Making of

HBO’s much-anticipated prequel to Game of Thrones was created by novelist RR Martin and Ryan Condal with Condal and Miguel Sapochnik as the showrunners. Each of the ten episodes in the first season reputedly cost USD20 million.

Four stages at Leavesden were supplied by teams at Warner Bros Set Lighting & Rigging. The main stage housed the Red Keep and the other main stage houses the throne room. Permanent sets on the backlot include the Red Keep gates and Godswood. It was the first production to use the Volume Stage at Leavesden although its use here was more as testing ground in anticipation of heavier work during season two.

The main location filming was on the Iberian peninsula around Girona, Granada and Extremadura. “As always you try to shoot location before you shoot studio but because of schedule it ends up the other way around which can be annoying,” says DP Fabian Wagner, who spent eight weeks in Spain and Portugal, lensing three episodes. In the UK, Holywell Beach in Cornwall features as the Stepstones. The season’s first big battle sequence is brought to life by the natural rocks and caves at Kynance Cove.

A stand-off between Otto Hightower and Daemon Targaryen takes place on Dragonstone bridge with Dragonstone itself and the rocky environment surrounding the bridge played back on the video wall. The bridge is based on the San Juan de Gazelugatze, a site near Bilbao. The virtual production team captured LIDAR scans of the site to rebuild it virtually within Unreal Engine.

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