Day 13: Filming… something

Filming continues today in Northern Ireland on the Game of Thrones pilot. Another location shoot today, supposedly taking place at a castle in NI. I’m not sure what they are planning on filming and so far my guesses have been pretty far off, so I’ll hold off on any further speculation.

The reports and photos from yesterday’s signing and moot continued to roll in today. Check the updated posts for links to reports and photos from Adam, Jackie and Rimshot! One interesting tidbit that came out of the moot was from Westeros poster Padraig who mentioned that GRRM has stated that HBO will give a final decision on the pilot by March 2010. My guess is that would be the absolute latest they would decide on it. I think hearing something Jan or Feb is more likely.

Rimshot also has gave us a fascinating and interesting report from the set yesterday. Sounds like they were actually filming the kids sparring scene yesterday and not the King’s arrival which was what I had originally speculated. Anyway, here is the full report.

‘The Shoot’

(of course I can’t go into specifics here but I’ll try to give you a flavour of the shoot)

So I’m there, bleary eyed, at 6:15am. There are about 15 of us extras heading to the set today. We all pile into the mini-bus and head of into the pre-dawn day. At the unit-base, we all get off the bus and head into the holding area where our names are checked and we get our costumes on. Various ‘families’ are represented (Stark, Baratheon, Lannister) and their costumes look amazing! I was a wee bit jealous as my Stark servant costume is a bit plain in comparison. We are all separated into our families and there is a bit of banter and shouting amongst us ‘Lannister Bastards!’ shout the Starks etc. The craic is good as they say in Ireland!

We then line up for hair/make up. I have a long haired wig which matches my beard (I’m still picking the glue out of my side-burns). Once we are ready its breakfast!! I don’t normally have a fry on a set but I felt like one today. The caterers on GOT are the same ones we had on Your Highness so I knew the food would be great.

Then it was to the set we went!

We had to walk a bit of the way and at one point I turned round and 4 Stark Guards were walking in a line behind me, capes flowing in the wind.

I thought, ‘Man, that looks impressive!’

The set is just awesome! I wish I could describe it for you but I know you will be impressed.

The 1st AD described what were were doing that day and started placing us and running through our actions. I think I’m ok to say that it is an outdoors scene involving two kids sparring. That much you know already so it isn’t spoiling anything but there was more specific
action/dialogue going on that I won’t go into.

A cool moment was when I was relaxing in between shots. I was sitting on the ground, reading GOT. I had just read a line about Theon Greyjoy when a voice above me asked ‘what do you think of the book?’ I looked up and it was Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen)! We had a nice chat about how GRRM likes to kill off his characters and he told me that the pace really picks up at the end. I was really enjoying chatting to him until another extra came up to him and said ‘Are you Lily’s brother?’ to which he said ‘Yes’ but then moved on.

Also, I saw GRRM taking a photo of the Stark banner that is carved into the side of a wall. I asked him if he enjoyed the previous day and he said he really enjoyed it and was happy with the turnout. There is something cool about seeing GRRM standing in the middle of his creation, taking photos.

At one point I was getting a cup of tea when the Hound appeared right next to me to get one too! I was too intimidated to talk to him. Just wait until you see this guy!!

Anyway, we filmed until after 4pm when we were wrapped.

There are about 100 extras there today (Ace Jones is one of them!) and their call was 3:45am this morning!!

I hope I haven’t given too much away but I tried to be as vague as possible.

I saw some dailies from previous days filming that were being shown to GRRM and they look incredible. Also from what I saw yesterday this is of such a high quality that I think this show is going to rock!

(even one of the chickens laid an egg!!)

That’s all from me. I don’t have anymore days on the GOT pilot but hopefully once the show is picked up, I’ll be back!

UPDATE: Another set report, this one from Knight of Redemption over at the Westeros forums.

Hi boys and girls I thought you might like to hear the impressions of someone who has been on set and has seen some of the rushes. from the last couple of days.

Obviously I am not going to give anything away here, but. I have to say having seen some of the younger cast; Joffry, Jon Snow, Brand and others at work. The casting is inspired. The care being taken, to get every take just so, speaks of a labour of love. The atmosphere on set is is one of a happy crew (I have met many of them on other shoots) The A.D’s extras and other cogs in the filming engine soon get a sense of whether or not they are on a good project. To a man and woman I got the idea that they felt this was a good and well run project.

The Director delighted in pointing out to George a small visual homage to something that happens later in the story…made me smile and I hope it stays in for the final edit. The dedication shown by him and his crew during long days and a punishing shooting schedule is another pointer to the quality of the finished product.

Seeing shooting through the monitor gave me some idea of how the finished thing will look. Let me tell you, it looks great. I think HBO will deliver another fine product and I for one, am sure this will go all the way.

Some of the young actors and actresses stand a good chance of growing up in the world of Westeros and if one or two new stars don’t emerge I will be most surprised. Each of them are looking forward to what faces them as the story unfolds, and as you all know, it will push their skills to the max.

So there we go. I don’t think I written anything to upset the powers that be, and I certainly wont be posting any of the pics they were kind enough to let me take. I just hope I have given you guys a fair impression of was for me, an interesting and fun look behind the scenes.

Thanks to all the cast and crew I met that say, it was a pleasure.

Hi to those I met at the Belfast Moot. It was fun talking swords and armour with you.

UPDATE: Tremere was at the GRRM signing and moot in Dublin today and reported back with some interesting info.

Just came from he Dublin Signing and Moot.

Had a gr8 time here in Dublin with some Westerosi I just met and good old George. Perhaps I should start attending the Westeros forum, as they were all nice people. The queue for the signing was quite long, but I amused myself by looking at some little girls running around wo got phrases painted on their faces as: I love Jaime & Jaime must live. Luckily for them Jaime is only interested in incest so far I’d say…

The bits of information I got are quite small, but here goes. George apparently enjoyed himself greatly watching Bran smack Tommen around on Wednesday. Sean Bean apparently was quite a tough signing, he had to be convinced quite a lot and didn’t come cheap a lot. I guess we should happy they did so to have a gr8 fan favorite join the show.

I of course mentioned the gr8 blog WIC and George told me that even though he tries to stay away from Westeros forum as much as possible, in order to not get influenced, he would occasionally visit Winter is Coming. There you have it Winter, the master himself sticks his nose around every once in a while.

One a more recent news item about the dialect-expert George had the following to say: The Dothraki are getting an entire language of their own. It will be created by this person and i can only guess that it will be the next generation Klingon. Apparently the Dothraki actors are no going to say anything themselves and will be mouthing most of the words while the sound of their voices will get added later.
George personally intended to have several dialects for the several regions of Westeros as it is the size of south america and people would therefore naturally speak differently. For most of Westeros this will be abandoned for the series as you have a mixture of Irish, english, Scottish, Americans etc running around. For the average American, as George put it, it will be too hard to understand anything different anyway or link dialects. I personally have hope that the Dhornish will keep their slurrish accent, but that’s all for due time.

Some notes about the books themselves. george apparently has big issues with chronology. He would love to skip 5 years, but although it would be very to nice some characters like Arya, it will be less understandable for others.
And finally… Mereen is the furthest East the story will go from now on.

• Published on 11/05/2009 at 11:33 AM CDT
• Last updated on 11/05/2009 at 11:33 AM CDT