All language subtitles for The.House.That.Dragons.Built.S01E03.720p.HMAX.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

I remember thinking,
"This is gonna be a nightmare."

Are we actually gonna do this,
and do this here?

It's literally like playing Cowboys and
Indians when you were a kid.

There's been a lot of tough challenges.
That was up there.

It was epic.

This is exactly what you signed
up for in the first place.

This is why you do it.

Essentially, the concept of the episode is,
while Daemon goes off to real war,

Viserys, again, as he did with the
tournament in the pilot, plays a blood sport.

In this case,
the blood sport is a hunt.

We treated that
as another show of power.

That when the King goes out on
a hunt, thousands of people go with him.

Here's to His Grace
on his second name day.

We spent a lot of
time researching medieval hunts,

and the kinds of things that would go on,
so we could get the details of that correct.

We
looked at medieval tapestries,

of which a lot of that world
is sewn into history anyway.

So you can glean ideas
of who arrived at such events.

The important thing was to
really expand on the idea of decadence.

It was a really impressive
undertaking from the art department

to create what was effectively
a kind of a festival.

It wasn't like, "Oh, we'll just
shoot in this back bit here."

I mean, it was like the whole-- It
was like a whole town that they built.

And background action,
and horses, and dogs.

Look at all the dogs!

They'll eat you for lunch.

The hunt was a massive
sequence for us to shoot,

because we had
all walks of life there.

We have nobles,
we have knights on horseback,

we have chicken pluckers,
we have latrine diggers.

We have dressed over
118 principal actors,

and 12,000 extras
over the course of this shoot.

And the fires, the
cooking, the preparing, the weapons.

All of these different sort of stations
within the camp have to be established.

An awful lot of that was props.
We put up so many tents.

And every tent
needed to be dressed.

Inside some of them,
outside all of them.

It was absolutely full of detail
wherever you looked.

It just brought
that world to life.

Love acting. Again?

The process of that
is getting it right, sooner rather than later.

I think that's what's helped us along the
way, is a lot of really great communication.

- Is it sharp?
- No.

Ow!

Miguel and Ryan, at the beginning, they'd
come up to the art department, set dec,

and we'd show them the model
makers and what they were doing.

All the different
ideas for the props, the sets.

God, the work is unbelievable.

That's one of the things about this as
well, is all the work that goes on.

And you just turn up
in the morning with your coffee.

And people have been here
with hammers and nails,

and God knows what at all hours,
making this world real for you.

The Aldershot
location was just incredible.

But Charlie had an expression that
carried through all production, which was,

"There will be weather."

We were lucky in that the dressing time
we had there, the weather was pretty good.

You know, it stayed dry, we didn't
have a lot of wind or anything.

But the morning of the shoot...

We arrived at silly o'clock in
the morning, and a security guard said,

"It's nice now, but at nine
o'clock, it's going to be biblical."

And I just remember
that word, "biblical".

It poured!

I mean, we got slammed.

There was sideways winds, and there
was tents flapping and trim coming off.

It feels like almost an
English version of monsoon weather.

There was a point where
it looked like there was gonna be

a repeat of Terry Gilliam
Lost in La Mancha,

where you see his entire set
drifting away, down a mudslide.

All the makeup and costume
tents had to be evacuated

because of the river that was
running through the middle of the set.

It was mental! It was mental.

I think we just
thought, "Our game is up."

I am, uh, constantly surprised
at the English weather.

But it really makes for an incredible
beauty that we've been able to capture.

The nature of filming is,
"The show must go on."

There's a lot of characters
in the story.

And we have to introduce them
kind of quickly and efficiently,

in a way that feels organic
to the storytelling.

It's just this fucking asshole.

No... Hey, guys!

RYAN J. CONDAL:
Those royal hunts were the--

that was the event that was looked
forward to all year long in those times.

And only the-- you know, the most
elite had been invited to this thing.

Helmet. Pommel.

Anthony,
we'll put you onto the bus.

Fierce, loyal expression.

I love when the Lannisters,
and the Starks, and the Baratheons,

and you hear these
names that you know.

And you know these are the ancestors of the
people that you came to know on the show.

And... action!

I mean, those days are fun,
just 'cause you get to finally see everyone.

It was just really nice to just all
be together and just, like, have a laugh.

It was amazing just to see
everything in motion.

Luckily, for my first few weeks, I did
nothing but sort of skulk in the background,

which is quite handy.

You have Jason and Tyland,
who are twin brothers on the show.

It's really great to watch
Jefferson play both characters,

because he plays Jason Lannister
with that Gaston, you know,

"Of course
you'll wanna be with me!"

And it's really great to watch.

I'd do anything for my queen.

Thank you for the wine.

The secret agenda of the
nameday is to also marry Rhaenyra.

Once she figures it out, she ends
up retreating, and blowing off the party,

and going off into the woods
for the bulk of it.

You have everybody in medieval
and beautiful bespoke costumes.

And then you have guys
running around in blue leotards.

And it's just like,
"What is that show?"

Ah, the Blue Man Group?

Yeah, it's really cool to see
all that stuff come together.

It's amazing
how much goes into it.

On the day, we had one
of my guys playing the boar.

So, he would run around
and knock over the actors.

It was just this man in a
blue morph suit with, like, a face mask on.

Kind of like Spider-Man,
but just blue.

Just pelting at me. It was
actually quite terrifying.

She had to have
something, or someone, to fight against.

It's much easier for us
if there's a person

who is happy to put on a
Lycra suit and interact with our actors.

It means that
the cameraman's got something to follow.

You can see the action.
You can see the flow.

You can cut the scene
to that action.

And it just makes it feel
more realistic as a result.

Milly doesn't like boars,

and she stabs them whenever
she gets the opportunity.

That poor boar. Yeah.

The white stag is not
really something from George's mythology per se.

I mean, that's something that we
borrowed from Arthurian tales.

It is a combination effort
between stunts, special effects,

and visual effects really,
to get the thing right.

Quite a lot of animals are in this
episode, too, and all of them are completely CG.

Who's gonna be
the front and the back?

I think they just tossed a coin.

I always wonder if that guy, for all
future time, says, "deer's ass" or "stag's end."

Go, Chrissy! Go, Chrissy!

- Chrissy, man. Yeah! Woo!
- Freedom!

Kill that Smurf! Yeah!

Miguel wanted me
to come in and do episode three.

It was a huge episode.

It had, really, one of
the big battles for the season.

You open with Daemon
on a full assault.

Also, to give us
the geography of the battle

that's to come
later in the episode.

You're trying
to quickly set the stage

for what this conflict in the
Stepstones has been like for three years.

The Crabfeeder and
his men are coming out,

doing a bit of fighting, and then
running back inside when the dragons come.

And it's tiring
and it's exhausting,

and we're not seem
to be getting anywhere.

We wanted a gritty, kind
of Vietnam battle against a guerrilla army.

And how do we use the landscape
and the technology to tell that story?

That whole storyline is sort
of explained in one big, long shot.

There's a lot of exposition
that takes place in there

and our work, in particular,
carries quite a lot of that.

To have a volume available,

we were learning a lot
as we were going along.

We learned how much more
we could do

than we thought we could do.

What was brilliant
about the volume

was that that interactive light
on the gentlemen riding dragons,

that just ties you perfectly
into the scene.

This is a case where we weren't
using the volume as a real-time set extension.

We're just using it as
the ultimate lighting space.

Daemon has been failing upwards,

and now he's faced with
an opportunity to be taken seriously,

and he's finding it
very hard to fulfill.

I bring word
from His Grace, Viserys Targaryen.

Rather than
have his brother come

to again,
get him out of trouble,

he would just rather go
and like die on the battlefield.

As Daemon was coming up
the beach in Cornwall,

we now see that beach
from episode two,

now fully covered in bodies.

The whole battle itself was originally
set to take place on that beach.

And I scouted it and was like,
"There's no way."

We literally
would have been able to shoot

for about three or four hours,
and there just wasn't the time

to get through the workload.

Even if
the weather was kind.

Because of all
our tidal issues in Cornwall,

and on the beaches in general,
the idea was to recreate

a beach
in a controllable environment.

So we could shoot continuously,

and get the same
environments every day.

The joke on set became it was
the Battle of the Backlot.

The challenge is,
with moving it to the studio,

is suddenly,
everything feels fake.

You know that it's gonna be
a real team effort

to make
all that work together.

So to create
the soldiers and sailors,

we would all get together.

Prosthetics, hair,
costume, makeup.

Once we'd created them,
it took weeks

to age them
and break them down.

There's a lot of seaweed,
and we've got that going in.

We've been burning timbers
left, right, and center,

to do a kind of
post-burn dragon attack look.

That axe? I'm gonna stick it
in Theo's head.

I'm glad there's a camera here.

"Pineapple juice"
is my safe word.

At the beginning
of production, it's always important

to find out
what your big set-up is.

And for us,
it was the Stepstones battle.

One hundred
and sixty-five a side.

Valyrians and Westerosy soldiers
on one.

And then we've got the Triarchy
Tyroshi pirates on the other.

Ryan's keen to have

the Valyrians come across
as rich.

And it's not just those
single characters.

We have all the armies
to deal with as well.

And all the shields to paint.

We had about six bodies.

We also had extras
who were covered in prosthetics.

Huge slashes.

Stakes through the hands
and through the wrists.

The head and torso
section of the craft figure

is quite an extensive build
for us.

Sculpted the cross-section
of the torso

with an articulated armature.

So, when Matt drags him along,

everything kind of
moves correctly.

Eh, yeah.
That was really heavy, actually.

It kept getting waterlogged.

It's, like, the weight
of half a human.

Bless his heart.

There was this moment
for Daemon when he thought,

"The game's up. This is it."

We looked at Black Hawk Down

and the scene
in the ruined helicopter,

and the soldier in there,
knowing he was going to die.

And so we came up
with the boat wreck

and the skeletal frame of a
boat washed up on the beach.

It's really incredible,
what they were able to do.

But then, also, they have
these amazing,

painted 2D backings
that they put

onto the containers
that surrounded the set.

Scenic art in our industry

is often referred to
as a "dying art."

I honestly don't think
it is at all.

People were in awe
of how believable it was.

Essentially, an old
Wile E. Coyote gag.

And it worked.

That's a silent era filmmaking
technique that he used.

And it was mindblowing.

I knew we hadn't yet earned
our ability

to do "The Long Night"
or the "Battle of the Bastards."

But I wanted to try to create
a memorable battle episode

that's something that we hadn't
seen before.

Very early on, Greg and I
started breaking it down.

We had, like, goji berries
and pumpkin seeds.

So we started playing
on the table with that.

This is Daemon's
coming out party

as a warrior and a character.

That's all designed
in little moments that happen

throughout the course
of the shoot.

Not dissimilar
to "Battle of the Bastards."

It's really
a character's journey.

You're really with Matt's
character all the way through.

Size and scan and all that
is irrelevant, really.

It's what you
get right with it.

A few of those things come together,
and you think, "Well, this could be exciting."

It's a sequence that underwent
many, many transformations.

And in the end, I think what was
most important about it...

We needed to show Daemon fail
before he succeeds.

You don't want a Bruce Willis
action hero thing going on.

It's got to be about him
going and losing.

Crabfeeder
is at the cave at the very end.

Daemon is driving
to the end zone.

And as he's doing it every day,
we would redress the set

to be further
and further down there.

We had some
interesting camera moves

that needed to be achieved.

We did quite a lot
with Rowley's wire cam.

Chasing people down.

Sometimes, we used a rig
called a Maxima.

Two grips run through the sand,
and I just sit in a nice,

comfy chair and control
the tilt and the pan.

All those tools are at
your disposal,

and that's been
really liberating,

'cause then nothing's
off the table.

Unreasonable violence, please.

That's what I want.
Chaos and mayhem.

He had never done
a sequence like that before.

I come from a long,
long action background,

so it was great to have him
put his trust in me

and really create a sequence

that felt emotional
all the way through.

The guy takes over,
and you get to swing a sword

and be covered in blood.

I mean, he was slathered
in so much blood

by the end of that thing,
he said it like took two days

to really get it all off of him
at the end of it.

After he's
chopped off the Crabfeeder's head,

I thought,
"Yeah, now we've got Daemon,

now we've got Game of Thrones,
now we've got that look

that everyone wants."

Good job, well done, everybody.

Thank you very much,
appreciate it.

So, we've seen him
in episode one

where he lost to Criston Cole,
so this really is the bit

to show Daemon as being
really skillful.

And we're trying,
again and again,

to deliver something

that doesn't look like something
that we've done before,

and we just rehashed it,
and put a different costume on.

We're trying to find inventive ways
to kill, torture, maim people, basically.

If it moves, beat it up.

Three, two, one... Action!

I don't think anyone can prepare
you for how hard it is.

There's real smoke,
and real fire and wind,

and it all has to happen
together at the same time,

and you have to still
hit your mark.

And you have to go and do it day in, day out.
That's a challenge.

- You look great, Steve.
- Thank you.

Once a week, I go
and choreograph this fight every day.

Cutting heads, I'm smashing the
armor, cutting your limb off.

And then, the day finally comes
when you got to shoot it.

You start off being balletic,
when you start doing it.

And when they're actually
coming at you,

you're going...

And somehow,
they create something

that makes you look like
you know what you're doing,

and like some sort
of lethal killing machine.

They're extraordinary.

One of the things
you haven't seen

is the real power
of the dragon strife.

See smoke comes in,
and blasts dragon strife.

As close as I am to you,
what does that blast feel like?

We had loads of people
getting full burns.

We would need to put charges on
the ground that would engulf them in flame.

And then they're gelled up,
and they just go up.

When you run 160 people
for a set like this,

it's just incredible.
And then set them on fire.

We had 65 stunts,
and we sourced

about 140 background
special action extras.

Rowley's always in his
element when he's holding his bullhorn,

and yelling at the stuntees
and extras.

Yeah, he-- he loves it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I want him on fire.

That's the whole point of it,
it's a fire job.

We've often had like maces
about this big.

And then I thought,
"Well, let's just go bigger."

So, we made blood maces
about this big.

They're made of
sort of plastic-y wax,

and we fill them with about
a liter of blood.

In the moments prior to impact,
it looks like a big metal ball.

And when it hits, it just...

...explodes,
blood everywhere.

Action!

And they actually get paid
every time they get hit for these,

'cause they aren't--

I won't say
they're comfortable,

you're definitely getting hit
with something

quite hard around the head.

I'm really excited about these.

I think we used
every one we had.

When I came out of
the battle, I felt that was...

That was one of those
things where we didn't know

if we had enough time
for the ambition that we wanted,

and we pulled it all off.

You know, the battles are
legendary on Game of Thrones,

so being given one
was incredibly intimidating.

And to complete it was like...

glorious feeling
to finally finish it.

When I looked around at
everybody shooting that battle sequence,

everybody was like
smiling and laughing,

and throwing dirt
and blood, and...

We had a blast.

When you're watching
the monitors,

and you realize
you're bouncing up and down,

you realize that actually,
you're in the moment.

- That's when it's just fun.

I wanted to go fight
with a broadsword...

and get tugged
on a wire rig.

But they don't let me do that.

Because they need me hunched over
a keyboard writing these scripts for them.