. Filmed in exotic locales in Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco and elsewhere, Game of Thrones features compelling characters, bravura production design and the feature-quality cinematography viewers have come to expect from HBO productions. Medieval fantasy never looked so good on television.
Among the series’ many accolades are two Emmy nominations for
Outstanding Drama Series, among more than two dozen nods from the
Television Academy in its first two seasons.
The show looms large in the vibrant fantasy subculture, but has crossed over into mainstream success—through season two, it is considered the third most-watched show in HBO’s illustrious, awards-strewn history.
With the launch of season three in March 2013, the contributions of three new cinematographers will hit TV screens: Anette Haellmigk, Robert McLachlan, ASC/CSC, and Chris Seager, BSC.
They paid fealty to the cinematic look in earlier episodes created by cinematographers Jonathan Freeman, ASC, and Kramer Morgenthau, ASC (Morgenthau earned an ASC Award for his work), but inevitably added their own personal touches through their visual strategies and decisions, made in light of the new scripts and situations. Other cinematographers who have contributed in previous seasons include Alik Sakharov, ASC, Marco Pontecorvo, AIC, Sam McCurdy, BSC, P.J. Dillon and the late Martin Kenzie, BSC.
The production is scheduled in an unusual way. At the start of prep, at least ten scripts were ready to shoot. Actors are apt to stay with certain locations, while cinematographer-director teams work concurrently and fly between the various far-flung locales. At any given time, as many as five teams are prepping, shooting or rehearsing.
A “decent” amount of prep time helps, as does two weeks, roughly, of shoot time per episode. Occasionally a shot made by one team will show up in an episode credited to a different cinematographer, but the resulting efficiency is “miraculous,” according to McLachlan and Haellmigk.
“Christopher Newman came up with this remarkable schedule,” says
McLachlan.
“It’s absolutely genius. You’ve got five episodes shooting concurrently. You bounce around a lot, and your 16 days per episode are spread over four months. It’s very impressive.”
To maintain a degree of consistency, producer Greg Spence distributed Apple iPads loaded with frame grabs from seasons one and two.
As the season progressed, images from season three were added. The basic style of the show had been established, with naturalistic lighting, a sometimes-palpable atmosphere with shafts of daylight, and lots of firelight as a primary source.
Anette Haellmigk (Bunheads, State of Mind, The West Wing, The Nine) says that she was working on Big Love when she first saw Game of Thrones. She responded to the material and immediately wanted to work on it. “It touched me,” she says.
“In a weird way, I know what to do with this. I was very familiar with mythical sagas. I thought that the look established over the first two seasons was very befitting of the show, and rather than change things, I wanted to enhance. Kramer’s episodes were the most inspirational to me.”
Haellmigk describes the look as naturalistic, but with a bit more romance or harshness, depending on the needs of the scene. For the former, she emulates the warmth of Caravaggio, and for the northern, colder world, she tries to shoot in overcast conditions or block the sun out.
Both cinematographers praise the production design and art direction.
“When I first walked on, what impressed me were the sets,” she says.
“The way they were built, and the way the textures and colors worked. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on big feature films. It was just so tasteful, and the detail was amazing.”
Haellmigk came onto Game of Thrones with director Alex Graves, with whom she has a long professional history. She also had a working relationship with producer Bernadette Caulfield dating to Big Love.
“The camera style of the show, especially in interiors, includes more tableau shots,” she says.
“It’s not like The West Wing, where you do it with long walk-and-talks. The tableau approach is good because, while you give up some movement, you gain a lot of ability to make beautiful compositions and create beautiful lighting. For some action scenes we went more handheld, and exteriors in general gave us opportunities for more camera movement.”
Haellmigk says her episodes played more with shards of light angled through scenes and sometimes bounced onto actors. These shards worked well with the established smoky atmosphere justified by the many flame and fire sources. The show often mixes cooler daylight and warmer tungsten or firelight.
“I love to do that anyway, and I think that gives it a realistic look,” she says. “Even though we might not be aware of it in our world, that is the reality. I don’t like it when all the lights are the same color.”
The cameras were ARRI Alexas. In season one, Game of Thrones
became the first hour-long HBO series to be shot digitally.
For season three, the images were recorded using Codex Digital recorders via fiber optic cable. The ARRIRAW file format was deemed too data-intensive given the large number of units working.
Simultaneously, the images are recorded to the camera’s onboard SxS cards as a backup. Standard LUTs are used for basic situations, but the cinematographers are free to adapt them to the particular needs of a given scene.
The images are finalized at Modern VideoFilm in Santa Monica with colorist Joe Finley.
“The ALEXA is an absolute workhorse,” says Haellmigk. “We took that camera from Morocco to Iceland and shot in rain and sun and all types of conditions. The cameras we had never failed us, ever. In terms of the dynamic range, I was able to do everything that I wanted to. You still have more dynamic range on film, but it’s getting really close now. You see a very good image.
“You can judge your exposure on a monitor and that allows you to paint a little more. Because of this format, I think I have become more daring, because I know how far I can push it and still get an acceptable image. You have to make sure that you make the post department happy, and find a happy medium in terms of exposure. But I was very happy with the camera.”
McLachlan (Human Target, Harper’s Island, The One, Final Destination 3) had worked with director David Nutter in the late 1990s on the visually innovative series Millennium. They reteamed for episodes nine and ten, the final installments of season three.
“The wonderful episodes that Jonathan and Kramer had done lingered on elegantly composed and lit frames,” says McLachlan. “After looking at the episodes David had done in season two, I realized quickly that his style of shooting was much less static and much less ‘proscenium’ than Game of Thrones generally.”
That’s not to say that they weren’t careful about composition.
“David is much more about getting lots of pieces and telling the story that way,” says McLachlan.
“Because we were doing the final episodes of the season, we had comparatively massive scenes, including a wedding that has oodles of extras, a lot of dialogue, and not much time to shoot it.
“We had three cameras, and I had to light in way that worked from any angle. Stylistically, it will look different.”
McLachlan recalled a dungeon scene shot amid the ruins of an old castle. “David’s feeling was that if it’s going to be completely dark, why are we in this location?” says the cinematographer.
“You could do it on stage with black duvetyn. So I pushed a little bit of extra light in from a window at the end of a tunnel. It felt as if maybe it was bouncing off the ocean in front, so we got a bit of texture in the bricks, and added a couple of torches.
“We certainly didn’t bring in any more electric lights. The wonder of the Alexa is that you can actually do that. I just love that camera. You take it out of the box, turn it on and it works perfectly—just like a film camera, and unlike some other video cameras. We tried to shoot at 800 ASA as much as possible, but it would depend on the situation.”
For most scenes, McLachlan took the edge off a bit with Schneider Optics Hollywood Black Magic filters, which combine diffusion and softening effects. “I think they’re terrific,” he says.
“They’re my favorite for shooting digital. I had very, very light ones on most of the time, and occasionally I went a tiny bit heavier if there were cosmetic issues.”
Each shooting unit is equipped with a full set of Cooke S4 prime lenses and Optimo short, medium and long zooms. “Basically that’s what I carry myself when given a choice,” says McLachlan.
“I’ve got some of those same lenses in my own package, so I was very happy to work with familiar tools. David wants the flexibility to adjust the focal length between takes very quickly, so the Angenieux zooms were on a fair bit.”
One troublesome set was a council room carved into the rocks
overlooking the ocean far below.
The cave ceiling offers no opportunity to hang lights. Torch and candlelight work for night scenes, but daytime was another story. A sky/sea horizon backing didn’t work.
“When I had a scene that took place at sunrise, I decided to make it look like a J.M.W. Turner painting,” says McLachlan, who is the son of an artist. “So I threw a bit of blue light on the backing and then stuck a 5K ARRI Fresnel right smack in the shot, where it could light the whole cavernous set.
We put a couple of Lee CTO gels on it and then added enough smoke to hide the stand. The Alexa was able to give a clean image without any more flaring than the filters and smoke created, and even held detail in the area around the ‘sun.’ It was a last-ditch effort to not repeat what we had all done and been vaguely unhappy with. It worked perfectly for the scene, where a critical piece of information was handed over and the situation was seen in a new light.”
In another scene that can’t be described in detail due to the tight secrecy HBO maintains, McLachlan came up with a simple yet brilliant lighting strategy to foreshadow a dramatic turn of events. The scene begins with a relatively high-key interior, with twice as many candelabras and torches as was customary. McLachlan says the extra light coaxes the audience subconsciously to let their guard down.
At a natural turning point, the cast picks up most of the light sources and walks out, dropping the light level significantly, just in time for the darker, dramatic story point.
“It worked really, really well,” he says. “I get goose bumps thinking about it because it’s been a long time since I had a forum with drama as good as this show, along with the terrific art direction, not to mention adequate time to think about it and plan it.”
“The whole experience of working on Game of Thrones reminded me of why I wanted to be a filmmaker,” says McLachlan.
“When we got to Morocco, we were standing on locations where they shot Lawrence of Arabia and The Man Who Would Be King. When I saw that film as a kid, it just swept me away. We were absolutely transported. Just the thought of working on a project like this was beyond my wildest dreams.”
'Game of Thrones:' The Reality of Production on HBO’s Fantasy Series
By:
David Heuring The television phenomenon that is HBO’s Game of Thrones premiered in April 2011 and enjoyed immediate critical and fan praise. Filmed in exotic locales in Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco and elsewhere, Game of Thrones features compelling characters, bravura production design and the feature-quality cinematography viewers have come to expect from HBO productions. Medieval fantasy never looked so good on television.
 |
| Robb Stark (Richard Madden). Photo by Helen Sloan |
The show looms large in the vibrant fantasy subculture, but has crossed over into mainstream success—through season two, it is considered the third most-watched show in HBO’s illustrious, awards-strewn history.
With the launch of season three in March 2013, the contributions of three new cinematographers will hit TV screens: Anette Haellmigk, Robert McLachlan, ASC/CSC, and Chris Seager, BSC.
They paid fealty to the cinematic look in earlier episodes created by cinematographers Jonathan Freeman, ASC, and Kramer Morgenthau, ASC (Morgenthau earned an ASC Award for his work), but inevitably added their own personal touches through their visual strategies and decisions, made in light of the new scripts and situations. Other cinematographers who have contributed in previous seasons include Alik Sakharov, ASC, Marco Pontecorvo, AIC, Sam McCurdy, BSC, P.J. Dillon and the late Martin Kenzie, BSC.
The production is scheduled in an unusual way. At the start of prep, at least ten scripts were ready to shoot. Actors are apt to stay with certain locations, while cinematographer-director teams work concurrently and fly between the various far-flung locales. At any given time, as many as five teams are prepping, shooting or rehearsing.
A “decent” amount of prep time helps, as does two weeks, roughly, of shoot time per episode. Occasionally a shot made by one team will show up in an episode credited to a different cinematographer, but the resulting efficiency is “miraculous,” according to McLachlan and Haellmigk.
 |
| Melisandre (Carice van Houten). Photo by Helen Sloan |
“It’s absolutely genius. You’ve got five episodes shooting concurrently. You bounce around a lot, and your 16 days per episode are spread over four months. It’s very impressive.”
To maintain a degree of consistency, producer Greg Spence distributed Apple iPads loaded with frame grabs from seasons one and two.
As the season progressed, images from season three were added. The basic style of the show had been established, with naturalistic lighting, a sometimes-palpable atmosphere with shafts of daylight, and lots of firelight as a primary source.
Anette Haellmigk (Bunheads, State of Mind, The West Wing, The Nine) says that she was working on Big Love when she first saw Game of Thrones. She responded to the material and immediately wanted to work on it. “It touched me,” she says.
“In a weird way, I know what to do with this. I was very familiar with mythical sagas. I thought that the look established over the first two seasons was very befitting of the show, and rather than change things, I wanted to enhance. Kramer’s episodes were the most inspirational to me.”
Haellmigk describes the look as naturalistic, but with a bit more romance or harshness, depending on the needs of the scene. For the former, she emulates the warmth of Caravaggio, and for the northern, colder world, she tries to shoot in overcast conditions or block the sun out.
 |
| Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer, center). Photo by Keith Bernstein |
“When I first walked on, what impressed me were the sets,” she says.
“The way they were built, and the way the textures and colors worked. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on big feature films. It was just so tasteful, and the detail was amazing.”
Haellmigk came onto Game of Thrones with director Alex Graves, with whom she has a long professional history. She also had a working relationship with producer Bernadette Caulfield dating to Big Love.
“The camera style of the show, especially in interiors, includes more tableau shots,” she says.
“It’s not like The West Wing, where you do it with long walk-and-talks. The tableau approach is good because, while you give up some movement, you gain a lot of ability to make beautiful compositions and create beautiful lighting. For some action scenes we went more handheld, and exteriors in general gave us opportunities for more camera movement.”
Haellmigk says her episodes played more with shards of light angled through scenes and sometimes bounced onto actors. These shards worked well with the established smoky atmosphere justified by the many flame and fire sources. The show often mixes cooler daylight and warmer tungsten or firelight.
“I love to do that anyway, and I think that gives it a realistic look,” she says. “Even though we might not be aware of it in our world, that is the reality. I don’t like it when all the lights are the same color.”
 |
| Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) in Dragonstone map room. Photo by Helen Sloan |
For season three, the images were recorded using Codex Digital recorders via fiber optic cable. The ARRIRAW file format was deemed too data-intensive given the large number of units working.
Simultaneously, the images are recorded to the camera’s onboard SxS cards as a backup. Standard LUTs are used for basic situations, but the cinematographers are free to adapt them to the particular needs of a given scene.
The images are finalized at Modern VideoFilm in Santa Monica with colorist Joe Finley.
“The ALEXA is an absolute workhorse,” says Haellmigk. “We took that camera from Morocco to Iceland and shot in rain and sun and all types of conditions. The cameras we had never failed us, ever. In terms of the dynamic range, I was able to do everything that I wanted to. You still have more dynamic range on film, but it’s getting really close now. You see a very good image.
“You can judge your exposure on a monitor and that allows you to paint a little more. Because of this format, I think I have become more daring, because I know how far I can push it and still get an acceptable image. You have to make sure that you make the post department happy, and find a happy medium in terms of exposure. But I was very happy with the camera.”
McLachlan (Human Target, Harper’s Island, The One, Final Destination 3) had worked with director David Nutter in the late 1990s on the visually innovative series Millennium. They reteamed for episodes nine and ten, the final installments of season three.
“The wonderful episodes that Jonathan and Kramer had done lingered on elegantly composed and lit frames,” says McLachlan. “After looking at the episodes David had done in season two, I realized quickly that his style of shooting was much less static and much less ‘proscenium’ than Game of Thrones generally.”
That’s not to say that they weren’t careful about composition.
“David is much more about getting lots of pieces and telling the story that way,” says McLachlan.
“Because we were doing the final episodes of the season, we had comparatively massive scenes, including a wedding that has oodles of extras, a lot of dialogue, and not much time to shoot it.
“We had three cameras, and I had to light in way that worked from any angle. Stylistically, it will look different.”
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| Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), Bronn (Jerome Flynn) and Podrick Payne (Daniel Portman). Photo by Keith Bernstein |
McLachlan recalled a dungeon scene shot amid the ruins of an old castle. “David’s feeling was that if it’s going to be completely dark, why are we in this location?” says the cinematographer.
“You could do it on stage with black duvetyn. So I pushed a little bit of extra light in from a window at the end of a tunnel. It felt as if maybe it was bouncing off the ocean in front, so we got a bit of texture in the bricks, and added a couple of torches.
“We certainly didn’t bring in any more electric lights. The wonder of the Alexa is that you can actually do that. I just love that camera. You take it out of the box, turn it on and it works perfectly—just like a film camera, and unlike some other video cameras. We tried to shoot at 800 ASA as much as possible, but it would depend on the situation.”
For most scenes, McLachlan took the edge off a bit with Schneider Optics Hollywood Black Magic filters, which combine diffusion and softening effects. “I think they’re terrific,” he says.
“They’re my favorite for shooting digital. I had very, very light ones on most of the time, and occasionally I went a tiny bit heavier if there were cosmetic issues.”
Each shooting unit is equipped with a full set of Cooke S4 prime lenses and Optimo short, medium and long zooms. “Basically that’s what I carry myself when given a choice,” says McLachlan.
“I’ve got some of those same lenses in my own package, so I was very happy to work with familiar tools. David wants the flexibility to adjust the focal length between takes very quickly, so the Angenieux zooms were on a fair bit.”
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| Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Photo by Keith Bernstein |
The cave ceiling offers no opportunity to hang lights. Torch and candlelight work for night scenes, but daytime was another story. A sky/sea horizon backing didn’t work.
“When I had a scene that took place at sunrise, I decided to make it look like a J.M.W. Turner painting,” says McLachlan, who is the son of an artist. “So I threw a bit of blue light on the backing and then stuck a 5K ARRI Fresnel right smack in the shot, where it could light the whole cavernous set.
We put a couple of Lee CTO gels on it and then added enough smoke to hide the stand. The Alexa was able to give a clean image without any more flaring than the filters and smoke created, and even held detail in the area around the ‘sun.’ It was a last-ditch effort to not repeat what we had all done and been vaguely unhappy with. It worked perfectly for the scene, where a critical piece of information was handed over and the situation was seen in a new light.”
In another scene that can’t be described in detail due to the tight secrecy HBO maintains, McLachlan came up with a simple yet brilliant lighting strategy to foreshadow a dramatic turn of events. The scene begins with a relatively high-key interior, with twice as many candelabras and torches as was customary. McLachlan says the extra light coaxes the audience subconsciously to let their guard down.
At a natural turning point, the cast picks up most of the light sources and walks out, dropping the light level significantly, just in time for the darker, dramatic story point.
“It worked really, really well,” he says. “I get goose bumps thinking about it because it’s been a long time since I had a forum with drama as good as this show, along with the terrific art direction, not to mention adequate time to think about it and plan it.”
“The whole experience of working on Game of Thrones reminded me of why I wanted to be a filmmaker,” says McLachlan.
“When we got to Morocco, we were standing on locations where they shot Lawrence of Arabia and The Man Who Would Be King. When I saw that film as a kid, it just swept me away. We were absolutely transported. Just the thought of working on a project like this was beyond my wildest dreams.”
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