Storyboard artist Adrien van Viersen has just released some impressive storyboards for one of Game of Thrones‘ biggest and most memorable action sequences from last year: the events at Daznak’s Pit in Meereen from “The Dance of Dragons.” The intro slide:
There are over 170 slides in this collection, and it doesn’t even get started until after Dany has descended into the pit. Sometimes, Game of Thrones doesn’t do storyboarding. The Red Wedding, for example, wasn’t storyboarded at all, but clearly this was not one of those times.
Chaos in Daznak’s Pit. It would be fun to scroll through van Viersen’s storyboards while watching the sequence again.
Van Vierson has put all of the slides up to view on his website, and it’s amazing to take a look at the sequence as it was imagined before the filmmakers turned it all into the epic scene of flashing blades and dragon fire as Drogon sweeps in and saves Daenerys from the Sons of The Harpy.
This was a great moment from the scene, when Daenerys and Missandei clasped hands and seemed to accept that the end had come. We didn’t get them standing back to back like this in the actual sequence, but it’s cool to see the other conceptions the design team came up with.
Drogon lights up some dudes. I like how the second panel above mimics almost exactly one of the official shots from the episode:
These storyboards work!
Drogon gets up close and personal with a Harpy.
Van Viersen’s website also has examples of his work on other major films and television shows, such as X-Men 2 and The Flash.
Maisie Williams spoke to InStyle magazine about life as a teenaged actress and her similarities with Arya, and then offered some foreboding hints about Arya’s storyline next season at a Game of Thrones press launch.
During her interview with the InStyle, Williams discussed dealing with fans at inopportune moments, balancing her public and private life and, of course, her character, Arya. When asked about a personality trait that helps her play the fan-favorite Stark, Maisie replied:
“I’ve never said this in an interview before, but yeah, I have a temper. And I hate it! But that’s what worked with [playing] Arya. I know what it’s like to be really mad!”
At the press launch of the Game of Thrones season 5 DVD boxset, Williams spoke about Arya’s journey over the course of the series and offered some, admittedly bleak, hints as to what we can expect next season 6.
“Every season with Arya adds a different layer, I feel,” she said. “With season five and going into season six, it’s kind of like they’re stripping those away. Although she turns a lot darker, a lot of it is actually what’s underneath, and they’re stripping away the emotion now. It was so interesting reading season five and thinking ‘this is not the girl I’ve auditioned for, at all’.”
“Going into season six, she gets broken down totally. We see her at the lowest point we’ve ever seen her. This time it’s nothing to do with a family member being killed, it’s something purely about herself.
“I love that side of it, and I think this new series, we definitely see a new crack in her. There’s a moment where you question whether she’s going to get back up or keep fighting.”
Geroge R.R. Martin recently revealed that The Winds of Winter will feature a plot twist that’s no longer possible on the show, since one of the characters involved is dead onscreen but alive in the books. Who do we think this plot twist will involve? Any guesses/wishful thoughts as to what it might entail? The Small Council is in session.
DAN: Back when Martin first mentioned that he was thinking about including a plot twist the show could no longer make work, I was hoping he would eventually drop another hint or two about it, and he did not disappoint.
I’m not sure which character might be involved, but I have an idea of who’s not a part of it. As much I miss them on the show, I doubt that Stannis or Barristan Selmy is involved in this plot twist. They may not be dead yet in the books, but the writings is kind of on the wall for both of them—I’m not convinced they’ll last long enough to participate in a twist.
I think we should look at characters whose potential in the books remains unfulfilled. When I heard that the twist involved someone who’s died on the show but remains alive in the books, my first thoughts went to Jojen Reed.
So much about this kid and his family remains shrouded in mystery. Where do his powers come from? His father, Howland Reed, was one of Ned Stark’s best friends—what does he know about the Stark patriarch’s past? The Reed castle, Greywater Watch, is said to move—what does that even mean? There’s a lot of uncertainly about Jojen, and it strikes me fertile ground for plot twists.
As to what exactly that plot twist will involve, I couldn’t begin to guess. I dunno…Jojen is Melisandre’s son. Probably not. All I know is that I thought it was a shame when the character was killed off on Game of Thrones, because there’s more to him than he showed.
RAZOR: This intrigues me, because I can’t imagine the twist having anything to do with a minor character, so that narrows the playing field down a bit. I don’t think the twist has anything to do with Jojen, as I believe he is dead and mashed up into paste, Dan…duh. But, I also don’t think the twist is an obvious sign pointing at our favorite bastard, either. My mind instantly went to Stannis when I heard this news.
I know Dan thinks the writing’s on the wall for the rightful King of Westeros, but I disagree. In fact, at the end of A Dance with Dragon, his story was about to get a whole lot better. Theon Greyjoy was about to divulge all sorts of secrets about Ramsay Bolton to him, Tycho Nestoris had just agreed to fund his campaign to regain the Iron Throne for House Baratheon, and he had figured out that House Karstark had betrayed him and he dealt with the traitorous Lord Karstark and his men. Stannis Baratheon is prepared for any attack by Ramsay Bolton.
What if the twist is that Theon escapes Stannis and kills him? Or, what if Stannis actually lays a trap for Ramsay at the crofter’s village because the snow is so deep, and Ramsay and his men ride out on the ice with all the holes in it, fall through and drown, and Stannis wins the battle? Could this be the twist? Stannis actually winning? Boy would that be a thumb in the eye of the television showrunners.
ANI: Let’s do this the logical way. Who is alive in the books and dead on screen?
Myrcella
Mance
Barristan
Jeyne Westering (Talisa)
Jojen
Pyp
Grenn
Stannis
Shireen
Hizdahr de Loraq
Now, let’s roll through twists that could possibly involve them.
Myrcella: In Dorne, being hidden away by Doran who doesn’t want the Lannisters to find out she’s been horribly disfigured. A good twist for her? It would involve her finding out that the Dornish are secretly supporting the Targaryens, and being the way those in King’s Landing find out.
Jojen: He takes Meera and goes home. When they arrive, it is revealed that Meera is Jon Snow’s twin sister.
Pyp and/or Grenn: Instrumental in helping Resurrected Jon Snow in taking Winterfell after they follow him South, leaving the Night’s Watch.
Mance: Currently being tortured by Ramsay Bolton. He could be the twist that helps Jon Snow defeat the Boltons and retake Winterfell
Stannis: Pledges his allegiance to Resurrected Jon Snow, providing him and army to take back Winterfell.
Shireen: She reads a thing in a book that allows the Night’s Watch to defend Castle Black when the White Walkers finally attack?
Barristan: Left behind in Meereen. He would be a fantastic way to get Tyrion into the city and running things. (Currently, Tyrion missed meeting Dany, and only saw her in a dragon riding fly by.)
Hizdahr de Loraq: Hires an amusign dwarf to help him run things. Accidentally gives away everything about Dany, allowing Tyrion to take control of Meereen.
Jeyne Westerling: She had Robb’s baby after all.
A note on the poll: for purposes of simplicity, we’re not going to include characters whose deaths are ambiguous, undisclosed, or otherwise weird.
Posted by Westeros.org, “Robert’s Rebellion” is narrated by Ian McElhinney as Ser Barristan Selmy. The animated feature includes events from the War of the Ninepenny Kings, the reign of Aerys II, the Battle of the Trident, and more!
Welcome to another humorous look into the world of Game of Thrones. Today, Ellen DeGenerous teases the upcoming season…well, an imagined upcoming season featuring the likes of Robert the Cousin of Morty, Sir Brian the Hatless, Sytyryiaenys of Mlechwstcsis (typical Westerosi name) and Mlechwstcsis of Sytyryiaeny (the other typical Westerosi name), the Mayor of Munchkinland, Kris, Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Baratheon, Edward the Bathrobe Knight, Pam, Whitesnake Featuring David Coverdale, Sideburn Jones, and the new neighbor, Kimmy Gibbler.
Next, a lovely person on the internet has sorted various characters from Game of Thrones into different Hogwarts houses. You know, from Harry Potter. They don’t always get it right, but that provides more fodder for discussion.
Like hell Theon’s in Gryffindor. He’s as Hufflepuff as they come. For the characters who belong in the other houses, check out Wizards and Whatnot. I think it goes without saying that Ramsay Bolton belongs in House Burn-everything-to-the-ground.
Next up, a nice 90’s video homage to Jon Snow. The song is a parody of Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” Ahhh, the Gen-X feels: you kids today don’t really know what good music is, what with your Adeles and your Keshas…but I digress. Oh, warning: the song has some NSFW bits to it, so be careful if you’re at work.
Finally, earlier this week, the official Game of Thrones Twitter account went crazy and started releasing loads of new Season 6 posters. Of course, the internet got a hold of them and, being the internet, reworked them, and voilà! We have Deadpool in the Hall of Faces!
That’s it for this week’s Game of Thrones humor roundup. We hope you’ve enjoyed your trip. Come back next week, as I’m sure the internet will find a hundred new ways to skewer our favorite show.
The Game of Thrones Season 5 boxset, available on DVD and Blu-ray, is coming out on March 15, and Watchers on the Wall has a first look at one of the new “History and Lore” features. The “History and Lore” segments dive into parts of the Song of Ice and Fire mythology that the producers don’t have time to cover on the show. The Season 5 boxset will feature a slew of new ones, including this one on the Many-Faced God, whom the Faceless Men of Braavos serve. It’s narrated, naturally, by Tom Wlaschiha, who plays Faceless Man Jaqen H’ghar.
This video does a good job of tying together other History and Lore features, like those on the Faith of the Seven and the Drowned god, and you gotta love how all the gods form a skull at the end. I was hoping that it might go into the history of the Faceless Men’s organization as described in the books, but the production might be saving that for another History and Lore feature. As you can see from the list below, we’re getting quite a few of them on the Season 5 boxset:
The Lord Commanders: narrated by Ser Alliser Thorne (Owen Teale)
Winterfell: narrated by Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton)
The Seven-Pointed Star: narrated by The High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce)
The Faith Militant: narrated by The High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce)
Dorne: narrated by Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma)
Robert’s Rebellion: narrated by Barristan Selmy (Ian McElhinney)
Braavos: narrated by Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss)
The Many-Faced God: narrated by Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha)
The Faceless Men: narrated by Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss)
Volantis: narrated by Lord Varys (Conleth Hill)
The River Rhoyne: narrated by Lord Varys (Conleth Hill)
Greyscale & The Stone Men: narrated by Qyburn (Anton Lesser)
The Fighting Pits of Meereen: narrated by Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman)
The Great Masters: narrated by Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel)
Note how over half of the features are focused on Essos. I suppose the producers have covered a whole lot of Westerosi facts on the first four season boxsets. I’m particularly looking forward to the one on the River Thoyne, Roose Bolton’s take on Winterfell, and Barristan Selmy’s discussion of Robert’s Rebellion—that’s a topic the production has covered before, so I wonder what new perspective Barristan will bring to it.
And this doesn’t include the 20-minute video about the Dance of the Dragons, which will feature the narration talents of Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon), Harry Lloyd (Viserys Targaryen), Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell), Mark Addy (Robert Baratheon), Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark), and Jack Gleeson (Joffrey Baratheon). The Season 5 boxset is shaping up rather nicely.
Several Game of Thrones cast members have been out in force to hype up the Season 5 DVD and Blu-ray boxset, leading to several interview snippets being released by various outlets this week. In most, the media has focused on one particular actor’s statements. But The Independent has gone wide, asking several of the actors to discuss one of the harder aspects of creating the series: working with those dreaded green screens that are necessary for all the show’s CGI effects.
Game of Thrones has been winning awards ever since the first season for its use of CGI, to the point that some major cinematographers have begun to demand that VFX get their own category separate from actual photography in awards shows like the Emmys. But though the fantasy genre in general has pushed the use of CGI to another level in recent years, for actors, working with green screens can be very frustrating, especially if they haven’t got a good mental picture of what they’re actually supposed to be looking at. (Ian McKellen famously had a minor breakdown on the set of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey from this exact frustration.)
Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) claims that, although sometimes we think the use of green screen is extensive, the show goes out of its way to use them as little as possible. The producers try to film on location or on a set whenever possible. Also, the CGI budget simply doesn’t match that of a big budget franchise film, so when they do have to use VFX, it rarely looks as good as it would on the big screen.
Cunningham: “The boat that we travel on to Braavos is actually in a car park – they’ve obviously got to use [VFX] to get the sea right – but there is such beautiful attention to detail from the costumes, from the sets, from the props – they’re magnificent. This goes right down to when I handed over money to Salladhor Saan in the brothel. They brought out this coin that was so intricately made even though there was never going to be a close up of it. The money was minted with two different forms of metal with the Braavos bank seal. That morale is right through the crew, everything they make they want people to look at and ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over, they want it to be real as possible.”
For her part, Maisie Williams says she’s grateful the show works so hard to make physical sets, like last year’s Hall of Faces. (Some of it was CGI, but the close up set existed, so that the actors had a very good idea of what the rest would look like.) “Particularly when you’re trying to work with someone else, as you’re both imagining something totally different – neither of you are imagining exactly what they’re going to put there.”
They’re like ‘look out to the castle’ and you just think ‘well, how far away is it? Is it right here?’ and although you can ask all of those questions it never looks right. You watch it back and you think ‘I can tell I’m looking at a green screen’, even though for an audience member it may not register.
Getting back to praising the props on the show, Cunningham added that even the costume detail is meticulous, joking that for Carice van Houten’s Melisandre costume, “the material is made of very faint skulls, just millions of tiny skulls.”
Personally, I think that would be really hard to sit down in, no? Perhaps that’s why Melisandre is always standing around glowering.
