Video Captures Stand-off Between Photographers and Game of Thrones Security Staff

With all the news out of Spain and the flurry of activity in Girona and Almeria, Season 6 filming in Ireland is managing to go largely unnoticed, probably to the relief of the production team. But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been hounded by the press when they do turn up on location with some of their A-list talent. Last week, for instance, Maisie Williams was seen filming a mysterious scene in the waters of Carnlough Harbour. Pictures from that shoot have been racing around the web ever since. But that doesn’t mean the production crew was happy about it. When some photographers tried to get close to film what was happening, the security team stepped in and tried to stop them by waving their hands in front of the cameras and waving the photographers away. Check out some video of the incident that a bystander took on a mobile phone.

This is one of the major difficulties Game of Thrones faces on a regular basis when filming on location. And for Season 6, when there are few to no book spoilers to let us in on what scenes are being filmed, the production has clamped down as hard as they can on letting spoilers out, including refusing to divulge what characters some of the new hires are playing, and moving bag and baggage from Dubrovnik, the high walls of which  made it easy for nosy tourists to see what was being filmed below.

However, when matched against the tenacity of the press, the increased security may not do much good. When the photographers are confronted by the security staff in the video, they just take their enormous telephoto lenses five paces away and start shooting again. And as whoever’s taking the video says: “They’ve got about a hundred million shots already so your hands don’t really make a difference.”

The futility of trying to keep Game of Thrones spoilers out of the public eye, Exhibit A.

One thing the production can do to alleviate this problem is film on private land where its much harder for photographers to skulk around. That’s not always possible when beautiful castles, many of which are public property, are involved, but it does happen. For example, earlier this week the cast and crew shot a large-scale scene on some privately owned land on the outskirts of the seaside town of Larne in Northern Ireland. Reportedly, the scene featured 400 extras, and because it was filmed on private land, you will note the disappointing lack of photos.

And that’s a shame, because we’d like to know what scene required 400 extras. My first instinct is to think of the Dothraki horde, but their scenes generally aren’t filmed in Ireland. Still, a scene with 400 extras in the open air says “army marching somewhere” to me. Littlefinger leading soldiers from the Vale into the North? Sansa leading the Northern resistance toward Winterfell? Where are the paparazzi when you need them?

H/T Larne Times

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