The director of photography (DP) behind House of the Dragon’s most iconic shot talked about how they created that moment, alongside all the other fun dragon sequences in Season 2 Episode 6/7.
House of the Dragon, and the original series Game of Thrones, is known for how beautiful and cinematic it can look. From shots of Daenerys receiving her dragon eggs, the endless Wall of the North, and the larger-than-life battle scenes—some can be paintings come to life.
With Season 2, Episode 7, House of the Dragon offered what might be its most iconic shot to date, Emma D’ Arcy’s Rhaenyra standing at Dragonstone with multiple dragons in the background, cementing her badass legacy as the true Queen of Kings Landing.
[ House of the Dragon Season 2 Censored One Key Scene, Reveals Star ]
Creating That Iconic Rhaenyra Shot In House of the Dragon
In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Russ Milheim, House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 6 and 7 DP Vanja Cernjul discussed the big dragon scenes, including Rhaenyra's iconic shot at Dragonstone.
Cernjul revealed that he and director Loni Peristere had been thinking about that specific shot "for a long time," intending to make "it as iconic as it could possibly be:"
"Well, that actual shot, director Loni [Peristere] was thinking about it for a long time. How could we make it as iconic as it could possibly be? The idea was to create an image that would become a part of the epic "Dance of the Dragons" iconography. The shot needed to showcase Queen Rhaenyra in the front as the leader, now equipped with three dragons, to convey her newfound military strength. To capture three immense dragons, a Dragonstone castle, with Rhaenyra maintaining a dominant presence, wasn't an easy task."
"It needed to be a deep, layered composition," the DP explained, "shot with wide-angle lens to emphasize the depth and perspective:
"It needed to be a deep, layered composition, shot with a wide-angle lens to emphasize the depth and perspective, with Rhaenyra centrally placed. We pre-visualized the shot in collaboration with the storyboard artist, but we were still not satisfied with the composition. As we discussed the frame, our first AD, Toby Ford, came up with the idea that Ulf and his newly claimed dragon Silverwing could be landing on the top of the castle. Rhaenyra's dragon was naturally supposed to be behind her, which placed Hugh and his dragon Vermithor somewhere between the two other dragons."
Photoshop also played a big part in making this iconic shot a reality, with Cernjul going on to note that the big moment "could only have been accomplished with a drone:"
"I cut out all these elements from the original storyboard frame and played with the scales and distances in Photoshop until I came up with a composition that was easy to read and displayed Rhaenyra in a position of power. I showed this mock-up frame to Loni, and he loved it. Loni wanted to incorporate a frontal camera move toward Rhaenyra to highlight the standoff tension. Considering that Rhaenyra was supposed to be standing on the edge of a tall and steep cliff, this could only have been accomplished with a drone."
"All this planning was done in out office in London weeks ahead of the shooting," confirmed the filmmaker:
"All this planning was done in our office in London weeks ahead of the shooting day. When we arrived at the actual location in North Wales, we first had to find a spot near the cliff's edge that was safe for Emma D'Arcy to stand on. Once we had the precise position for all the elements at the location, we were ready to shoot. We arranged to capture the shot in the late afternoon so that Rhaenyra and the dragons would be dramatically backlit by the setting sun."
Despite all the planning, the team still ran into some issues on the day, as "It started raining in the afternoon" and there were "strong wind[s]:"
"Unfortunately, it started raining in the afternoon, and our drone couldn't fly in such weather. Eventually, we managed to capture the shot just before sunset, although the strong wind made it challenging. We tried a couple of times and finally got one good take. After the VFX department had applied their magic, we were very happy with the final result."
He went on to explain that after several different drawings, storyboards, and Photoshop sessions, they used that information and found "the perfect position on location:"
"That shot took a lot of our time and attention. We drew it several different times. And then Loni knew what the shot was supposed to be, but we couldn't figure out the right composition. Finally, I cropped all the elements from the shots in from all the storyboards, and I went to Photoshop, and I started playing with how far away this dragon would be and how far away the dragon sitting on top of the [mountain] would be. After a while, we came up with a sketch of what we really wanted the shot to be, and on location, we found the perfect position, and it worked out."
Both of Cernjul's Season 2 episodes heavily involved dragons, including some never-before-seen set pieces, such as when Rhaenyra sent countless people to be picked out by her dragons.
This moment took "a lot of [their] attention," as it was the first time audiences saw "where the dragons lived" and "how the Dragon Riders get onto the dragons:"
"Well, the scene, the big set piece from Episode 7 at Dragon Mount, took a lot of our attention and a lot of our time in pre-production. First of all, it was the first time we saw this set; it was never seen before in Season 1. This is the first time we've seen this place where the dragons live and where they're kept. It's the first time we also saw how the Dragon Riders get onto the dragons."
"We had to imagine that the actual space was 10 or 20 times larger than the actual stage," the House of the Dragon creative went on to describe:
"The challenge was to maintain the sense of scale in a very large virtual space. The big stage we had was only a small part of what the actual space was supposed to be, with the plinth where the Dragon Riders get onto the dragons being the only physical anchor in a sea of blue screen. It would have been impossible to build a set of that size physically, so we had to imagine the space being 10 or 20 times larger than the actual stage."
Cernjul revealed that the Visual Effects department provided iPads loaded with the Cyclops app that allowed the team to see what the fictional space would look like on stage:
"We had an idea of what the space was supposed to look like, but it was challenging to understand its scale. Fortunately, our visual effects department provided us with iPads equipped with a Cyclops app, which acted as a viewfinder and allowed us to see how the space should look in the final product once it was built in CGI. The app showed us how the virtual world interacted with the reality in front of the camera, and it became our main tool for navigating the space."
The DP reiterated how he had "never done it before," and it was extremely challenging to "[manage] the scales of things in front of you that don't exist:"
"I've never done it before, and managing the scales of things in front of you that don't exist was a big challenge... We also had to imagine a large creature like the dragon Vermithor moving in this huge space. It was truly an exercise in visualization. The visual effects department helped here as well by providing a large blue head of a dragon, which two puppeteers operated to give us a sense of where the creature was in the space... For the whole crew to imagine what's actually going on was something that was really difficult to orchestrate.
The team also used the on-set speaker system, dubbed the "Voice of God" to simply organize people:
"Director Loni Peristere, who directed Episode 207, came up with a helpful technique—he used the audio system that we always have available on the set, called 'the Voice of God.' This system is basically a large speaker with a microphone. It’s normally used when a director has to direct a large group of people."
Director Loni Peristere would then describe what was happening even becoming the dragon himself to set the stage for the actors:
"So Loni used this system to describe the action of the dragon and the space, in real-time as we were shooting it so that all the actors were hearing it. He would sometimes turn into the dragon and breathe like a dragon, trying to describe to the actors what it feels like when this creature is so close to you. But it also helped everyone on the crew to understand what was happening."
However, seeing the dragons and dealing with the actors on the ground is one thing, but when the two meet in the middle, audiences get some thrilling dragon-riding scenes.
The collective goal for the directors of photography behind the scenes was "to make the dragon riding look as realistic as possible:"
"One of the things we were trying to accomplish this season was to make the dragonriding look as realistic as possible. There were four DPs this season, and we all got together and tried to figure out the most objective way to film the dragon riding. So, how can we film the scenes on the dragon as if the camera was on the dragon. The camera operator was on the dragon handheld, covering the actors and covering the whole experience which is aesthetically difficult to do because dragon riding scenes are typically filmed on this device called The Buck which is something like a mechanical bull."
"Ours was much larger," the DP clarified, adding how they were "complicated mechanical devices that were programmed by the visual effects department:"
"Ours was much larger because it was not supposed to simulate riding a bull but a dragon. They were very tall on these complicated mechanical devices that were programmed by the visual effects department and the special effects departments to simulate what the dragon is supposed to do in the scene, based on the Pre-Viz animation that we had designed. And, of course, it was impossible to have camera operators sit on the back with the actor. It would be unsafe, of course."
Continuing, he explained how "it was important to have all the movement be nodal:"
"For visual effects purposes, it was important to have all the movement be nodal and all the movement to be recorded. So, what we came up with was a stabilized Libra remote head mounted on the back, and then we had a handheld moose on the ground that operators had on their shoulders, and they were reacting. And they had a monitor on the moose so they could see what the camera on the lever was seeing on the back. They would use handheld movement to keep the characters in the frame."
One particular challenge the DPs faced was trying to make the dragon riding look convincing despite the cameraman being stable on the ground, having to give a half exercise ball to the camera operators to give the illusion of instability:
"When we first did the tests, it was obvious that it was hard for operators to simulate what it would be like if they were on the back of the buck because they were stable on the ground. So we came up with this little trick where we brought a half-bounce ball from the nearby gym on the day of the test day and asked the camera operator to stand on it. So that he could be thrown a little bit out of balance so that it would look like they're not completely stable on the ground."
"That simple trick worked out," Cernjul, calling it "one of the little extra things" that made it all work:
"And that simple trick worked out. I'm grateful that our operators were happy to try anything to make the shot happen. So that was one of the little extra things that they put in the new dragon riding scenes that was very low tech, but it worked really well."
[ House of the Dragon's 13 Dragons and Their Riders (Visual Guide) ]
House of the Dragon is now streaming on Max.
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