How they did it. Shooting Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is the HBO TV series everyone is talking about, but, have you ever wondered how they shot it? 

Shooting Game of Thrones

Like every production of its genre different directors and cinematographers have been working in different episodes: the challenge was to match visions and maintain a certain consistency to the whole series. This task wasn't easy at all, considering that the story develops in dissimilar locations spread from the snowed north down to the sunny south and the shooting time they had was almost the same  of a one location TV series: about 18 days per episode.

During the preproduction, several tests were made to chose the best camera possible to achieve functionality and good quality; this time digital won the battle with film: Arri Alexa camera was chosen for its characteristics similar to films, details in highlights, noiseless images in very low light conditions (Alexa recommended ISO is 800) and of course the quickness of delivering and watching dailies (raw, unedited footage of the shooting day). As I said, Games of Thrones was shot in different locations (Iceland, Northern Ireland, Croatia, Malta, Morocco...) because every kingdom has its own climate and environment; this wouldn't have been possible if they didn't have two units shooting simultaneously: dailies and flip books with screen shoots of the scenes and locations were absolutely necessary and consulted by cinematographer to give consistency to the shooting. 

Above, the original frame. Below, after VFX

Every kingdom has a different look: blueish and cold for the Wall, a sort of Mediterranean feel for King's Landing, harsher light in Red Waste and Quarth; but the way of shooting and lighting is basically the same. The camera is often hand held, crane and dolly are used but not excessively, the focal length of the lenses (they used Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo zoom lenses) is normally between 21mm and 85mm. Light is natural but expressionistic: windows, doors, fireplaces, candles, etc. are used as light-sources but light is always exaggerated making the scene more dramatic.  Low light scenes are abundant: lots of scenes were lit just with candles taking advantage of Alexa´s characteristics; or, especially in the scenes shot in the snowed woods of the North,  Wendy lights mounted on high cranes were used to simulate the light of the moon. Quite often the Key light is place behind the actors, shot in back-light. 

Above, the original frame. Below, after VFX

The art direction department made a great work creating a new world from the scratch, inspiring themselves in different cultures from modern and past time achieving a really believable result. Another aspect which gives credibility to the scenes and the whole series is the use of visual and 3D effects created by the Irish VFX company Screen Scene, which, apart from animating dragons and other creatures, changed and beautified landscapes and castles, multiplied people and objects and made battles far more spectaculars.

Game of Thrones managed to gather more and more public throughout the 3 seasons and today, Monday 10th of June, season 3 finale will be aired. But their fans should not wait too long for new episodes: the filming of season 4 will start on July.

How I did it. Shooting a music video with "lens whacking" effect

Are You familiar with the technique of lens whacking? Here's a music video shot few months ago where I used this effect:

Dies de Pluja (Official) - No Tinc Nòvia

Whacking lens technique is an effect that allows you to get light leaks and different focal planes by which only a small area of the frame is focused.  The way to achieve this effect is not attaching the lens to the camera. Normally the light reaches the sensor, or the film, trough the lens which leads it and distributes it all over the sensible surface. When the lens is not attached some light will enter through the open spaces between the camera and the lens causing light leaks. The bigger they are, the more light will enter. 

Also the light leak will move across the frame if the lens is rotated and moved back and forward. If you tilt the lens then you'll add another effect, typical of tilt-shift lenses: the focal plane changes so it is not the same of the sensor or the film but swerved of some degrees; this means that only one part of the image will be in focus.

Light leak. Frame from the video

The lens whacking effect creates very interesting, cool and different images, adding a natural retro look and allows you to connect with the camera and be very creative. It works perfectly well to edit together two different shots if you play with the amount of light hitting the sensor. You have to bear in mind that light leaks produce low saturated images and flatten the contrast and, if you really concerned about the sensor and its cleanness, don't even think about using this technique, because it will get loads of dirt!

 

I used the lens whacking technique in this low budget music video for a simple reason: the lyrics deal with the great effort you need in life to carry on trough adversities, so the atmosphere the words recall is quite sad and melancholic; the title says it all: "dies de pluja" is Catalan for raining days. But the authors wanted this video to be positive and give an optimistic message. I decided to do this with light: light is life and it should have been everywhere throughout the video, becoming one more character of it. So I constantly looked for flares, trough the lens whacking technique and by not flagging lights in the scene allowing light spills into the lens. I also used the soft orange tone to achieve this purpose and add a sense of calm and serenity to the whole video.