♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(SOLDIERS YELLING)
Episode five should
just be called "Holy Shit,"
because we started reading
the outline
 and just went, "Holy shit!"
Doing lots of
dragon strafe runs,
 burning most of the set.
We set fire to 22 people.
-(MEN YELLING)
-ROWLEY IRLAM: Twice.
We've been doing many burns,
amputees, mutilated bodies.
We had three motion control
rigs going, a spider cam.
Our King's Landing set
is round about 650 extras.
BERNADETTE CAULFIELD:
 We had three units going,
 and now, at the end, four.
We've been just slammed
since day one.
SEAN SAVAGE:
 Big telescopic cranes,
 up to nine cameras.
It was off the scale, really,
in every way.
STEVE KULLBACK:
 And then we saw the set
and what Deb Riley and her team
 was building,
and we just said,
"Wow, this is amazing."
DAVID BENIOFF: King's Landing,
traditionally, has been
Dubrovnik.
The thing about Dubrovnik is,
it's a really beautiful city,
and they love it,
and they don't want us
 to, you know, burn it down.
We've had this area
out the back of the office.
It's been there for, you know,
since we ever started here.
DEBORAH RILEY: It's so close
and so easy,
and Belfast needs a backlot.
Why don't we just
call this a backlot
and build the set for real?
There's no such thing as a set
you can just walk onto
and shoot
when you're planning
on destroying it.
 There was so much thought
 that went into
 every single section
 because it had
 so many requirements.
While we were designing
the buildings,
we were designing the
destruction at the same time.
So, for every lovely drawing
of plans and elevations
of the building,
 we had lovely plans
 and elevations
 of the buildings destroyed.
 It's not just a set
 that stands there
 and people walk in and out.
 It goes through
 all these changes.
 We're gonna see
 the plaza on Main Street
 all on fire.
SAM CONWAY: In order to supply
 all the flames,
each building has its own
manifold system
 that gets broken up
into many, many different pipes
 to each window or doorway
 or roof.
-MAN: (ON RADIO)
Stand there, mate.
-WOMAN: Yep, we're on now.
CONWAY: It's all kind of
 steel and hoses
 and cryogenic hoses
 and valves, and normal valves,
 and two-ton gas tanks,
 three-ton gas tanks,
 five-ton gas trucks.
 It makes for a heavily
 propane-filled set.
There wasn't a lot of time
up our sleeve
that we could take weeks
to change the set over
into a destructed stage.
 So, Tom Martin,
 our construction manager,
 came up with the genius idea
 of building the set
 in its destroyed stage first
 and then cladding it
 so that it was
 perfect to begin with.
No crew member that wasn't there
 during the build process
 had any idea
 that the destroyed version
was sitting underneath,
waiting to be revealed.
I took a little video
for myself on my phone
 of the backstreets,
 not even the main drag.
 The lanes, the offshoots,
 and the aged doors,
 with tear stains of rust
 running down them.
 It absolutely looks like
 it's been there for hundreds
 and hundreds of years.
So, it's loads of detail,
loads of cornices
 and pillars and friezes,
 corbels, all over the set.
DARREN FITZSIMONS: It's been
 a lot of scenic sculpture.
We did a quite large
relief plaque
 with the letter "D"
 quite prominently.
 Both Dan and David.
 So we had two of them,
 obviously.
ROB CAMERON:
 From a set dec perspective,
Deb wanted an authentic
sort of place,
 with the shopfronts, you know,
 and the color palette,
 all the doors, all the studs,
 you know,
 all that sort of detail
 we wanted as real as possible.
It's shocking when you go
behind one of these doors
and you see scaffolding,
 'cause you really think
 you're in these places.
Nikolaj and I
said the other day,
"We'll never be on anything
that is this vast ever again.
 They've built Croatia.
 And not, like, a street,
 they've built, like,
 17 streets and alleys.
It has its drawbacks,
because it's right in the middle
of the city.
ROBBIE BOAKE:
 The King's Landing set
 was sprawling within Belfast
 within view of
 a number of raised buildings.
 We had an unprecedented number
of drones, paparazzi attention,
people just
following the show around
and trying to get a sneak peek.
What we didn't want them to see
 was get the view looking down
 the King's Landing street,
 so we stuck up a five-high
 container wall
 and that problem died down
 pretty quick after that.
One of the great things
about going to Dubrovnik
was there was a reality there
 that it was impossible
 to recapture with a set.
 And this year, Deb recaptured
 that reality with the set.
BENIOFF: It felt like
 you were wandering
 through Dubrovnik,
but we were in Belfast.
We were in a parking lot
 across from
 the Harland and Wolff cranes.
 It was just, you know,
 her crowning achievement.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
MAN: Three, two, one,
action.
TYRION LANNISTER: There's
something you need to know.
DAENERYS TARGARYEN:
Someone's betrayed me.
TYRION: Yes.
We enter into five...
 with a broken Dany.
DAENERYS: Jon Snow.
Varys.
DAENERYS:
He knows the truth about Jon.
TYRION: He does.
DAENERYS: Because you told him.
BENIOFF: If Jon
 hadn't told her the truth,
if Cersei hadn't betrayed her,
if Cersei hadn't
executed Missandei,
if all these things had happened
in any different way,
then I don't think
we'd be seeing
this side of
Daenerys Targaryen.
DAENERYS: I, Daenerys
of House Targaryen,
sentence you to die.
What?
If Tyrion betrayed Varys,
Tyrion is responsible
for Varys's execution?
They're best of friends.
Not really.
 There's other things
 at play here.
TYRION: It was me.
BENIOFF: He has to betray
 somebody, right?
It's a choice between betraying
your best friend or your queen,
and he chooses to remain loyal
to his queen.
-♪ (INDISTINCT SINGING) ♪
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
BOTH: (SINGING)
 ♪ We all need somebody
 To lean on ♪
No, just...
chillin' with the harmony, babe.
-That was really nice,
That was good.
-Yeah, with the harmonizing.
MAN: Here we go, guys.
Shooting.
C marker.
Action!
SAPOCHNIK: It was scripted
 that he puts his hand up
 to touch Varys.
What Conleth did
that I really, really liked
was his reaction,
which was shock.
 He did that this one time,
 and I said to him,
 "Why'd you do that?"
 He said, "Well,
he's never been touched before.
And it was cool, and it was
just something like, "Wow.
 Okay. That-- I mean,
 it made lots of sense."
 It was like, suddenly
 he was being touched,
 and he-- this is not a man
 who's ever been touched.
 Well, it was one of
 the first scenes we shot.
 We got to a certain point,
 and then it started raining,
 and it started pouring,
 and then, basically,
 the only time I've ever been
on Thrones when we got shut down
because it was torrential rain.
Then we went back and we re-shot
 the wides of that scene.
 And then we realized
 that we owed all the parts
 from one side, where you have
 the dragon behind.
 So, basically, it was shot
 over seven months,
 and each time, you know,
 poor Conleth
 had to kind of show up again,
Varys had to just stand there
going,
"Okay, I guess I'm dying again."
DAENERYS: Dracarys.
(ROARS)
BENIOFF: We thought
 it was important,
in the siege of King's Landing,
that the good guys
not be good guys anymore,
and that the lines
between good and bad
 and right and wrong
 get erased.
SAPOCHNIK: We mirrored a lot
of the Battle of Bastards shots,
but instead of having
the Boltons
be the invading army,
 we had the allied troops.
 There's a shot that pulls up
 behind Jon
 and reveals the Bolton army
 for the first time
 in "Battle of the Bastards,"
 and we do the same thing
 but from behind
 the leader
 of the mercenary group.
 What we need
 to understand,
 as an audience,
 is that these people
 have come here for blood.
The hardest series of shots
is the moment that
 the King's Landing gate
 is obliterated by dragonfire.
 It's covered by eight cameras,
 one explosion over all
 of these camera views,
 each camera view is carrying
 the explosion further.
The complexity of breaking
not only the gate,
 but destroying the wall,
 wiping out the people,
 getting the fire element,
 you know,
 big enough to travel
 as we needed it to...
Then there was this whole series
of live action components,
 Harry Strickland's horse
 that gets annihilated.
MAN: Three, two, one.
-(AIR HISSES)
-MAN: Action!
(HORSE WHINNIES)
A real Gold Company
and digital Gold Company.
Jump straight in,
make your arm into a shield,
and that's it.
Do you wanna close down,
mate.
JAMIE MILES:  We trained them
 the same as we trained
 the Unsullied,
but just changed a few
of their drill movements
to define them
from being Unsullied.
-MAN: Rolling!
-(CREW CLAMORING)
Forty-four bigger, take five,
eight camera mark.
Then there was a half-scale gate
built by Sam Conway.
CONWAY: The half-scale
 gate explosion.
We've been building it out of,
like, basically,
 biscuit foam and balsa.
 We're gonna be blasting it
 out of the way with, uh,
 with many air mortars.
-MAN: Three, two, one.
-(AIR HISSES)
CONWAY: So, basically,
 what the idea is
 to achieve
 this 60-foot explosion
 coming out of the center
 of the gates,
 and also some flame bangs too.
You know, it was a lot
of planning for production
and a lot of work for Sam,
and now it's a lot of work
for us.
Don't fall on him.
Don't drop
your fire extinguisher
on his head. (LAUGHS)
MAN: Three, two, one, action.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
As the dragons
have gotten bigger,
they've been lighting
more and more people on fire,
and I believe--
I believe this year,
 one of the things
that Rowley brought to the table
 was the most people
 that have ever been burned
 onscreen for a production.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-Yeah, that's fine.
MAN: ...if you haven't
done this before.
SAVAGE: That's the director
just locking my head off.
-(SAPOCHNIK CHUCKLES)
-I just know what he's doing.
I wish he wouldn't touch it.
IRLAM: The 22 burns
 is actually 44 burns.
 Um... It's two halves.
And five of the 22 were
full burns, but with no masks.
When the time comes
and the call's given,
 there's a process
 of getting them ready.
 They're all wearing
 two-mil wetsuits
 covered with three layers
 of Nomex race underwear
 soaked in Zel-Jel.
 On top of that is a race suit
 covered with a boiler-suit
 and then a costume.
 And then they have
 silicon masks on
 and gloves on.
IRLAM:
 What we essentially did was
we lit the five guys manually,
 and then we detonated
 17 Taymars,
 which are basically, um,
 gas camping canisters
 inside metal cages.
 And they create
 a 15-foot fireball.
"Three, two, one, action!"
17 poppers go off
amongst all the full fire jobs,
yeah?
Then "Three, two, one, action!"
everybody reacts forward.
The full burns go
on the "A" of "action,"
the partials go on "-tion,"
these guys go
after I've finished saying
the word "action."
Okay? So we get
a tiny ripple effect.
We'll do a rehearsal.
When he first lit me up,
my trousers were quite baggy,
 so they had to spritz me
 with IPH,
 so there was some fumes
 in there.
(CHUCKLES)
 And I'm bending over,
 and they lit me,
and it just went, boom!
 I thought, "God, that's hot.
 I'm hot already,
 and we've not even
 started to countdown yet."
IRLAM: We're rolling, guys,
rolling, rolling.
Have a good one, boys.
Three, two, one, action!
-Three, two, one, action!
-(MEN SCREAMING)
SAVAGE:
 We had up to nine cameras
 covering that scene.
It was an extraordinary
sensation, as well, filming it.
 You know it's fiction,
 but to see
 that many men on fire,
 I found quite distressing
 at times.
PETER DINKLAGE:
 I remember the smell.
It's horrifying.
IRLAM: (SHOUTS)
Go, go, go, go, go!
IRLAM:
 And then we put them all out.
 So, for 22 people,
 we had 22 other people
 with fire extinguishers
 plus another six people
 with fire extinguishers
backing all of that up.
So, it's a big deal.
-MAN: Three, two, one.
-(ALL CHEER)
We have our initial destruction,
which is
the dragon comes in,
blows shit up,
says, very clearly, "This isn't
 going to end well for you."
 In come the allied forces,
 and they take out
 the Lannisters.
 And the audience go, "Yeah!"
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
 Once the Lannisters surrender
 and the gates
 have been blown open,
 and the Golden Company
 has been dispersed,
 the battle's over,
 and Jon feels like
 that's quite clear.
They did it,
they did the impossible.
This is a bloodless coup.
 It's out of Cersei's hands.
 You cut to Cersei, see her.
You cut to Tyrion realizing
this is an opportunity,
this is the moment
where the bells could ring
and we could call all this off.
(DROGON ROARS)
 And then you go to Dany.
She feels empty. It wasn't
what she thought it was.
It's not enough.
EMILIA CLARKE:
 Every single thing
 that's led her to this point,
 and there she is, alone.
 We've all got this part of us,
 that part that goes,
 "I'm gonna put
 that chocolate cake down."
(CHUCKLES)
 "I'm gonna walk away."
 We can't be getting into these
 moral conundrums all the time.
I'm not saying chocolate cake
is a moral conundrum,
eat as much fucking cake
as you want--
 but those things that
 you wrestle with in yourself.
She knows that
she has won this war.
 It's in that moment
 when she makes the decision
 to make this personal.
It's one of my favorite
Emilia performance moments,
 because it took place
 on the back
 of, like, a giant green
 dragon buck
 without a real thing
 anywhere in sight.
 Emilia's really nice.
 And she cares.
 She's a whole bunch of things
 that Dany isn't.
So reaching this part of Dany
is a--
was a tough call for her.
Ultimately, she is who she is,
and that's a Targaryen.
You know, she has said
repeatedly throughout the show,
 "I will take what is mine
 with fire and blood."
 And in this episode,
 she does it.
SAPOCHNIK: For the audience...
Oh, you wanted a battle?
Well, here you go.
-(SCREAMING)
-(DROGON ROARS)
Drogon's fire-blasting
does a lot of damage.
I mean, he's not Godzilla,
but we're heading
in that direction.
Cameras on, all set, and...
BOTH: Three, two, one, blast it.
CONWAY: Uh... We create a lot
 of, um, interactive light
 for dragonfire.
 So that can either be
a series of large flamethrowers
 or it can be a pyrotechnic
 charge that we'll light up.
(POPPING)
And of course, then,
what happens is, we take--
we go back to the studio
 and then we do it
 with the VFX mo-co cameras.
We had the big flamethrower
on the Spidercam onstage
 that was shooting, you know,
 40 feet of fire.
And then we do, also,
the impact scene on the ground.
 We do that as a half-scale
 model shoot,
 pyrotechnic charge goes along.
MAN: Three. Two. One. Action!
And all these things
get tied in together,
 so you'll see the dragonfire
 chasing those flames,
 and then where
 the dragonfire lands,
 you'll see all the pyrotechnic
 charges going off.
The place, when she takes off...
and starts burning the city,
and when the Unsullied
on the ground
 and the Northmen on the ground
 take that as their cue
 that anything goes...
MAN: (OVER LOUDSPEAKER)
That should be enough,
guys, but it's not.
Just up ahead,
everyone looking up,
you can see the dragon
coming down.
It fires on the city.
And... go, Gray Worm.
(MEN YELLING)
LIAM CUNNINGHAM:
 There's a moment
 when we see Gray Worm
taking out his enemies
when there's no need to do that.
(SCREAMING)
BENIOFF: The way we
 described it in the screenplay
was that he's become
almost an angel of death.
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
He's just gone back
to being like,
this kind of traumatized robot.
WEISS: There are a lot of people
 lurking in the background.
 See if you can find
 Aaron Rodgers.
I was helping a woman
who was injured,
uh, set her down, and then,
the hell with her,
I'm getting outta there.
So, struggle, struggle,
and then, I struggle and die
-forcing me to the ground.
-Yeah.
Uh... Guys, room, please.
The beheading came from the idea
to take the audience
to a place where they felt
that they shared the bloodlust
of the Starks,
 so they wanted to see
 these people get creamed,
and then to give them
what they wanted,
 -and show them with no mercy
 the horrors of war.
-(SCREAMS)
(SCREAMING)
At that face-off in that moment,
 you're with Jon
 more than anybody else.
Interestingly,
when we were editing it,
 there was a mistake made
 at the moment
 that it goes to slow motion.
(SCREAMING)
Our sound cut, and I was like...
(GROANS)
...and suddenly, I was riveted.
(BREATHES DEEPLY)
(WOMAN'S SCREAM ECHOES)
Nothing letting me
off the hook
from seeing what he's seeing
and experiencing
what he's experiencing.
There's a great shot
that Miguel got.
 You just have
 the Lannister soldier,
who's guiding the civilians
of King's Landing to safety,
and the good guy in this shot
is a shot in bad guy armor,
and the bad guys in this shot
 -are the ones who are doing
 all these horrific things.
-(GRUNTING)
SAPOCHNIK:
 If three was the final battle
 between good and evil,
five is "What have we become?"
It's all got a bit bleak,
hasn't it?
It's quite bleak.
This season's really bleak.
(LAUGHS)
♪ (UP-BEAT MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
(ROARS)
EURON GREYJOY: If I win...
I'll bring your head to Cersei
so you can kiss her.
-One last time.
-(GRUNTS)
(MAN SHOUTS)
PILOU ASBAEK: Finally, after
 15 years of being colleagues,
I'm given two days
to kick his ass.
(GRUNTING)
The time for gentleman-like
fights are over.
The idea was
it was a slugfest.
It's gonna be very funny
for Denmark,
because two of their actors
are gonna fight it off.
The Dane Bowl.
(SPEAKING DANISH)
IRLAM:
It's a little bit disconcerting
 when they start talking Danish
 to each other,
'cause I'm not sure whether
they're changing a move,
or conspiring to do something
that we don't want them to do.
Where we did it, it was
a very unfriendly environment,
which was big rocks and stones
and a tide-- it was very--
 you know, very small cove
where the tide came in and out,
and it was wet and sandy.
 Those guys being soaking wet,
 and having sand everywhere,
they're probably still finding
sand in the bath now.
MAN: Three, two, one, action.
WEISS: Euron is a psychopath.
 A normal person would not swim
 to shore
just so he could murder
one other person.
He wants to know what new things
 are like.
As he says with Cersei,
"Life can be boring."
(GROANS)
WEISS:
 The ultimate new interesting
experience he's never had before
 is death, and I think
 he's strangely excited
 about having that experience
 as well.
 I mean, he dies with a smile
 on his face.
PILOU:
 That was the first thing
 I asked Dan and David is,
"Am I dead?" They go like, "No!
Maybe. A little."
And I go like,
"No, I don't think so."
It struck us that it would be
apocalyptically beautiful
to see them fighting
on this stairway to nowhere
 with the sky in the background
 and the dragon flying by,
 and the flames everywhere,
 and it's just pretty epic
 and that's what we wanted.
Hello, big brother.
One more and this time, guys...
We shot this thing
for days and days and days,
and it was so hard to shoot,
and it was a massive set.
 There was a 72 steps.
RILEY:
 The really important thing
 for me
in designing the staircase
was that it felt grand.
 We've always seen these
computer generated illustrations
 of King's Landing,
 and there is a big tower
 down the side of the big keep.
PAUL GHIRARDANI:
 The problem with the staircase
 is it will want to go up,
so I think the first time
in our kind of history
 of building things here,
 we've actually hit the grid
 of the stages.
There's a lot of crew,
and there's
just the one staircase, so...
 trying to get cameras
 into positions...
right up against the staircase,
 it's been quite difficult.
RICHARD HANSEN: The same time,
 the building is being ruined
by the dragon fire, so there's
crumbling walls everywhere.
Special effects will be dropping
rocks and sand and debris,
 and so there's all these kind
 of interesting challenges
 as well as... running in
 and fighting,
 and falling down the stairs.
So, when you attack,
it's better that you're slower,
but on target... (GRUNTS)
...and he gets out of the way,
rather than try to be
really fast
and deliberately missing, 'cause
we'll see a deliberate miss.
-Does that make sense?
-Yeah.
Just slow and deliberate.
Everyone, ready?
And... rehearse stage.
And...
three, two, one, action.
-(HELMET CLANKS)
-Ooh! Help. Sorry.
SEAN SAVAGE:
 The way we tackled it
 was we put one very big crane
 on the inside of the circle,
on the inside of the staircase,
 which could reach any point
 on that staircase,
 and then where the staircases
had been destroyed at the back,
we've got another crane
on a large rostrum,
so we've could shoot both ways.
 When we're on the staircase,
 we shoot a whole combination
 of handheld,
 and then we deploy
 our Artemis Maxima,
 which is this handheld
 stabilized rig.
(THE HOUND GRUNTS)
SAVAGE:
 We learn the choreography.
 We get trust of the actors
 and vice versa,
and if you learn it well enough,
you can step inside that zone
with the swords going over
the camera or under the camera.
 Before you know it,
 it gets pretty exciting.
(GRUNTING)
MAN: Cut!
You know, that fight was brutal.
It's brutal to watch, but it was
 brutal to shoot as well,
 because... for Hafpór,
 he's wearing
 so many prosthetics.
 Hafpór had to wake up
 at midnight
 to get ready
 for a 8:00 a.m. call.
SAPOCHNIK: Seven-and-a-half
 hours of makeup, um,
 and then he had to do
 a ten hour day.
They were-- They were hard.
They were hard, hard work.
When we read the scripts,
we realized
that there's this big reveal.
MAN: And another step.
Ah, fuck it. Just pull it off.
BARRIE GOWER: So the last time
 we'd really seen the Mountain
 from the hands of our work
 was season four.
 He was like on the slab,
 and he had this whole rotted,
kind of ulcerated area
on the side of his torso.
 So, that was really
 the only springboard we had
 to the design.
 They kept referring to him
 as Franken-Mountain.
 And we just came up
 with this kind of putrid,
 almost porcelain looking...
 It was this Frankensteinian
 looking figure.
MAN: Cut.
IRLAM: Hafpór won
World's Strongest Man this year.
 We got him really late
 because of that as well,
so we basically used
his strength
to throw Rory's character around
and he had a really big day
 where literally, he spent
 the whole day
 being thrown into walls.
(GRUNTS)
(YELLS)
SAPOCHNIK:
 This isn't a trained stuntman.
 This is the guy
 that smashes stuff up.
(YELLS)
MAN: And three, two, one,
smack him against the wall.
(THE HOUND CROAKS)
MAN: Cut.
SAPOCHNIK:  Rory was like...
 I mean...
 sometimes, we thought
 he was dying on the stairs
 in between takes, literally.
(RETCHES)
MAN: Everyone okay?
RORY: For a big man,
you're very gentle.
(CHUCKLES) Thank you.
(SIGHS)
I, after a couple days,
decided to have a--
I brought Hafpór in,
 and I gave him this-- a box
 with a sandbag on top of it,
and I put the camera underneath
 and we didn't--
 there's no reason to shoot it,
 and I was like,
 "I just want you to just--
 When I saw action,
 just fucking smash that
 as hard as you possibly can.
 Pretend it's Rory's head.
And looking right
at the camera...
And he was just like going...
(BLOWS) ...like that,
and we're shooting it
in slow motion.
Three, two, one, and action.
(THUD)
And one more time.
And three, two one, and action.
Great, and now this time, just--
And I just wanted to get
all his anger out,
so that it was all done
and then we went off
and did the scene.
MAN: Set!
(BOXES THUD)
We're gonna do a 30 foot fall
where Gyula takes off Mike,
 the stunt double
 for the Mountain,
 into a box rig.
 For two really big guys,
 and one of them going off
 backwards in full prosthetics,
 it's getting the wall right
 that's the difficult bit
 because, you know, it's meant
 to be like four-foot thick.
 It will be a couple of feet
 thick,
 but it's trying to get that
 to look right.
(GRUNTS)
BENIOFF: There are many times
 when we're planning a season,
and you know, you kind of
have to avoid
 giving the audience
 exactly what they want
 because then things start
 to become predictable.
This is the case where we wanted
 the same thing.
 We've always wanted to see
 these two face off,
 and they finally did.
IRLAM: Ready, ladies
and gentlemen. Here we go.
CAMERAMAN: Yep. Here we go.
WEISS:
 You needed a perspective
to carry you
through this horror,
and we thought Arya was the best
person to use for that purpose.
I got a call from Miguel,
basically was like,
 "I can't tell anything, but
 you know what we did in BOB?"
I was like, "Yeah." He was like,
 "We're gonna do that
 but with you,"
and I was like, "Okay."
It was meant to be, ultimately,
come across
as a seven-and-a-half minute,
non-stop shot,
where you follow her on the run.
We practiced this
many, many times.
We've spent a whole day,
two days,
practicing the shot already
 with Arya and with all
 the stunt team
 and all the extras we require.
Little boy, back down
the stairs, round...
Gonna really throw away
the girl coming out the window.
-MAN: Cam speed.
-MAN: 69 apple, take six.
38 frames.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
IRLAM: Three, two, one, action.
From a camera perspective,
it took us an hour...
to figure out
how we're gonna move the camera.
 It's all the other stuff
that goes on in the background,
 you know, and you've got
 a great special effects crew,
 who, you know, put in smoke
 and flame bars,
 and lots of extras.
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
 Every single extra you look at
will have each of their stories,
so... you know, I think that's
what makes those one-ers
so intense.
So, I think definitely,
when you came in here,
that thing that first time
you're on the ground,
it's like, "Fuck! I'm fucked.
I'm fucked
unless I get out of here.
How do I get out of here?
Go this way."
We've got all sorts
of air mortars going off.
(EXPLOSION)
SAPOCHNIK: And she gets
picked up by the crowd.
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
And she is just cannon fodder,
because Dany is bombing
the city.
-(RUMBLING)
-(SCREAMING)
I've decided on this journey
to a new life,
and I might not even make it out
 of the gates.
I think we want the audience
to think that's she's dead,
for like a second, but audiences
are too smart for that.
(GASPS)
IRLAM:  There's an element
of luck in these things as well,
 you know, we need everybody
to get a little bit lucky
at the same time.
 We're setting people on fire
 during it,
and putting them out during it.
 If I miscue it or not cue it
 quick enough, it doesn't work.
 There's any number of things
 that can just make the take
 not as good
 as you would hope it to be,
 and they typically take
 ten takes to get.
MAN: Delta mark, 48 frames.
Bravo, 69.
Delta take one on the end.
Um...
-(WALL CRACKS)
-♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
-(SCREAMING)
-(ARYA PANTS)
KULLBACK:
The journey that Arya's taking,
heavily inspired
by the firebombing of Dresden
 because what it needs
 to look like
 is the firebombing
 of King's Landing.
WEISS: It was interesting to us
that we could--
we could take a modern reference
and map it
onto a pre-modern situation,
 because we have air firepower
 in the form of the dragons.
(SCREAMING)
SAPOCHNIK: If you see some
 of the photographs,
they're terrifying photographs
of not just the level
of destruction,
but you know, there's people
walking to work the next day
 with decapitated heads
 lying on the ground.
 It's like-- it's a terrifying,
 terrifying thing.
MAISIE WILLIAMS:
 She's seen some awful things,
but this is like
mass destruction and...
it's pretty sickening, even for
the strongest of people.
We'd been doing
many full body burns,
 some with negative space,
 some crushed,
 sort of mutilated bodies.
 Extras, which are amputees,
and we've created severed limbs,
so we've had team of about five,
six people on a day to day basis
 and on some days,
 Miguel would say,
 "Right, I need these guys
 to have some head injuries.
 This guy's
 got his throat slashed.
 This guy's gonna be
 really badly burned.
So, suddenly,
our guys just pile in,
and we've got
this big jigsaw puzzle of pieces
that we've got in our arsenal,
and fortunately,
it seems to have worked out.
IRLAM: Now, I've got
 one of my girls walking along,
and she's got handful
of intestines,
 and we've got amputees.
 Bless 'em. And then you make
 the ends of the limbs
 that they have look horrible,
 and you make trails of blood
 where they've been.
And then,
they're screaming horribly.
(SCREAMING)
MAN: Cut, cut, cut.
IRLAM: But when they cut,
 someone's walking around
 with a box of ice-lollies
 and going,
 "You want an ice lolly?"
 "No, I'm all right."
What we do for a living is a bit
surreal at times, you know.
♪ (SOMBRE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
BENIOFF: It was originally shot
 to be this really long one-er,
and it was actually a decision
that Miguel and his editor,
 Tim Porter, made
 as they were cutting it
 that intercutting
 the Clegane Bowl
 and Arya's escape was actually
 much more emotional
 and effective than having
 this 12 minute long one-er
 and then the fight
 as two separate pieces.
WILLIAMS: All she's left with
 is the sound of burning people
and the smell of burning flesh.
 And she sees a white horse
 'cause it's symbolic...
and beautiful. And then,
she hops on and gallops off
and makes it out of the city.
-MAN: 68 echo, take one.
-(LENA SIGHS)
A, B, and C, come on boards,
 -D marker.
-(CLAPPERBOARD CLAPS)
LENA:
It's a kind of genuine discovery
 as she goes along,
each step she takes, something
crumbles, something falls.
The destruction is unavoidable.
 She loses people
and finds herself totally alone.
MAN: Dragon. Track.
The thing that he has
with his sister, which is
absolutely unconditional love.
(CERSEI SOBS)
-CERSEI: (SOBS)
You came back for me.
-JAIME: Of course, I did.
SAPOCHNIK:
He goes back to her, even though
 he knows that she's gonna die.
He goes back to her even though
 he knows that
 she'll never surrender.
 He goes back to her
 just to be there for her.
 He almost goes back to her,
 I would say,
 to prove that
 he was never going to leave.
The skull room, unfortunately,
had to be recreated
because in order to destroy
the space, we had to build it.
 And then, a lot of bricks
 were brought in for it,
 and we had some big
 architectural pieces made
 as well.
 The great thing was I had
 all of the information
about the space. We had already,
 um, measured it and drawn it.
 I had all of the photographs
 of it.
One of the lessons
that I learned very quickly
was a pile of rubble
isn't very interesting...
unless you have identifiable
architectural pieces
that-- that can sit in it,
and an audience can identify
with having fallen
from that building.
COSTER-WALDAU:
The escape route is blocked,
and there is no way out.
And now we're talking seconds,
and-- and she's panicking.
MAN: Action.
CERSEI: Please don't let me die.
(SOBS) Please don't let me die.
I don't want to die.
Jaime, please.
Look-- Look me in the eyes.
Don't look away.
CERSEI: Please don't let me die,
not like this.
Look at me!
There's a helplessness
from both of them
and a sense of loss that...
 is the strangest feeling to
experience with them, because...
you know, Cersei is one of
the most horrendous characters
 committed to film, and yet,
 somehow, at the end,
 she's just a girl,
 and she's just scared.
 And-- and he's there
 to comfort her.
Just look at me.
-I don't want to die--
-Shh...
Nothing else matters. Just us.
Only us.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC FADES) ♪
