HBO gave fans a long-parting look at the making of Game of Thrones on Sunday night (26.05.19) in a two-hour documentary that focused on the Herculean efforts by the small army craft and technical experts who worked on the mammoth fantasy drama.
‘Game of Thrones: The Last Watch’ introduced viewers to the leaders of the below the line departments that breathed life into the “Thrones” milieu with costumes, hair, makeup, special effects, location managers, a fleet of extras and an entire department devoted to snow.
‘Last Watch’ gave a generous spotlight to Bernie Caulfield, the veteran producer who has been hailed by ‘Thrones’ showrunners and executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as the linchpin of the execution of the most expensive and ambitious series ever produced for television, reported Variety.
Here are seven more things you should know about Game of Thrones from ‘The Last Watch’ documentary.
It appears Kit Harington discovered that Jon Snow would slay his love, Daenerys Targaryen, played by Emilia Clarke, during the table read for the final episode, “The Iron Throne.” Footage of the table read in “Last Watch” shows Harington having an emotional reaction during the table read. Harington let loose a few tears, and so did Clarke.
Production designer Deborah Riley illustrates all that was at stake in season eight, where the budget reached some $15 million or more per hour. “All we were doing in seasons 4, 5, 6 and 7 were training for season eight,” Riley explained.
The documentary does a good job of demonstrating the sacrifices that the “Thrones” production crew members made in trekking around Europe to lense the show. Prosthetic makeup experts Sarah and Barrie Gower worked together on the show, which meant leaving their young daughter behind. Sarah Gower is seen tearfully talking to her daughter via Internet video. The series production offices did, in fact, have entire shelves devoted to “shoulders” and other severed body parts.
Among the thousands of small details that had to be minded, one production staffer was assigned to keep an eye on the state of Daenerys’ blond locks. Clarke was also protective of Dany’s mane. “That is still the most beautiful hair I will ever have on my head,” Clarke says, looking at her braided wig while sitting in a makeup chair.
In an effort to protect the highly sought after plot from leaks and spoilers, all of the cast’s scripts were shredded following the table read. The series utilized digital scripts on iPads during the last season, except for director David Nutter, who used paper copies that he locked in a safe each day.
The production also brought in decoys while filming the Dragonpit summit where Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) is elected king to throw off spies. Decoys included The Waif (Faye Marsay), Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha) and Jon Snow, who was actually imprisoned and not present in the final scene.
The Night King may have not spoken in GoT, but Vladimír Furdík sure did in ‘The Last Watch’. He’s a stuntman and choreographer who helped prepare fight scenes, including the Cleganebowl between The Hound (Rory McCann) and The Mountain (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson). Furdík said wearing the mask of the wintry villain “completely changes you.” He offered his personal perspective on the Night King’s destructive ambitions that were never revealed during the series.
As reported by The Sauce, the eighth and final season of the iconic fantasy drama TV show Game of Thrones based on George R.R Martin’s book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ came to an end on the 19th of May 2019.
