All language subtitles for The.House.That.Dragons.Built.S01E01.720p.HMAX.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

We went to
some pretty gnarly places.

It was like,
"How are we gonna make that?"

Shit, that's the throne.

I was so excited at the idea.

It feels like it's gonna hit you in areas
I don't think you want to be hit in.

You are awe-inspired by it.

and it's kind of like,
"Oh, my God, this is serious."

Right from the very beginning,
we had to live up to the huge,

almost unscalable expectations
of the original series.

Game of Thrones
was its own thing.

And it was a cultural
phenomenon, and it was brilliant.

This is something else.
It's a different story.

The scale of this story
is told in a different way.

Something that set the original
Game of Thrones apart

from any other fantasy series
is that, ultimately,

you cared about
those characters.

What I liked was that it
still had the Game of Thrones flavor,

but actually was
a different take.

This is our journey now,

and we've got to make the
most of our experience on this show.

I can't tell you
how many conversations there have been about,

"Let's start at Thrones,

and then let's be good
at Thrones,

and let's evolve it out."

I realized that we needed a
combination of old hands and new blood.

It was quite a lot of pressure because the
work was so good, of course, on Game of Thrones.

We've got a standard
to live up to.

We talked a lot about,
"How can we make this different,

but still keeping it within
the Game of Thrones world?"

The intention was never to do
season nine of Game of Thrones.

It was to try and find
something new and different.

It's always a weird moment
because you get that great call,

which is that we're gonna
go make this thing.

And you're happy
for a few seconds.

And then you realize, "Oh, shit, I
now have to go make this thing."

The Great Council felt like
a good way to start people off.

So it's the first scene
of the pilot.

It's the opening scene.
It's really important to get it right.

Go, two, three.
One, two, three. One.

Viserys was on one side

and Rhaenys was on
the other side.

And literally,
in front of the whole court,

the council voted for
who was going to succeed.

Rhaenys is standing there feeling like
she's a contestant on Blind Date.

That's great. And then, Paddy,
if I could step you out.

So we're gonna do the
same thing, but without Paddy in.

So I'll tell you a secret.

It's actually been shot
in the Throne Room.

Halfway through building
the Throne Room proper,

we get them to paint it
mostly green,

and then we build the stand
and the throne.

A lot of VFX work, so it seemed
we don't need to spend a load of money

building the whole Harrenhal
as a kind of practical set.

What we need is the background
to the throne.

So we built one
end section in a green-screen stage,

and then the rest
is placed virtually.

Harrenhal was semi-destroyed.

So you're seeing outside
of the hall itself

into the environment outside,

which is fully CG,
which is great.

Harrenhal had been
seen in Game of Thrones,

but what we had to do
in this one is

invent a lot more detail.

If you look closely,
you can see there's a number of

English cathedrals
and churches that we referenced.

There's a bit of Whitby Abbey
in there.

And we integrated key references
in George R. R. Martin's books.

It's meant to be a huge hall,

so we've tried to get
that sense of scale

in the opening shots.

You are awe-inspired by it,

and it's kind of like,
"Oh, my God, this is serious."

I remember
we spent a whole day on that

with the crowd and the maesters walking
the box up to the old king.

The actor
who played the king

did not want to do
any speaking parts,

but loved the idea of doing
a non-speaking one.

It was actually
Michael Carter,

Bib Fortuna from
Return of the Jedi.

So I was losing my mind
and telling myself to be cool,

and not go start quoting Huttese
to him or anything like that.

Our reference for this was

a really royal, flamboyant,
kind of wedding almost.

And so, I wanted to sort of
bring that element of grandeur to it,

but obviously in a space
that's quite derelict.

It was one of those kind of, "I
hope this all looks okay when we're done."

Because if you saw that set,

it's kind of insane when you see
the finished product that,

"Wow, this is really epic."

'Cause so much of it
was green screen.

It is declared that Prince Viserys
be made heir to the Iron Throne.

In the original books,

George always
described the throne

as being made from
thousands of swords.

I wanted to make
a hybrid version

that still honored the throne
from the original series.

The throne kind of spread out
and became this carpet of swords.

Suggesting that, at some point
in time, the throne changes.

So Ryan had said to me,

"This throne is made from
the swords of the conquered."

And somehow,
that was a key thing,

that this was all about
the power

of this Targaryen dynasty.

When I first approached it,

I was just duplicating lots
and lots of swords.

And that sort of
killed the computer, basically,

because there was just
so many swords.

It looked great in concept,

but it was like,
"How are we gonna make that?"

So my idea was, basically, to
create a structure out of steel rods,

and we wrapped the whole thing
in plaster bandage.

So when it was wet,

it just sagged
on that steel structure.

So it looks like
it was melted already.

This is the biggest hero prop
I've made, really.

And it's the most recognizable.

We probably had about six or eight
people for four, five months of that.

I think we purchased,
made, and cast

about two and a half thousand
swords, minimum.

And there was
a lot of logistics

and working out how that
can be done safely as well.

There's a lot of blades
poking out of the ground there.

When we showed up
for the first time,

there were these signs
that just said, "Danger."

They were terrified that somebody was
just going to trip and impale themselves.

We realized we needed to change
the columns in the throne room.

And that needed to be a way
in which we could show the past.

So we did a lot of
artwork before Conrad and his team got those.

And then it was turned into
a three-dimensional model

before we then cast into
the bigger scale.

They look great
on a drawing that big,

but when that is
a six-meter item,

you have a lot of planned area.

So we wanted to put
some detail in those.

We looked at
the history of the Targaryen battles

and dragons
and all that kind of stuff

for what that history
and that tale could be.

It had a lot of
emotional impact as well

because when Viserys sits
on the throne,

the weight of history
is on his shoulders

because his previous kings
are looking down upon him.

And then at the end of the room,

there's the partially carved column,

which will eventually
become him.

It speaks to how important the history
of the lineage is to the Targaryen dynasty.

I mean,
that whole set is fantastic.

It does exactly
what it's meant to do.

It's big, it's intimidating,
and it looks cool.

It is
one of the most beautiful sets

I've ever seen
in my entire life.

And I think because that throne
is so iconic,

to be able to build on what
has already been established

has been pretty unbelievable.

When I walked
on that stage the first time,

it was an emotional moment,
I think.

Seeing that realized, and realizing
that we're actually making this thing.

It was just kind of like,
"Oh, shit. That's the throne."

When I walked into the
throne room for the first time,

there was a sort of moment
that I had of like, "Oh, wow."

And then the first thing I did,
you know,

was climb up the stairs
and sit on it.

I did not get to sit
on the throne,

and I'm furious about that.

I'm disappointed that
I'm not sitting in it right now.

And I was a bit,
sort of, like, precious on it.

I didn't want to turn around
and see someone sitting on it.

I want to sort of sling 'em off.

This is the age of dragons.

At this point in the history,

there have never been
as many dragons in the world

since the time of Old Valyria,

when there were
a thousand dragons alive.

And what we really
tried to do was

create a world
where dragons existed.

I think that dragons in this
are symbolic of a number of things.

The reason that
the Targaryens are considered

as being closer to gods
is because of their dragons.

So symbolically,
they have this role.

Father, has something happened?

Balerion was
the last living creature

to have seen Old Valyria
before the Doom.

It's greatness and its flaws.

When you look at the dragons,
what do you see?

Cut.

- A big fat...
- A dragon.

You see Balerion's skull
and you see the size of dragons.

Because the size of dragons then
were much larger

than the dragons that you saw
in Game of Thrones.

I mean, that thing is epic.
You would not want to face down the Black Dread.

We did some very rough
original sketches

that very quickly went to
the concept artist.

I sculpted it in ZBrush,

and then we 3-D printed
a version of it.

And that was really useful
for the sculptors.

That was
a brilliant thing to make.

And it was about
nine meters long, so it's huge.

A shortcut, structurally,
when you make something big,

is let the teeth
rest on each other

and become columns, effectively.

In order to make this look
more aggressive,

we wanted thinner,
spikier teeth.

So we made the teeth separately.

We rigged out the mouth
with metalwork,

so it would stay open
of its own accord.

We made it over about
seven weeks with about four sculptors.

And then, of course, at the end,
there's a lot of painting to do.

Texturing, alterations,
you know.

These things can go on forever.

Powerful, but not invincible.

At the time that
Game of Thrones took place,

there was less respect
for the dragons.

And therefore,
we felt this time,

it should be in more of
a respectful cathedral.

So we build this set
with a big dome ceiling

and placed it on an altar
so that it paid due deference

to the importance of the dragons
in our story.

Straightaway, if you want to just frame
up on the whole of Balerion's skull,

you're shooting off the set.

You can only build a set
to a certain height within a stage.

In most of the shots in there,

you're looking slightly up
at that enormous skull.

So we're adding ceiling to that.

On set,
I like to sort of doodle

and figure out how we're going
to do a set extension.

So I do a bit
of photoshop paint mode.

And it allows me, occasionally,

to actually turn it round
and show it to the director

and say,
"What do you think of that?"

And then sort of get
sign off on a concept art piece.

And then that goes to me
and it goes straight to

whichever vendor we're gonna use
to do that work.

It's turned out beautifully.

A Targaryen must understand this
to be king... or queen.

When you see her there,
I mean,

it is a bit of deer
in the headlights

because her father's told her,

"The fate of the world sits
on your shoulders.

And oh, by the way,
you're gonna be queen one day."

I, Viserys Targaryen, protector
of the realm, do hereby...

I'm so sorry.

Rhaenyra sees it
as the first time

that she's good enough
for her father.

Her dad has spent
her entire life

trying to get a male heir,

and then it's like,
"Oh, wow, you see me."

It was funny
'cause I'd said,

"It's important that we see
a combination of fear and pride."

She was like, "Well,
how am I gonna play that?"

And I said, "Don't fuck it up."

She brought so much
modernism and power to her dress.

The way she was wearing it was Medieval French.
It was so...

That's where I tried to get back
into some Byzantine element

because it was
supposed to be a robe,

which had been worn by three,
four, five generations before.

The robe that Rhaenyra wears took
three people ten weeks to embroider.

It really is a work of art.

Quite a stark
sort of looking makeup for that.

We've embraced
that look of, like,

you know, she doesn't know
what's gonna hit her.

We use lots of platted pieces

to create a beautiful
sort of off-the-neck look,

which allowed the headpiece
to sit onto that.

It worked wonderfully
with the costume.

The crown was beautiful.

The cape was beautiful.
It was a fun day.

I shot the crowning
sequence of Cersei back in the day.

So we've got some nice little
bits in there that were mirroring things

from previous episodes
that we've done on Thrones.

There's a wish fulfilment
for an audience

of things they want to see.

We're not here
to not give it to them.

We're here to give them
the thing that they want,

just not in the way
that they're expecting.

Let's try that. All together.
Three, two, one, bow.

And two, three, and up.
And turn, Milly.

We really wanted
to ground people back

in the world that they knew from
the original Game of Thrones,

and bring fans back to some names
that they knew from the original series.

I, Rickard Stark,

Lord of Winterfell
and Warden of the North,

promise to be faithful
to King Viserys,

and to his named heir,
the Princess Rhaenyra.

I promise this to the old gods
and the new.

This is very much the same world
that you left behind the last time around.

I do hereby name
Rhaenyra Targaryen heir to the Iron Throne.

Father-daughter relationships sometimes seem to
be the other way around.

Viserys is struggling
with his role as king.

And Rhaenyra has
the sense and the thought

to come up with solutions
and plans.

It's a real final moment
for her,

being forced to say goodbye
in that way,

and having it put on her
to do it.

She's basically cremating
her mother and her brother.

It's quite traumatic,
actually, if you think about it.

That certainly
was a favorite location.

If you just see the image of it,
it just sort of sings House of the Dragon.

One of the things
I learned in Thrones is

the practical nature
of the sets and locations.

It's worth holding onto.

So as a result,
we go to lots of places.

The producers turn to me
and say,

"Oh, but, you know,
it's so this, it's so that."

I just think, "That's why
this is the right place."

I mean, the amount of effort
that went into that prior to shooting,

to set up a base there,
to make this all work,

I think is insane.

The logistics of it were huge.

We went to hotels,

and then we had a bus
to the location,

and then we had a variety
of different vehicles.

The Land Rover Defender
ride into that place,

you know, seeing mud kicked up
six feet over the high windows.

We were using a beater
trailer that they use for shoots

to bring everybody down.

And then from there, we had to
sort of walk out to the set.

We went to some
pretty gnarly places

throughout the course
of the shooting of the show.

But I think that might have been
our most difficult to access location.

And then we found out
that throughout the coast of Cornwall

you're not allowed to use fire,
which is a bit of a bummer

when you're trying to shoot
a funeral,

especially when it's cremation.

Location work is always a
trial because people don't want you

to make a mess or change
the landscape or burn anything down.

But thankfully, due to
modern filmmaking techniques,

it rarely knocks you down
for too long.

The dragon interaction
in that shot

was a really good
example of collaboration between departments

because, obviously, the special effects team
had to be involved in that.

We were using assets
from Game of Thrones.

Dragon fire and comped that in
where we can,

and the rest of it is just CG.

It's convoluted, but it's turned
into a really beautiful thing.

Dracarys.

-♪ ♪

One of the challenges
of telling a story about a time

where there's great decadence
and a period of very long peace

is how do you create drama
out of that?

And we really knew a tournament felt
like a great way to do that.

May the luck of the Seven
shine upon all combatants.

When I first read
about the tournament,

I thought, "Oh, it's going to be
in a field with some trees around it."

And maybe there'll be
some flags.

I talked to the guys about
the tournament very early on

because I wanted
to bring something stronger

and more powerful to support
the Targaryen dynasty.

Jim produced this
drawing of basically the Colosseum.

And I said, "Really, Jim? Have
you got the money to build that?"

And he goes, "Yeah, yeah."

Which I should never have
listened to.

As soon as we saw
the mirrored half-moon shape that he did,

it was glorious,
and we saw a real need for it.

They would, of course,
have royal tournament grounds,

It would be in the city
surrounded by the buildings.

It just made sense.

Probably one of
the biggest challenges was:

where do we shoot
the tournament

and how big do we make it

and where do we build
that set piece?

That was obviously,
eventually, put on the back lot.

We had to make a
level platform to build the set on,

because, obviously,
it's on quite an incline.

So we had to prepare a whole,
like, farmers field out there.

The difficulty there
is creating a tournament

that's suitable for the stunts that
are going to be enacted out there.

Especially with horses,
you're gonna need soft ground.

You don't want the horses
to hurt themselves,

you don't want the stuntmen
to hurt themselves.

So the huge layer of mulch
was there

to make a soft landing.

Suddenly, we have this huge
stadium that we have to fill up.

And of course,
with all the COVID restrictions,

extras only amounted to 150.

And it had to look like
we had a thousand.

So where we have to put crowd into
a shot that doesn't have enough crowd in it,

you can either go full CG
or you can use sprites.

For that, what we do,

as we're shooting,
we're pulling the extras away.

And we film the sprites from
all sorts of different angles

with all sorts
of different actions.

Cheering, crying out,
sitting down, standing up.

And then, we literally
populate them like little cards.

Good fortune to you, Cousin.

I would gladly take it
if I thought I needed it.

The Royal Box
itself is this huge, great dome,

which gives us a nice,
intimate area

for all the dialogue
that goes on

between all
the various characters.

I wanted that to be
the dominant part of the arena.

And it was quite a costly thing,
that box.

But I promise,
you will not be disappointed.

It's the best spot
to watch the jousting

and to see the knights clashing
in the center of the arena.

- That's a wrap.
Well done. That was great. - ROWLEY IRLAM: Cut!

We ended up putting just under
40 armored knights on the field.

That in itself was one of
our biggest bills, definitely.

With tournament armor, it's all
displays of wealth, power, and ostentation.

And I decided armor with
a lot of different influences.

Elements of oriental armor,
Persian armor, Greek armor.

And I will say that
Simon did incredible work.

Ser Daemon will now choose
his first opponent!

Daemon's armor was
a sophisticated build.

We're talking sixteen weeks
to originate the shape.

Another eight to ten weeks
for manufacture.

And that involved probably
ten to twelve people.

So if it was a single
person, we're talking years, definitely years.

The dragon helmet
probably went through

seven or eight
different incarnations.

I loved designing that one.

I kept on putting elements
on the design.

If you look at the early design,

there were even more
dragon elements on it.

Jany was very keen
to have the eyes at the front

so it's looking at you
all the time.

Obviously, visibility with opening up panels
at the sides of the eyes,

while still wrapping for protection
around the sides of the face.

And then you can't even see
who they are anyway.

The helmet
kind of helped us, really,

in the sense that when we kept
the hair tied up at the back,

it just worked well with
when he was riding the horse.

We were able to know it's him.

Yeah, that's a beautiful helmet.

It's a quite striking look,
that armor look.

That's a department who are
operating on a really high level.

The thought and planning that goes
into trying to make it comfortable.

It's quite heavy,
but it's armor.

It's not really meant
to be comfortable.

That is one of
the sort of mental challenges

when you're in that all day,
every day.

You've gotta prepare yourself
for it on some level.

Even though it's not
the first time you see Daemon,

seeing him walk on screen
as a quote on quote

"living armored dragon"
was a pretty powerful image.

The way he...
He's fantastic. It's beautiful.

This was obviously
the first action set piece.

And to me, it was a little
bit like approaching Battle of the Bastards.

It's something that
I really wanted to try

and achieve something
a bit special.

And action.

I'd never seen anything like it.

Stuntmen with jousts,

going at each other at what
feels like a million miles an hour.

The first joust, which is
what we call "a jerk back."

So what we did was we took
the drum off of what's called a descender.

And it's what we use for people
jumping off buildings on wire.

So we hashed it about

so that we could actually
look in profile

at the guys going together
like that.

And when they hit together
and broke the lance,

we could hit the break, and it would
jerk the guy off the back of the horse.

Jousting is risky against another guy
in full armor on a galloping horse.

I think you just
have to give it a go.

We used over 30 horses.

We worked extremely closely
with Rowley

because the tournament
is when our two departments

really kind of come
side-by-side.

Rowley loves horses.

That's a big thing
for all of us,

as for how to keep
it interesting and feel dangerous,

but at the same time be
incredibly safe for the horses.

We had our hero horses.

Stunts don't ride them.
They're purely for the actors.

And then we'll have
three repeats for the stuntmen.

So the horses will do five runs,
then they get a rest,

and then the next horse
comes on.

So it's all on the stuntmen
because there's only one of them.

They had me ride for
about 50 hours at The Devil's Horsemen,

which is this old institution that has
been teaching actors to horse ride for years.

Ser Criston Cole will now tilt

against Ser Daemon Targaryen,
Prince of the City!

So Daemon fights Cole.

It's scripted they have
two passes.

What are we gonna do that gets
Daemon off his horse and embarrasses him?

So then I started thinking,

what if he fell onto
the tilt rail?

'Cause I've not
seen that before.

And what we did
is ran a cable cam

down the middle
of the tilt rail.

And we got it really
up close and personal,

so you feel really close
to the action.

And watching the guys do that

with everyone cheering,
the horses rearing,

it literally gave me chills,
it was so cool.

Action!

We know Daemon's
a great fighter,

but we need to know
that Cole's a better fighter.

He used the flail, which there's
a real art to using it.

The morning star is
incredibly difficult to fight with.

It tends to have
a life of its own.

It constantly
feels like at some point,

it's going to hit you in areas I
don't think you want to be hit in.

My main aim was to just
learn to use it well enough

so that I wouldn't lose
important parts of me.

And let him get to the thing.

And really telegraph
when it's coming,

'cause then he can go...

Matt and Fabien did a
great job on that particular fight.

I think a lot of it was to do
with they knew that they had to prove themselves.

And it was the first Game of
Thrones fight we were doing on the show.

And they were like, you know,
"We better not fuck this up.

We've got it. Well done.
Brilliant. Go home, rest.

Cheers, boys.

Thank you all.

The tournament is really
one of those places

where you get to see everybody you
hired on your crew earning their paycheck.

Because it requires all
departments to work together.

Visual effects,
the art department,

production design, props,
horse wrangling, stunts.

All those things
coming together,

and trying to make
a richly realized sequence.

It's really incredible
and really orients you

into the world in a way
that I think is very memorable.

Well done, everyone.

Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen.

That's a wrap.
Well done, you guys.