Over the pasts six years, Game of Thrones has rocketed to the top of the television world on the back of incredible action, movie-quality special effects, and a gripping plot. As the show’s greensman, Garth Hill of Holywood (a town outside Belfast, not Los Angeles) is responsible for dressing exterior and interior shots and hiding modern features like concrete sidewalks with natural and artificial greenery. Basically, if it pertains to landscaping, it falls under Hill’s domain. Hill told told the Banbride Leader all about it.
Although he had never heard of the show or books before hopping aboard, Hill has been with the production since Season 1, and has an Emmy Award Certificate to show for it. (Not everyone gets a statue.) The first scene Hill was in charge of came in Season 2. It was a Theon scene, filmed in Ballintoy Harbour. Hill “hadn’t a clue” what he was doing at the time, but seemed to get the hang of it.
"It was when Theon meets his sister when he returned to the Iron Islands. We had to hide a lot of concrete and green out the houses and cottages, and lighting cables etc. We knew a farmer up there and he gave us his field. We stripped his field and transported that down to the harbour in tractor loads."
Out of doors, Hill can make use of ordinary plants. But indoors, it gets trickier, as normal plants would be killed by the production lights. In that scenario, artificial plants are the name of the game. One of Hill’s biggest challenges came while working on Season 6, when he had to dress the the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave.
"That was collecting and transporting 26 lorry loads of rhododendron roots of all sizes, and then stitching them all together with screws and putty. Some of the roots were maybe 30 foot long, the size of the chamber. They all had to be stitched together to make it look like a half man, half tree sort of thing, him living in the roots. That was a big one."
Hill also worked the Battle of the Bastards. Everyone involved in filming that scene deserves an award, him included.
"We were just given a huge field, and we had to make it look like a dead, sparse place. They wanted it white and grey, as if there was no life about. We knew there was going to be trouble with drainage and with all the horses and action, it was going to be a quagmire. So we put about 400 ton of stone into that field."
That sounds like a major construction project. Imagine starting your day at 4:00 a.m., turning an empty field into a medieval battleground, and then watching it get trampled back into chaos during the month-long shoot. According to Hill, it’s more than worth it.
"You’re in the Paint Hall and you see a giant just walking over to get a cup of coffee, or Daenerys dandering about, or the Lannister Guards, all sitting around chatting. The White Walkers are incredible when you see them. The prosthetics are incredible. I have to mention Hardhome. It was incredible to work on. Seeing the work going into the White Walkers, the visual effects, and the construction. I worked on that one for a long time."
With only two seasons left to film, Hill has begun to look past Thrones.
"I suppose when Game of Thrones is over, I’ll just get on to the next thing. But I’ll always be able to say that I was involved in it. And I’ve got the Emmy Award certificate. The departments that won the Emmy’s all got a certificate, and we got our photographs taken with the Emmy itself. So that’s my legacy really."
And what about Season 7?
"Work has started. No spoilers, but it’s going to be great, already you can tell."
Nothing more for us, Garth? Looks like even the greensmen get briefed on spoilers.