The House That Dragons Built (2022) s01e10 Episode Script

This is an episode that
Miguel and Ryan wanted to push visually.
It's exciting, because
we've only teased Dragonstone.
And there's so much. It's so big.
To see the work and the planning
that went into getting us
onto the side of a mountain.
It's extraordinary.
I don't know how they did it.
Dragonstone, in the original series,
was a northern coastal area
at the top of Spain.
You only saw, really, one face
of the island in the beach,
in the original show, but we needed
this whole realized world,
and we found that in Portugal.
We found our Dragonstone.
The news reaches Dragonstone in ten
Viserys is dead.
And that's where my story picks up.
Dragonstone, we wanted to reintroduce
a bit as a new world in this,
because we'd gotten a taste of it,
I think, in the original series.
We never got
a really full sense of the castle.
We're seeing it in its entirety,
in all its nooks and crannies,
and everything that's here
for the first time.
We're seeing more of this character,
and there's a couple of surprises
along the way.
Dragonstone is again, another style
of architecture. It's more brutal.
It's set on the island of Dragonstone
with Dragonmont,
the volcanic mountain,
in the background.
It's that very, kind of, tricky set to
build, really because of everything
being so angular, and nothing was,
nothing was plumb, so to speak.
Nothing was perpendicular, so it was
quite a tricky one, actually, yeah.
Dragonstone a hundred and
seventy years before the original show
is meant to be quite a populated place,
much like King's Landing.
It's a living place at this point
because dragons live in the Dragonmont.
There are many adult dragons, wild
and tamed, living inside the Dragonmont,
that brings life to the castle that
does not exist in Stannis's time.
I want patrols along the island's
perimeters looking
for any small ships
that might set ashore.
One bravo. Take one, make the mark.
There's steam inside the castle,
even though it's a wind-blasted,
seemingly-cold place.
It's kind of heated from within,
essentially by the dragons.
Feels cavernous, grand, smoky,
hot, bare.
But the singing
I quite enjoyed it, I think, actually.
It's quite an interesting beat that,
luring this very angry beast
out of the dark with a lullaby.
And it's a cut, everybody. Cut.
Rhaenyra's chamber
is dominated by that dragon carving.
Lovely dragon carving
on the screen again.
That was from the original Thrones.
We haven't gotten rid of that room.
We're just saying that room was
the apartment, previously.
Miguel and Ryan wanted this to feel
as if it had been originally made,
carved in stone, and then clad
in Valyrian steel.
The idea was that they wanted
to have adornments onto this dragon,
so it looked like it had expensive
jewelry onto it,
to make this look as if it was
an expensive work of art.
A bit that I loved working
on was Rhaenyra's chamber.
I spent a long time working on that,
because with that one,
we were trying to figure out how
this sort of set decoration would look,
and, you know,
within the architecture as well.
Actually, I do love the bed.
I mean the quality of that,
that's kind of, that's solid wood.
And they've literally chipped
into that
and created the effect
of scales of a dragon.
And because it is set underneath
the dragon itself, we've, kind of,
done it in a shape that really
compliments the dragon behind it.
It's a lot more, kind of, scaly and
textured in a sense of, you know,
rock, and dragon,
and all those comin' in.
It's trying to make it a bit different
to the Red Keep and everything else.
We really wanted to expand stuff,
move stuff around.
We decided that we wanted to take
the painted table out of the apartment,
where it was originally
in the original series,
and move it into a larger,
more grandiose, location.
We're talking about
spending a lot of time there.
That is the equivalent of our small
council chamber.
And so, to have something that was
more user-friendly,
as far as shooting is concerned,
made a lot of sense.
We had talked about in the original,
was that you never really got
a good look at the table.
You never really
got to see how the map worked.
And we knew the table existed,
but just thinking
about what would've been the best
days, the glory days, of this table.
We took a casting of the original table
from the original series
with the intent of just, you know,
recreating it, and maybe showing it
with a little less age on it,
or brighter paint, or whatever.
And this was completely a pitch by Set
Dec and the Art Department, which I love.
Well, what if it was made on this
polished stone,
and if we put fire under the table,
it would light a furnace that then
would light the table from within.
And of course, I just leapt at that idea.
Claire had this idea that she
wanted to make it illuminated
from volcanic fire underneath the table.
I just wanted to make it come alive
a bit more in a sense
that we've got all these contours
within the table,
but you can't actually see them.
I really love lighting through things and
the kick that you get off certain things.
So, the main part of it was this
obsidian rock effect,
which has a gold running through
it, it's a bronze.
All the towns, and the villages,
and the roads are carved into the wood,
and it's illuminated from underneath.
I wanted to originally do fire,
but it was too dangerous.
So, the idea, then, of the candles
being rolled under, and then lighting up
some element underneath the table,
then made the table come to life.
So, we had to remold the table
and create a clear fiberglass top.
So, it became a lightbox,
in essence.
The LEDs that are in there A huge,
massive process to get that set up.
And also because of the color of the
pigment of paint that we used on it
to get those contour colors,
you had to really mix
the different light in to get it right.
So, you need to put more yellow into it
to make it a little bit more like fire.
So, yeah, it was a whole, kind of,
process of research and developing that.
The table looks fabulous, doesn't it,
when it all lights up and stuff.
But, again, there are challenges
that come with that
because there's nowhere to sit.
When you read it, the painted table,
I presumed it was gonna be,
like, just a map on a table.
And I'd have been like,
"That's extraordinary."
But what they have it's magnificent.
That would look good
in my garden, too, actually.
Anyway, just putting it out there.
In Portugal, shooting all the exteriors
of Dragonstone on Monsanto,
which is just a fascinating location,
was a joy.
Miguel and Ryan had seen it
about a year prior.
I got there,
and we hiked up into this mountain.
And I was looking around,
and I'm like,
"The only way we're going to be able
to shoot here is to carry everything,
or to helicopter."
Like, as though that was a crazy idea,
and everybody's like, "Yeah."
Monsanto's amazing.
It's a very unique, strange place where
there's like these amazing boulders.
They seem like they fell out from
the sky on top of this tiny mountain
where there's nothing around.
And together, the first day
we scouted it,
we had to park as high as we could drive
the car on the little pebble road,
and then, walk up through
this rocky mountain.
The first thought was like,
"Well, if it rains, this is gonna
become like a slide."
And then,
"How is the access gonna be here?"
It's very high up.
The access is very bad.
We had to helicopter in the whole unit.
They built an amazing mini-base
in the middle of the castle.
The crane, the platforms,
everything was flown.
Everyone put their efforts together.
We asked if the Air Force could help us.
We literally took over the side of
a mountain and built infrastructure,
storage, ways to feed people.
Everything to bathrooms, to equipment,
to be able to take over Monsanto,
to be able to film to work.
Picking the part of Monsanto where
we were going to shoot Daemon
intimidating the King's guards
with the dragon.
The really first and foremost thing is,
the dragon's humongous.
So, you have to find a place where,
believably, that dragon can be.
And, because it's the Blood Wyrm,
it has this incredibly long neck.
It's important to be able to find
a space, and to have it reach down
and really open its mouth, and be able
to see the fire brewing inside.
Swear anew,
your oath to Rhaenyra as your queen.
Or, if you support the usurpers,
speak it now.
Anytime that we have to do
something that's completely CG,
you really, really need
a lighting reference.
And we had the most-beautiful heads
made up that were sculpted perfectly,
and then painted perfectly,
so that they look as real as possible,
so that we get them in the light,
and we get all the reflections right.
And then, when we give all of that data
over to our visual effects companies,
they just need to match that as well
as they possibly can.
Good. All right guys. So, it looks like
we're wide and we're looking this way.
You have to be on top of a rock,
or wedged between two big rocks
to get the shot, but it was enough
space to work with it.
-Longer lens from there?
-Yeah.
Just being there gives everyone
an understanding of the scope
of the show we're making.
Once you're on top of a mountain at
sunrise, then you see nothing
but, like, an amazing foggy horizon,
an endless view of the sky
with this crazy rock formation.
And your like, "Okay, yeah,
this is unique, and this is epic.
And there's something larger than life
in the stories we're telling."
Monsanto did that.
We did it.
It's a beautiful spot by all accounts.
And cut.
The low point in Rhaenyra's trajectory
turns into the high point
as she cremates her unborn child.
She goes to commit the dead child to the
flame, as befitting any dead Targaryen.
Her people gather around her,
and her father's crown arrives,
in the hands of Ser Erryk Cargyll,
who's defected from the Red Keep
and brought her father's crown to her.
And Daemon puts the crown
on her head and calls her Queen.
We only had a few days there, but we had
one of the most epic scenes take place,
which was a real Thronesian scene.
I think Ryan even told me.
He said, "You know, if anybody asks what
kind of scene they're in,
or what this scene's about, you tell
them, 'It's a Game of Thrones scene.'"
There's a funeral of a dead baby.
There's a knight showing up with a
stolen crown and an impromptu coronation.
There's Everybody at Dragonstone
takes the knee. It's pretty unbelievable.
What's beautiful about Ryan's writing
is that there's five scenes
within every scene.
You know, and a scene like that is, is
there, there's a very quiet mom-and-dad,
husband-wife moment in there.
There's the watchful eye of Rhaenys,
who's watched Rhaenyra since she was 14,
in terms of the moves she's making,
if she's worthy of Queen.
The cast just nailed it, and barely
a word is spoken in the sequence.
I actually was emotional
at the end of Monsanto.
To go to these corners and edges of
Dragonstone you haven't seen before,
and to understand how it's all put
together, was important.
And when you're done,
you accomplish something like that,
and you've somehow conquered
the side of a mountain.
And you've brought the show to life in a
place that nobody has ever filmed before.
It's one of those days
you'd never, ever forget.
This is the joy of this series, I think,
is that there is so many different sets
and different architectural styles.
And Storm's End
doesn't disappoint in that respect.
The clue is in the title, really.
It's at the end of the world,
and it's lashed by storm and lightning,
and wind and rain the whole of the time.
So, another bleak place to inhabit.
I am prince Lucerys Velaryon.
I bring a message
to Lord Borros from the Queen.
We backtracked in, so that the scenes
leading up to Storm's End
would also be shot on The Volume or on
green screen, so that everything,
kind of, kept an aesthetic piece.
Storm's End was a Volume set primarily
'cause there does not exist a castle
that looks like Storm's End,
outside or in.
We wanted to give those final ten
minutes of the show a particular look.
the eyepatch coming off, 'cause
that'll give us a real chance to see it.
Then a moment, and then come in,
and you go and scoop it back.
When we're producing ancient monuments'
interiors with stone walls,
it's a more tricky element
to do convincingly.
You can put a set in,
in that sort of semi-circle.
And I think the trick there, obviously,
is where you merge reality
of a hard set into those screens.
They're just looking through the lens,
and they're sort of lining up a shot.
And, you know, the beauty of it is
they're able to line up that castle
that otherwise wouldn't be there
in the frame,
and really make that a part
of their shot composition.
We made the stone throne,
and we made the benches.
And then, Art Department made
the structures around the edge.
And that was it, really.
And until they put something
up there, it's like, "Is this gonna work?
Is it gonna make sense?"
They put an image up there, and you
stand in the middle and look around,
and you kind of go, "Oh, yes.
I can see how this is gonna work."
Go home, pup.
And tell your mother that the
Lord of Storm's End is not some dog
that she can whistle up at need
to sup against her foes.
The key, really, to Storm's End, is not
so much what happens inside
as what happens outside,
which is our first dragon fight.
The dragon fight at the end
of season one is our big grand finale.
It's the first dragon fight put to film
in Game of Thrones,
and we had to make
it one for the record books.
And you care about, I think, the two
riders riding on their backs, so it's
it's a drama sequence,
but it's also visual spectacle.
And it involves, you know, all of our
best tools with all of our best vendors,
and visual effects and all that
coming together
to hopefully make
a fantastic sequence.
No, I just told them,
"Make sure it's really good,
don't come back to me unless it is.
See you later, I'll be back on Monday."
Yeah, I bought these dragon toys to use
for the dragon fight, and kind of,
with my iPhone, started to construct
and block out what would start to happen.
I was flying them with my hands,
and he was shooting them,
and that's how it all started.
It went through a process
of first understanding
what the evolution
of that chase would be,
and what the characters
are going through.
Or maybe get close so that we see
Luke's face looking around.
-And then
-We look down. Right.
And then I have to make
it interesting, visually.
You think Luke, you know,
Luke's fighting a storm, and then,
in this kind of horror movie way, we
start to reveal that Vhagar is lurking.
And now down. We're down
for a few seconds, and Vhagar!
Then it becomes a dragon chase,
and a dragon fight.
It's really about getting, you know,
a more accurate, computer-controlled,
hydraulic buck that can move faster.
And then you've got quite a lot of roll,
left to right, as well, John.
But still safely, it's about finding
ways in which you can composite
your actors from this buck onto the back
of a dragon, and it feel believable.
It's really about the interaction that
these different surfaces
have with the wind and the rain.
We spent days shooting
the actors for the final battle,
in The Volume, on the motion base.
And what made it really interesting
is we shot it in wind and rain and smoke.
This was new to us shooting
The Volume.
We are all very careful
about how we shot in The Volume.
It's a very expensive space,
and so, you don't really want to keep
covering it in smoke.
You don't want to be
getting them wet too much either.
So then, we talked a lot about
how we could do all the physical
things that our series demands.
We have lots of atmospheric texture.
We talked a lot about how
to do that in The Volume,
and well, I think
we overcame a lot of things.
It's so immersive, being in The Volume.
And even with the bookwork,
to have the rain machine
and the wind machine within it.
It really does encourage you to just
lose yourself in the, in the moment,
and in the character.
It was cool going onto it, being lifted
up, 'cause you actually get lifted up.
And you feel like you're,
you know, flying in the sky.
It was really great fun.
How does it feel to watch
a CG version of yourself?
I know. That's gonna be me.
It's gonna make me cry.
I think what excites me about this show,
and what I'm gonna enjoy
watching over and over when
when it comes out is,
I love this element of surprise
on this show.
And what I mean by that is all
the characters are dimensional.
They all have a heart that you can feel.
What I hope viewers will walk away with
is a deeply-felt and truly-told story
of a family, and I hope there
are moments there
that are really human and relatable.
And that it's not about good versus bad,
that it's about people
who are really all trying to do the best
they can with what they know at the time,
and how that sort of all goes wrong.
It's a great family drama,
but the epicness, and all the scale,
and all the things that people come
to know and love about the show
are in service of this deeply emotional
story that's taking place at the center.
It's so big.
Like, there are bits that I have
nothing to do with that are unbelievable.
So, I mean, that all that size that we
loved in Game of Thrones is here.
I hope that it's gonna be a new series
that just sparks the imagination
and the excitement
that we've had before.
The first episodes of the show tried
to stick a little bit to the visual
vocabulary of what Game of Thrones did.
But, hopefully, what we want
to do on ten
is just push it to the edge
a little more.
I genuinely hope that audiences are open
to watching a new chapter
in the Game of Thrones saga that will
evolve to earn its own right,
and have a place in, you know, the Game
of Thrones, the Westerosian world.
I'm really, really proud
of the job that everybody did.
The crew seems to be,
like, very at home here, which is great.
Work's near my house, so it's great for
me. It's You know what I mean? It is!
Genuinely, I couldn't
have done this in a different country.
I wouldn't have made it.
Listen, there's just a few things
I wanted to say.
Firstly, from myself, from Ryan,
we can't thank you enough.
Thank you so much.
You have all worked above and beyond
the call of duty. It's been amazing.
That's become our
House of Dragons backlot,
so we can stay there and develop
over the years.
They're building more stages next season.
It's new, it's contemporary,
it has all the facilities,
so it's a joy to work on
a space like this.
I can watch behind the scenes stuff
on all the shows, and go,
"Wow, that's amazing," you know.
It's been great working
among sets with real things,
and cutlery,
and the world around you.
It's been a joy.
The most rewarding moments working
on this show is really with the actors.
I really enjoyed delving into
the characters, working on the scenes.
It was a true collaboration.
And by the end of it, we were just
working very instinctively together.
What I've liked most is actually
getting to know all these people.
Relationships that I've had with
the cast has been extraordinary.
People who are now my mates.
And I think what's, again, what Miguel
and Ryan have done,
and all of the directors
that we've had
I don't think there's one person that
I've come across where I thought,
"Oh, he or she is a bit dodgy."
I don't know.
That's an incredible thing, to create
in an atmosphere like that.
That's extraordinary.
It's been really nice to be
all together, like a family.
Just being able to do this job, too,
achieves what I certainly would've,
20 years ago, called my dream job
is another thing entirely.
So, it's really amazing.