Following the success of Game of Thrones (GOT), its prequel series, House of the Dragon (HOTD), has become hugely popular, and fans are taking to the Internet to learn more about the series and books it is based on.
In case you missed it, the show’s creators launched a companion documentary series. The House that Dragons Built gives fans an in-depth look at the making of HOTD and the best behind-the-scenes secrets on the wildly popular show. Now, you can stream The House that Dragons Built on HBO Go with PLDT Home. Here are a few interesting facts that we gathered from the documentary series.
The tournament arena was built from scratch.
The tournament scene in the pilot episode was probably the first action scene that fans got from the series. The arena is a macrocosm of the power and wealth of the Targaryen dynasty; it dwarfs the arena that Robert Baratheon used to host his events in Game of Thrones, with hardcore fans already comparing the grand arena in HOTD to the less-than-stellar one in GOT. Miguel Sapochnik, GOT’s showrunner, almost fell from his chair when production designer Jim Clay presented the plans for the coliseum-like arena since the former knew it would incur huge costs. Eventually, Sapochnik realized the arena’s big role, so he greenlit its construction.
The arena crowd is made completely out of CGI.
The producers hired 150 extras for the tournament scene, but it required thousands of people to cheer and jeer as the knights battered each other. The showrunners turned to technology to fill in the gaps and employed CGI (computer-generated imagery). Huge crowds would mean a logistical nightmare and would be too costly. They thickened the crowd through a CGI technique called “sprites.” It involved shooting extras in various angles, then digitally adding multiple versions of them in a specific frame, all with varying angles, color grading, and slight twitching.
The showrunners employed ‘Volume’ technology.
CGI is great for creating fantastic, out-of-this-world backgrounds that would otherwise be impossible or impractical to be built using practical effects (puns not intended). But CGI can also be very costly and time-consuming, plus there is the issue of actors finding it challenging to internalize a scene when they are made to act on an empty screen or sound studio. One innovative alternative to CGI is called Volume. It is a massive stage surrounded by high-definition LED screens that projects a real-time virtual image of the location that the film requires. It gives the entire production a live feed of their virtual location as they shoot. Images projected by the Volume are so high-definition and so realistic it is nearly impossible to tell they are fake once the final cut is screened. One such scene where Volume is employed is the confrontation scene in Dragonstone.
Only a third of the Targaryen ship is practical.
It was built in a blue screen-covered back lot. The ship was massive and detailed, but only the ground and some ropes were actually there; everything else was CGI. They used fog machines, giant fans, gimbals, and waterspouts to sell the effect out in the sea–and it worked!
The Battle of the Stepstones involved a lot of camera movement.
While not at par with the Battle of the Bastards and the Long Night, the Battle of the Stepstones was the show’s first major war scene. Therefore, it had to be dynamic, chaotic, violent, and exciting. The production team used various techniques such as cables, Maxima, and Steadicams to get things right.
Stream wider world-class entertainment exclusively on HBO Go
The House that Dragons Built is still streaming on HBO Go! Don’t get left behind; watch exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from HOTD’s creators as each episode unfolds.
Stream the whole season of House of the Dragon on HBO Go powered by the best on the Philippine Internet – PLDT Home.