(CLOCK TICKING)
Euron.
The Silence ship battle
is one of the ones
that is a very elaborate
scene to shoot.
 It was so well-conceived
 by Mark.
The whole thing
was very wisely centered
 around Pilou's performance,
 Gemma's performance
 and Alfie's performance.
I tried to stay
with individuals
 within the chaos
 of the boat battle,
and then it was decision
as to who we follow.
 Initially, it was all
 about Gemma's character, Yara,
 but, uh, in shooting it,
 Pilou's Euron was such fun.
Pilou was such an incredibly
charismatic--
He's such a great kind of
heir apparent to Ramsay,
 he's such a great baddie
 for this season,
 and so fantastically physical.
(GRUNTING)
(SWORDS CLANGING)
Euron was just like...
analyzing how many people
do I have to kill,
and what do I have to do now?
(CHRUNCH AND GRUNT)
 But the first hit, and blood
 just came...
(MAKES SPURTING NOISE)
And you-- (CHUCKLES)
 And I was like,
 "Yeah, this is awesome!"
 I don't know if I can say,
 "fucking,"
but that was
a fucking awesome week.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER AMONG CREW)
(EMBER GUNS SPUTTERING)
CREW MEMBER: There you go. Set!
And, three, two, one.
Action!
(GEMMA YELLS)
GEMMA: Acting alongside Pilou
 is such a joy...
because we have a great respect
for how tricky it all is,
in terms of physicality,
and he's so respectful
of anything
 that will or won't hurt,
 but I'm also very game
 for him to go for it,
 so it's convincing.
 So, between us,
 we work very well together,
and we communicate very clearly
with one another
 before we're doing things,
 what we're doing
 and how we're doing it, and...
that's how we've managed
to stay safe.
Silence is supposed to be
a very different kind of boat.
It's the mothership,
it's his, um, command ship,
and it's supposed
to intimidate people
when they see it
and it's supposed to strike fear
 into the heart of its enemies.
(SHIP CREAKING)
WEISS:
The boat itself is a projection
of the personality of the man
who built it.
 It's a big "fuck you" boat,
 built by a big "fuck you" guy.
My ship's like five times bigger
than their little, tiny boat.
You know, it's just--
It was like,
their boat was this big
and mine was this big!
And I don't think
it has nothing to do with...
You know. You know what they say
about guys with big cars.
They like speed. And so do I.
The boat itself
doesn't really come into play
as a real thing that people need
to interact with,
until it's connected
to Yara's ship.
And so, we decided
that the best way
 to really put across
 the true size of this boat,
 was to build a section of it,
 the bow section that rams
 into Yara's boat.
We designed a big naval ram,
um, that was on the front
of that boat, that would then
crash into Yara's.
 And that was an opportunity
to then reintroduce the kraken,
 and obviously, also,
 we had the corvus itself
that could also, you know,
be this very aggressive thing
that then latches
onto her ship.
BENIOFF: The corvus is a--
 That long walkway
that descends and smashes
onto Yara's ship
and they often would be built
with these kinda claws
 on the bottom, so that they--
 when they hit the deck
 of the enemy ship,
 they would stay there.
CONWAY: We built the corvus
 so that it became light-weight
 and very strong.
The trouble we had was the fact
that we had a stuntman standing
 on the end, which meant
 that we had to control it
 with a winch system.
 But the winch system
is obviously a controlled fall,
so, we end up managing
to double the speed in the end
which made it more...
more dramatic.
(EURON YELLS)
(CRUNCHING)
(EMBER GUNS SPUTTERING)
BENIOFF: Fire is one
 of the hardest things
 for VFX to... to replicate,
 and so they'd always rather
 have real fire on set,
even now, with all the advances
and visual effects technology,
real fire just looks better.
We created, um, ember guns.
 We had a couple of moments
where a projectile would go
crashing through a mast,
then the whole sort of section
of the mast
 would come collapsing down,
 so we had big drop rigs
 up in the, um, in the rigging.
During the battle, they fire
these burning projectiles
at the-- Yara's crew.
Our effect there is really, uh,
 flares fire down wires.
CREW MEMBER: Action!
(EMBER GUNS SPUTTERING)
One of the major challenges
in the boat sequence was...
how to, you know, sell the idea
 that this was happening at sea
 that they were floating
 on water,
 and yet we're in a car park
 in Northern Ireland.
 The visual effects process
 in bringing a scene to life
that doesn't really exist
in a real, practical world,
um... takes a lot of creativity
 and imagination.
Uh, the most challenging aspect
of the sea battle
was the number of shots.
It's a very quick cut scene,
 and it's about the pacing
 and it's fast,
 and then it's like--
 it's like a machine gun.
 We had green screens
 sixty feet high...
 all the way around the ship.
 So, there isn't really
 a direction
 that the camera can face
 that we don't have
 to do something.
(CAST ROARING)
IRLAM: The boat at Banbridge
 is quite restrictive,
 you know, we had 40 stunt guys
 on there,
six cast members and the crew.
Um, so that was quite
a challenge, you know,
and it was very wet
and it was very cold.
MYLOD: The set itself became
 almost comically crowded
with everybody doing this dance.
 We agreed that...
the violence should be brutal
and feel unchoreographed,
that it shouldn't feel
structured.
IRLAM: I wanted it to feel like
 the violence, uh, of a riot,
 or football terraces,
 when there's a flash--
you know, a flash of violence,
and it just kicks off.
BRADSHAW: In a lot
 of fight choreography, it--
it's challenging to achieve that
if you're trying to do
a specific fight piece.
 Um, and also long takes...
 by their nature,
 make people exhausted.
 So, one of the things
 that we did to achieve that
 was... no take was more
 than ten seconds long.
So, all we were asking the cast
and the stunts to do,
was to go nuts for ten seconds.
CREW MEMBER:
Three, two, one. Action!
(CAST ROARING)
GEMMA: Hugely challenging
 for everybody.
The difficulties of filming
on a wooden boat
in the rain 'cause it gets
so slippy.
 Chicken wire was stapled
 to the floor
 to stop us from slipping over,
 and, like, you know,
 there's so much going on
 at a shot.
CREW MEMEBER: Is everyone okay?
It was just insane
'cause there's so many people
You know, I mean,
it's very different
 when you're practicing,
 like one-on-one, with like a--
 with a stunt double
 or with, like, another actor,
 the day before--
 and a stunt team,
to when you get there on the day
 and they're like,
"Oh, by the way,
we didn't mention,
like, you can't stand here
'cause this is on fire and like,
we're gonna flood the boat,
and, like, don't slip over."
And you're on a deck,
you're like, "Oh, okay."
So, it's like a lot of things
to consider. (CHUCKLING)
(CAST YELLING)
MYLOD: The key moment,
I suppose, for me at least, uh,
in the sequence, is Yara coming
 up onto the poop deck area,
 and really, that moment of...
looking out of the stern
of her ship and--
and seeing enormity of the--
the attack and--
 and knowing that all
 is lost, really.
 And that, uh, the only thing
 to do is to, you know,
 fight till the last,
 uh, like a good Iron Islander.
When Yara gets taken by Euron
on the boat
and he has the axe
to her throat,
 initially, she feels like...
 Theon's back, it's okay,
 he'll do something,
 he'll do the right thing
 and the change that happens
 in his eyes, she realizes
 that he's not gonna stay,
I think she's heartbroken
at that point
WEISS: And it really
all comes down to close-ups
on three people.
And they're...
Where they're at,
at the end of this experience.
That we'd maybe fooled ourselves
 into thinking
that Theon was out of the woods
on his whole Reek experience
and as we were writing it,
we realized,
 that you don't just get over
 what happened to him,
that's something that's like--
that's gonna be a part of him
for the rest of his life.
(SCREAMING)
This is a place that triggers
the worst of that experience
as he sees his people
around him
 doing the kinds of things
 that...
 Ramsay used to do to him.
 And to see Euron's
 pure psycho greed
 -throughout the whole thing...
-(EURON LAUGHS MANIACALLY)
 ...when Theon jumps overboard,
 that laugh is,
that's the character's
encapsulation, is that shot,
that, you know,
that's why this is somebody
you should be worried about.
(THEON SNIFFLING)
