Day 60: Filming continues at Castle Ward

We are now nearly a third of the way through this planned 30-week shoot for Game of Thrones. It sounds like they are continuing to film at Castle Ward. Last week it was reported that they would be filming at Castle Ward for a bit more, then would be heading to Tollymore and Greyabbey. According to some of the crew, there are close to 50 locations being used for this first season.

Yesterday, we received this report from kryptkfysh who visited the set at Castle Ward.

I was really looking forward to seeing what sort of sets they’d put together for filming the TV adaptation of A Game of Thrones. There were a lot of people in costume, the stables were decked out in wolfshead livery and there were horses galore (which Badger wanted to eat).

Alas, they were actively filming in the hall, so we couldn’t go in. We did get a very good look at a large, albino alsation that I assume will be playing the part of Ghost.

Most interesting in that report is the revelation that they are apparently using German Shepherds as the direwolves. Or at the very least, a white German Shepherd as Ghost. The_Rabbit turned up a picture of a white Alsatian on Twitter. I have to say, I hope they are using CGI to change the look somewhat because that just looks like a white dog to me. Not a direwolf.

Meanwhile, the urgent casting calls for Dothraki extras in both Northern Ireland and Malta indicate that the filming of the Dany scenes will began in earnest very soon. It is unclear whether production will halt in Northern Ireland once they began filming in Malta. If I had to guess, I would suspect they might continue to do second-unit type filming, establishing shots and the like, that don’t require the principal cast.

UPDATE: We almost forgot to add this last item. Archery master Stephen Ralphs, who worked on such high-profile projects as Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur, Robin Hood with Russell Crowe, and (*ehm*) Eragon in the past, has given an interview for MovieWeb.com. In it, he reveals his involment with Game of Thrones, which may continue in the future. Here’s the relevant quote:

I’m hopefully going to be working on a thing called Game of Thrones, a TV series I’ve made the bows for it and I’m talking to the armorer now about how we’re going to do those particular scenes. Hopefully that will come to fruition in the next couple of weeks.

• Published on 09/23/2010 at 9:37 AM CDT
• Last updated on 09/23/2010 at 9:37 AM CDT