Thrones cast heads to Belfast

Let the fun begin. So if they are shooting in three episode blocks, I suppose they will shoot 3, 3, 3, and then the finale?

So if it is just 1-3, then it confirms that the Hand's Tourney will be in there. I suppose if they were going to do it over two episodes they could record the scenes for part #2 with episodes 1-3, rather than set everything out again?

Interesting! They seem to be building Castle Black at the rockface. Maybe they're going to be using the rockface (enhanced to turn it white, I guess) as the face of the Wall so they won't need to greenscreen and CGI every single background shot? Makes sense.

Didn't they paint a quarry near Vancouver for The X-Files? Guess they could do the same in NI ;)

Sword security, I think? Sth like "This propery is surveilled by Sword security"? Just a guess.

Yes, the line of rock just above the castle is nearly straight along, so I presumed that was going to be the Wall. You can see the cradle thing they're using to go up and down to that level with materials – there's probably a road along it. I can't really show you how HUGE it all was from the pix, and the castle is right at the back.

Which reminds me we need to update the location of the office in our FAQ :)

I imagine the Tourney being one entire episode, more-or-less, along with some side stuff and probably a 10 to 20 minutes of Dany stuff, as well.

take one of these with you ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone

Great!

Nah :) we play fair.

"Pat's just died. A quick death, but a messy one. Ugly, painful, humiliating. But hey, he earned it." From GRRM's last post. Who or what is Pat?

One of the Night Watch people, AFAIR. Not sure if he was one of the deserters who stayed in Craster's keep …

How'd he get into the book in the first place?

I noticed that he mentioned 10,000 BC and "inventing" accents, which may serve him well here. Of course, the fact that there will be a working Dothraki language should be of considerable help. Impressive list of credits, too!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0348159/

I watched the Connie Neilson interview on there too and she keeps the 'accent' up in the interview. To be honest, her accent is the typical hollywood attempt at an Irish accent which is pretty poor.

oh dear – never thought….

the guy in old town in AFFC, wasn't his name pat too?

What I wouldn't give to be able to see that read-through! How fun will that be!

Still, I guess it's probably best to have to wait. We are only getting 10 episodes, and I don't want to spoil too much for myself.

It's only guesswork, but I doubt they'd want one director handling back-to-back episodes, and even less likely three episodes at once.

Yeah this Loras Finn Jones is fantastic.

It's a guy BASED on pat, not named pat…

Well, yeah. Winter hadn't posted yet when I wrote that, and I don't follow fantasy hotlist.

I have a question. Did HBO ever state that they will reshoot "some scenes" or did they just state that they will reshoot the pilot? I mean considering an large amount of changes wouldn't it be better to reshoot a whole pilot?

There was a group that found the Westeros boards that do full-contact jousting, like at Ren Fairs and such. They wanted to get in touch with the producers of the show and were hoping we could help – they wanted to be involved. They posted links to some of their shows and it was really impressive stuff. Full-on jousting, no-holds-barred. Looked terribly dangerous.

I wonder if those guys ever got in touch with Dan & Dave or if they were eventually hired. I can't even find their topic about it anymore and have heard nothing since.

White hair!

Lloyd with Targaryen hair! waaaaaa

All right. I saw it now in the updates-

I was hoping that we got some photo of LLoyd with the Targ look.

Any theories on the lack of casting announcements for the Dothraki and Dany's handmaidens?

One theory: they're taking their time, shooting in Malta last of all. At least last of the 3 episode block, given Viserys is around.

Getting close now, the excitement builds, wish I was there.
Reading these posts, I get the feeling the cast is in place for the first few episodes, which means Myrcella, Tommen, Rickon, Jeyne, Beth, Ser Ilyn must have been cast by now, so where's the announcement.
Update: Just read GRRM's not-a-blog post, he mentions more casting announcements to come, but he is on a role with Dances and doesn't want to stop. I say don't stop George keep a rolling, let someone else post the casting news. He also mentions it is snowing in Santa Fe, wish he would send some of that cold and moisture my way, it hasn't rained here for almost 3 weeks now and the heat is almost unbearable, even for Florida.

Yeah, it seems like the blood riders at least would be crucial for the pilot wedding scene.

I would add Gendry, too.

Not mentioning Tywin, Shae, Walder Frey and all of those who appear later on. I would say in that last block of three episode.

Still wondering about Blackfish,

I read his post as: I still need to shortly discuss and present the bunch of new roles from the HBO fact sheet.

From what I know about New Mexico, I suspect the "Snowing" is a reference to his work on the book. It's currently about 86 degrees Fahrenheit there.

White hair hopefully means a "silvery blonde"-kind of white. Just plain white might look a little silly.

I've always found the silvery gold hair hard to imagine. I don't think such a colour really exists. White or silvery white is probably the closest we will get.

From those Castle Black pics looks to me like several weeks or more till the set is complete. I think they are filming the summer time scenes first from Kings Landing, Kingswood, Castle Darry and Eastern Continent scenes in August, then the Northern Kingdom scenes from the 3 episode block toward the end (September) when it will be colder which would include Castle Black, Winterfell and any Kingsroad scenes taking place in the north. It wouldn't really matter for the next episode blocks as it will be getting colder by then, but since most of the scenes set in the south in the later episodes concern The Red Keep, Fleabottom, The Sept, Dungeons, and The Eyrie so they will be interiors or sets with the exception of the Dothraki Sea, the journey to the Vale and the battles. Filming the northern scenes in the fall and winter are ideal anyway and I can see them doing the first episode reshoots in Oct/Nov. since thats when the pilot was filmed last year.

I THOUGHT it all looked very much still under construction. I hope I photographed the right thing – but I couldn't see anything else along there. So you're probably right.
By the way – how do we know what's in each ep?

I'd imagine with a dye it would be really tough. With a wig I would think you could get the effect just by alternating silver and gold strands.

Will be interesting to see what they do, but I wouldn't be surprised with a silver/white.

Well, when you look at any artwork it's always silvery white. I don't think I've seen any Targaryen art with actual silver-gold hair. Like I said, I don't think it really exists (platinum is the closest I can imagine). Also, alternating strands might work (like you said)… but it might also look horrible (think cheesy highlights). I'm confident they'll nail it, though.

Yeah plus Nicolaj was doing a body double.

Yea, its real hard to tell. It does look more like facades with all the scaffolding on the backside. That doesn't mean it doesn't still need lots of work, its just hard to make out much in the picture. Still cool to get this picture though, thanks silverjaime!

I was reading the news the other day and there was an article on Julian Assange (Editor in Chief of Wikileaks). OK I know totally random, but he has really white/blonde hair: http://morrisonworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2…

That's sort of what I imagine if it has to look "real."

Not much to report but I did see a G&H minibus parked near my work this morning with a nice ‘Game Of Thrones’ sticker in the windscreen. It gave me a smile anyway! (I’ve been in that minibus loads of times with various different stickers in it’s windscreen over the years!)

BTW – I’ve had a good look at the Castle Black photos and the structures in the foreground are indeed the backs of sets with the front of a set in the back ground. From what I can see there is be some kind of courtyard ringed with three buildings. It’s likely that all the exteriors will be done here if they have just built facades with the interiors probably at the Paint Hall. It must be cool to stand in that courtyard and look up at the quarry wall! Maybe I’ll get to wear the black someday!

@SilverJaime – I take it you are a Belfast resident? Have you ever fancied trying out for an extra role? Or are you signed up already? If not, you could be our resident location stalker as you aren’t under the same restraints as me!

Yeah that's about how I always pictured it too.

OMG I don't want to be a stalker! No I didn't try out cos they wanted people with dark hair and my hair is reddish blonde. Also I know one of the actors slightly and I don't think he'd like someone he knew on set as an extra! Which is why I don't really want to hang around much when they're filming unless there'd be a lot of people and I wouldn't be very visible, in case he thinks I'm stalking HIM!
I'm quite good at finding things out though – investigative journalism was toyed with as a career at one time…..
So maybe as the weeks go on…..
By the way – WHERE was the minibus parked?! I saw a gorgeous taxi yesterday with HBO in the window!

@ Silverjaime – Who told you they only wanted people with dark hair? My hair is reddish/blonde! There are all kinds of different hair colours in Extras NI. I would be very surprised if you were prevented from signing up because of hair!

And who cares if someone you know is in the show? Unless they have a restraining order out against you! You have as much right to be on the show as him!

And maybe ‘Stalking’ is too strong. There is a guy on Gallifrey Base who travels to all of the DW locations and posts photos online. These photos are taken from places where the sets are visible to the public so no rules are being broken. It sounds like you could be our GOT version! (I love the idea of you crawling through the undergrowth, all cammed up, towards Castle Black to get a shot!)

The minibus was parked on the Newtownards Road. I recognised the driver from many other film shoots but I was driving so I couldn’t say Hello.

This is exactly how DOCTOR WHO is shot. Several episodes (ranging from two to four) are shot in the same block. The same director covers several of those episodes. During the David Tennant years, the format was that one director would direct 2-3 episodes (not consecutive ones, they'd be broken up for transmission) in a row, then someone else would take over, with four blocks per season. One block would be longer and incorporate a fourth episode, usually the 'Doctor-lite' episode ('Love and Monsters', 'Blink', 'Turn Left') where another director could film another episode separately with minimal to no involvement of the main cast.

It's entirely possible this is the process, or a derivation of it, is being used on THRONES.

In addition, I believe we were only told that Brian Kirk was directing two episodes. I took that to mean 'at least' two episodes and it was possible he'd do more.