All language subtitles for The.House.That.Dragons.Built.S01E05.720p.HMAX.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

It's all designed to count.

In all weddings
in Game of Thrones,
something is gonna happen.

So much fun.

You can sort of feel the air
come out of the room.

It was absolutely amazing.

It got very hot in here.

We did start to go
a little bit insane,

but it was the best time.

Take one.

The Hall of Nine was just
an incredible set to walk onto.

It's got this sort
of snail shape to it.

It was
the first set that we built,
first set that we shot on.

And it was a rather large

kind of departure from
the usual Game of Thrones set.

RYAN J. CONDAL:
The Sea Snake has earned
enough wealth in this time

to build his own new castle,
a better castle for himself.

Our idea, our concept
for it was what does
a new castle look like?

I think Jim Clay
and his design team
did a wonderful job.

Hall of Nine was very much
about Sea Snake's character.

His journeys
throughout the world.

The artifacts that he's
brought back from his conquests.

And so, in a way,
it was going to be a museum
of his life.

It was the first thing we shot.

It was never-wracking
making sure we hit it right.

Time frames are always tight
on every job I've ever done.

And this was no exception.

We were pushing our way
in there

while the paint
was still wet on the walls.

It was a battle to get it done
on time.

It was the start of many,
many, many months of filming.

If that was to fail,
then, I'm sure
they would have brought in

a Targaryen production designer,
at that point.

Perhaps I overextended myself.

Pushed him to close to the edge.

My cousin chose to sail
into this tempest, husband.

It's undignified of the King
to drag himself here
and beg for Laenor's hand.

The term we were all looking at

is that they're
a fairly showy lot.

Rather than some of
the more austere interiors
that we have elsewhere,

this needed to be
more colorful,
a bit more flamboyant.

This is
essentially his throne room.

It also serves as his study,
you know, sort of
multi-function room.

But it needs to be grand
and get across the feeling

that it's almost as grand as
the throne room in the Red Keep.

The walls of Hightide
never fail to impress.

Jim gave me a good brief

from the looks at the plan
of how we think
we should lay it out.

I wanted
a grand entrance staircase,

in the way that I'd done
the staircase in the Red Keep.

The central piece,

we decided to use this curved,
semi-spiral staircase.

And that provided that corridor
at the back of the stair.

It's lovely the way
it spirals down to the balcony,

and it's quite a difficult bit
of architecture
and quite difficult to produce.

When you're doing architecture,
when it's sort of more circular,

rather than just square,
flat surfaces,

it's always a bit more difficult
to model, but it's worth it,
because it looks beautiful.

Compared with all
the huge spaces that
are in King's Landing,

it's actually
much more contained.

Jim wanted to sort of push
a certain style of architecture,

With the show in general,
he's gone for a lot
of Byzantine stuff.

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul
was a big reference for the set,

We tried to match a similar kind
of architecture

with the big arches and windows

and the way
that's sort of painted.

The other main aspect
was this fantastic mural,
which Steve Mitchell painted.

Which was meant to be
a mural paying homage
to the Sea Snake's nine voyages.

The ship, the Sea Snake,
is depicted in that mural.

Logic, to me,
says he made a map

out of the places
he'd conquered.

So maybe it's better to get
a map out of that, depending--

It's time permitting basically.

Love the painting, just sort of
evoking that sort of feeling

that this is what family is,
what the House represents.

It went through
a couple of changes.

I think visually,
it's a difficult thing
to kind of nail

You're thinking of
a medieval painting.

There's a certain look and style
that you sort of feel you have
to hit the right note

and the right period,
and so you're thinking

that all your perspectives
are skewed and wrong,

'cause they haven't figured out
how to do perspective properly
in those days.

There wasn't a brief.
That was something I just
thought was a powerful thing.

I think around
about that time, I'd been

to the Turner exhibition
at the Tate.

I looked at all
of his seascape paintings.

They're so powerful.
They're so strong.

I think that was the spark
for me to introduce that
for Corlys.

All these wonderful objects
are an incredible tribute

to the Sea Snake's life.

It is a vanity.

Because, of course,
it's like, "Yeah, I did that.
I did that. And I did that.

And what did you do?
Oh, you were born into royalty.
Well, I made myself."

And so there are
all these wonderful objects
and mementos from his voyages,

his legendary nine voyages.

We really just gave
Clare and Jim what we know
about the Sea Snake.

And we really
turn them loose.

I mean, the collaboration
with the set decorator

on every movie
is absolutely key.

And with Clare,
it is very much
a harmonious collaboration.

We literally went back
to the history of Corlys

and his story,
which then helped us

with the different artifacts
that we made for that set.

He would take
a treasure from each place,

and that's what kind of became
a big part of the set.

We talked a lot about that
and what they should be.

We looked at various
art exhibitions and pieces
in the British Museum.

And then she went off
and designed her own pieces
to represent his life.

How are you?

I'm fine... I'm melting.

LAUGHTER)

Before we started shooting
in there, I had asked Ryan

for some information
about the voyages

or at least about the mementos,
so when I, as the Sea Snake,

look at those things,
I had a memory.

It was not going to be
in the script.
It was just going to be me.

We really pointed a lot
at Hearst Castle

what William Randolph Hearst
built with his family's wealth

and then filled it
with the treasures and artifacts
he was able to acquire.

The Sea Snake
did the same thing,
but these were artifacts

that he essentially won
or purchased on his own travels,

being the Sinbad of this time.

I just want the cameras
to go through every single thing

that is in that set.

The detail is unbelievable.
It's so beautiful.

It's amazing
in the Hall of Nine. We did some
fantastic pieces for that.

I think we're very lucky.
We've got some very talented
people in the workshop.

The concepts come in,
and you look at some of them

and you think "How in the hell
are we gonna do that?"

You know, between the guys
in there, we work out a formula.

All sorts of weird
and wonderful stuff

we've never done before,
so they're all very unique.

It was amazing.
Everything was creative.

Everything had to be made
from scratch.

Stuff we've never made before.

Everything was influenced
by things

already made around the world.

And we basically tried to copy

what they wanted
and make it better.

The Hanging City had to be made
really lightweight.

But it had to be made
so it looked like bone ivory.

So, we had to think of a method
that we could do

that was easily to be
hung up really lightly.

That took a lot of thinking
of how we're going to make it.

We ended up
using loft insulation boards.

We used those
different thicknesses to carve,

and we basically layered it
all together
to create the structure.

It was lightweight,
but strong as well.

You never quite know
how they're going to turn out
when you start them.

And a lot of the times...
trial and error to get
where we are with it, but...

When you see it,
then you can stand back,
and that's a kind of reward.

I like the snake orrery.

It was two snakes intertwined,

and you see the globe
in the middle.

By the time it was all painted,
you wouldn't know

it was just polystyrene, or
insulation foam, underneath it.

I constantly get amazed
at what we can do.

And I think, "Did we make that?
Are you sure we made that?

Are we that clever
to make that?" But we did.

The Driftwood Throne
was really interesting

because that was
the Sea Snake's ancestral seat.

We wanted to build it
and do it service

'cause the Sea Snake
is a proud guy,

and Jim and Clare went out
and actually built

a throne out of driftwood. It's
an incredible piece of work.

And really the only person
whose feet touched the ground

when they sat on it
was Steve Toussaint,
the Sea Snake himself.

The Hall of Nine
was lovely to see it

as it developed over the weeks
as they were building it.

And then, you actually walk
on there, and it's all dressed
and ready for filming.

That's when you sort of realize
yeah, Game of Thrones is back.
We're doing it again.

The banquet
in the wedding scene is amazing.

When I first got my episode,
"Oh, yeah! It's a wedding."

Every episode I ever done
in my life, every film I've done

seems to have a wedding in it,
but this wedding was different.

It was a typical wedding.
There was music.

There was booze.
There was speeches.

There was fights.
It was great!

Lord Corlys of House Velaryon!

When the doors opened
and we looked out

and walked down there
in this huge hall

all of these supporting artists.
It was incredible.

I think I, sort of,
pinched myself.

I realized we weren't
"in Kansas anymore"

when we had every family
they'd introduce

walking down the stairs
in the middle
of this wedding sequence.

That was the time
when I really realized

the scale of the show.

It was the banners
of the house sigils that got me.

They just blew me away.

I mean,
it was fun. It was funny.

We had to do the dance here.

Spoke a bit of High Valyrian
with Matt. There was a fight.

It was very eventful.
It was a good wedding.

With all of these scripts,
I sat down, read them,

decided how I would shoot them,
and then gave them away
to someone else.

So, when I saw it
for the first time,

it was a real, kind of shock
to suddenly see

somebody else had gone
and made this thing.

The attention to detail that
went into creating the wedding
was extraordinary.

Every table was laden
with meats and fruits.

All of the sort of set dressing
on food and banquet stuff,
is really brilliant.

I think the props boys had
a really tough couple weeks

and were working their ass off.

We set the tables up
I can't remember how many times

for all of the scenes
and how they needed to play out.

And the home economist,
obviously, was super key
to that set.

This is one
of the biggest things
I've ever done.

We've got eight tables of food
and a top table,

and some other tables
set-dressed on the side.

So, it's a massive deal,
and it's being shot

every ten days. So we're having
to really ramp it up a bit.

We just wanted it to be,
sort of, black and gold and red

and really narrow the palette,

so it had a sort of
eerie quality in a way.

They said,
"This is how we visualize it,"

wanting it to be quite visceral
and dark and bloody and gory.

We've got roast lambs,
tomahawk steaks,

massive chickens, red chickens,
black chickens,

piles and piles of quails,
pigeons with their heads on,

sheep's heads,
calves' trotters, soup...

And then I go,
"Well, that's gotta be fake."
And it's like, "No, it's real."

Jesus Christ!

We've got a really good butcher.

And we phone him up, and we say,
"Right. We're gonna need

this amount on this day,
and this amount on this day."

And then, we phone him and say,
"We want more."

Some of it has to be
specially ordered.

It's all available.
It's all stuff that's out there.

It's pretty gruesome, but I
wanted to show the savagery

of these characters
and these people

once they've had a few drinks
and once they let loose.

Ready... And action!

Congratulations, Your Grace.

You have made a fine match
for the princess.

Let's reset.

When I first read 105,
I started reading

and then reading,
and then I realized
it's a 25-page-long scene.

So it's half an episode.

We wanted everything.
We wanted dancing

and speeches and conspiracy
and threats.

That was
a really complicated shoot.

I remember first
talking to Clare about it

and her being very much like,
"Yeah, no problem."

And me sitting there
thinking, "Mm..."

I don't know if you know
what you're getting into.

I'm actually...
a bit scared.

There was a lot happening.

Nick Heckstall-Smith,
the first AD, was brilliant at

really working out
what shots, when.

NICK HECKSTALL-SMITH:
The wedding was a great sequence
to read.

For myself, I started breaking
the script down
into basically beats.

From there, started talking
to Clare and Alejandro, the DP,

about the shot list
for the whole sequence.

And then, I can break
that down, day by day.

Once you start breaking it down,
you still got shot one,
two, three, four, five.

You're telling this story.

It's amazingly written.

But, of course, as a filmmaker,
you're worried about
the 25-page wedding.

And how are you going to keep
the audience interested?

How are we going to pace it?
What's the tone?

How are you gonna build it up?

It took us days to come up with
the right blocking, rehearsing.

And... action!

And tonight is only
at the beginning.

We all know the crown's oldest
and fiercest ally.

There was months of deciding
how we're gonna light it.

How we're gonna light it
for this amount of time?

How is it going to progress
during the night?

In that case,
we had fire and moon.

As a cinematographer,
you play with those elements.

So that was a lot of testing,
a lot of pre-rigging,

a lot of lighting, and then
came the shooting days.

And... action!

I loved doing
the wedding scene.

I think that was the first time
I'd been working
with Clare and Alejandro.

So it was quite a baptism
of fire with them

because it was
a two-week-long shoot

with about 200
supporting artists every day.

Those scenes,
I'm not gonna lie,

they are hard to shoot.

You've got to break them down
and come about it
in a real tactical way.

It neatly
divided itself into three,

and we approached
each section sort of separately.

As a visual storyteller
how do we end up
where the story ends up?

In case of the wedding,
it was going from
a more static camera

to a more moving and then
flowy and then chaotic camera.

Be welcome.

As we join together
in celebration

with House Targaryen
and H--

In the middle
of this speech, he just looks

and sees something
at the other end of the room.

And everyone follows his gaze.

And there stands Alicent,
dressed in green.

It was such a fun scene to play.

The power that I felt
in that moment

was unlike any other.

It's such a stand-out point
in the series.

In a way, it's a coming of age
for Alicent.

And it's also the first time
that she moves
against the patriarchy.

On the day,
I didn't have to think about it,

because we'd shot
pretty much all

of my pivotal scenes
in four and five.

And so I sort of had
most of that journey
and most of that build up.

It was almost like a release.

Congratulations, step-daughter.

What a blessing this is for you.

We played
a lot of different things
with her look for that.

I mean, to give that strength
she's got suddenly

from being
the fresh-faced young girl.

She's got a stronger makeup on.
She means business.

I worried that, given leave
of your father's shadow,

you might wither
in King's Landing's sun.

But you stood tall.

It's a collaboration.
She's gotta have the strength
from everyone.

So if everyone can play
their little role of giving her

a strong costume, strong hair,
that strong makeup look.

When she makes the entrance,
you think,

"Oh! What's happened here?"

She gate-crashes that wedding.

She comes in late.
She's breaking the rules.

And Tanya did
that beautiful cage
and put it all up.

It looked stunning.
It's been designed that it's,
"Look at me. I've entered."

And we've made it
quite a statement.

She wears a lot of green, and
with her beautiful hair color,

it just compliments it
very well.

In the book, Fire and Blood,
there's this very seminal moment

where Alicent wears
a green dress to a tournament.

And we decided to play that
here in this wedding.

SPEAKER 2: Your-- Your Grace?

It was not so much the dress.
It was more...

how we can make the green
look even greener.

So we had to find a fabric

where the green
was very intense.

And I had to find another fabric
where the green was shining.

It's green and green
and greener.

That dress probably took around
four weeks

to make from start to finish.

It involved several fittings.

The main process
was the fabric choice.

And once we had the fabric right,

we knew
that it would be fantastic.

We do source green fabric.

We also have an incredible
textile and dyeing department here.

They are amazing
and have created these fabrics

and textures
which are far better
than anything you can buy.

Because they've been made
bespoke for the show.

That wedding,
there was so much gold
and so much glitter

that she had to be the greenest
thing where she was.

It's interesting.
It is all about the dress.

But in order to make
the dress stand out,

we had to be really careful
with how we dressed
the other people in the scene.

Apart from the other Hightowers,
that should be the only
green thing in the entire room.

The beacon on the Hightower.

Do you know what color it glows

when Oldtown
calls its banners to war?

Green.

'Cause when you
read the script, and you think,

"I'm not going
to miss that one."

No pressure.

And take one. Action.

HECKSTALL-SMITH:
The important thing
with a lengthy sequence

is that you don't lose track
of where you need to be

at certain points
during the shoot.

If I haven't got targets
to reach to

and an understanding
of the overall schedule,

then I can't make sure
that we're on track.

So I knew that by the end
of day two of the wedding,

we had to start dancing.

One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven.

One and two, three, four,
five, six, seven.

That's where you'll come to, yeah.

We prepped it so intensely.

We rehearsed it
before we shot it.

I worked with
a really brilliant choreographer

who I've actually worked
with before.

We had to create
the House of the Dragons dance,

which we really had
no references for.

And I saw this
as a great responsibility.

I really wanted people
to believe in it.

The movement can actually go
with the dialogue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The choreography evolved.

We thought about,
"What is the best way?

Does it look too modern?"
But pretty much in every culture

since early, early years,

people tend to dance
in a semi-choreographed way.

And so we talked about
prehistoric birds,

and we sort of drew
from images and movements

of these prehistoric birds.

When we first did it, it felt
a little bit too contemporary,
so we pulled it back.

We didn't want it
to be too fussy.

But I think we landed
on something interesting.

All of us called it
"the smelly fart."

There's a bit when we--
are like this, and then we go--

and we'd kinda bend down,
so everyone would giggle.

Milly was great.
I think the hardest part

was doing it
in the closed space.

Because when we rehearsed,

there was, like, five people
in the room.

You know what I mean?
And then you get up,

and a lot of the people there
are dancers.

So you think,
"Oh, they're watching."

There were a lot of dancers.

It was actually really hard
to remember where we were.

But once you got
into the rhythm of it,

we pretty much shot
the whole thing

front-to-back within a take.

It was all on Steadicam
with just the dancers.

So it was like
three dances back-to-back.
And everyone kind of going in

and you have to lremember
where you were
and not bump into anyone.

But it was so much fun,
a lot of fun.

And then we had to think
about how they could do

these movements
in the costumes that they had.

And the costumes
didn't necessarily have the give
because they're all sort of,

tight here,
so the costume department

very kindly sort of loosened
all the underarms

of every single costume
so people could raise their arms
for the dance.

Hey!

Whilst we were working
on the choreography,

I spoke to Ramin about what
sort of music we could use.

And he came up with something
that we then set the dance to.

And we could play
whilst we were shooting.

Hearing that music, oh my god,
it literally sent chills
down my spine.

Those-- Those drumbeats,

and then watching them
do this dragon dance,

it was almost hypnotic,
in a weird way.

I love working
when there's music playing.

And I feel like whenever
that happens for the actors,
I find my operating improves,

because it gives a sense
of rhythm and movement.

At that point,
it was quite fun for me,

because once people started
moving a bit more,

I got the Steadicam out
and got to play around with

a bit more kind of creative
camera movement.

I think we had
four or five cameras
shooting simultaneously.

We really wanted
to get the grandeur.

The dancing is beautiful.

When you see it within the
scene, it makes a lot of sense.

And it gives
the whole thing a rhythm.

And it actually motivates
what happens next.

Six years of peace
and prosperity, there's
a lot of tension built up.

And you just don't know
where the explosion
is going to come from,

and then it comes from
the most unexpected place,

when Criston Cole
finally just snaps.

I really wanted
to lens it out, to get some
long lenses on it.

So we were seeing
our characters through people.

So, you know,
everyone had a different agenda.

We didn't know where
the drama was gonna erupt.

It's a bit like
an Agatha Christie,

like, you know, set up
all these explosive points.

The fun of that sequence
is playing on

the audience's expectations
of a Game of Thrones wedding,

and knowing that these things
tend not to go well.

Rowley is
a brilliant stunt coordinator.

And what I soon learned
was I'd just say,

"Oh, Rowley, can you just
have a little fight here?"

And before you know it,
there's an explosion

of something that looks
very real and very scary.

We used a Steadicam
in there and some handheld,

but the bigger, wider stuff
is the stuff that's trickier.

You know, trying to make it all
look realistic at the same time.

I think Rowley has this
kind of filmmaker side to him.

So he knows how to shoot stuff,

and this is actually the hardest
part for a stunt coordinator.

You're having to incorporate
his vision of a stunt
to the storytelling.

He knows how
to tone it down or tone it up.

That fight
was super easy to shoot

after rehearsing it
with Rowley so many times.

A lot of it is off-screen,
a lot of it is on Fabien
beating one of my mats up.

The sheer amount
of punches that he threw,

when I was there, it was like,
it was like, "Are we done?"

Go again!

From Viserys' point of view,
to just see this sea of people

rolling from
one side of the room

to the other side of the room.

I didn't have that many
stunt people there,
probably 20 stunt people.

I mean, and there's what?
Two, three hundred people
in the room?

So it's a lot
of people to control.

And we did do this kind of
wave thing as well.

Like at a concert,
if something happens,
and you get a surge.

So we tried to do that,

which takes a bit
of looking after people

to make sure that we don't
trample anybody or hurt anybody.

Hours and hours have gone
into making each fight perfect,

so that it all feels
fluid and brilliant.

And then our whole
stunt team is just great.

Clare
was just not saying, "cut,"
and he was screaming and...

And I was like, "Okay, okay."

Eyes closed kind of scene,
when they would come in,

it was completely chaotic,
it was great fun.

There were a lot
of elements about that wedding.
It was a big thing.

Day-by-day,
you just chip away at it,
and then you've got the whole.

I think it's a great,
great scene.

And it's one of my
proudest scenes of
House of the Dragon.