Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/760821
DGA QUARTERLY 43 This was probably the single biggest in-camera shot we did of the crush: All 500 extras, 60 stunt guys, 80 shields and all our cast. It was the only time we actually put all the elements together in anything close to an actual re-creation of the pincer move. We even had Ramsay up on the hill watching [top right]. It was probably one of the only times the extras were actually pinned in, and they felt it. We'd push it a little bit and let the action run a tad longer each take so that no one got comfortable but not so much that it was ever dangerous. It feels like that's what you often do as the director: Push the limits. I say that with a certain amount of trepidation because it's a fine line; you are also responsible if something goes wrong. However, if you don't push it, you'll never know what you missed. We called this shot the "rebirthing" shot. That's really what it was, Jon coming back from the brink of extinc- tion, finding the will to live, to survive. It was interesting that one of the least prepped shots in the sequence became one of the most mem- orable. Just goes to show you can plan and plan and plan but if you really want to get the good stuff, you have to be open to things taking on a life of their own. Ramsay firing the arrows into Jon's shield was all practical. After much discussion of CGI arrows, SFX rigs to make the arrows spring out, etc., we decided that simple cutting and a good sound effect would do the job and that's all it is. Ramsay fires in one shot, we cut to Jon with an arrow already in his shield, behaving as if it just hit. Same for two arrows, for three and so on. It's al- most impossible to tell the difference between this and what it would have looked like in real- ity. I love the power of editing. There's a moment in this shot that Iwan's face relaxes into a smile and it's almost disquieting how his face changes shape. It looks like we've treated the shot in some way but it was all him. It surprises me how brutal this beating felt. I had been a proponent of making it much more visceral, much more on a par with the beating in Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (although not quite that far). I wanted to at least take his teeth out but Dan and David rightly reined me in. And so as we were shooting I suggested to Iwan he succumb to the violence and in the next take he smiled. 11 12 13 14 11 12 13 14