Here’s why Game of Thrones still lights people on fire rather than using CGI

During filming on the fantastic Loot Train sequence in the seventh season of Game of Thrones, stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam and his team did something unprecedented: they set 20 people on fire at once, and 73 in all. Both of those numbers broke records, and Game of Thrones fans everywhere were thankful. After all, how else are you going to sell a dragon attack?

But Irlam didn’t have to do it that way. Plenty of movies and TV shows use computers to produce fire effects. Why did HBO go the practical route? Business Insider spoke to Irlam about his methods, and how difficult it is to do them justice. Watch the video below!

“What you still get from a person that you won’t get from VFX is a human performance and their own take on something,” Irlam explained. “What we wanted to do is find the humanity of the situation. These are the human moments when you feel their suffering.”

But it takes an awful lot of doing to make this a reality. As Business Insider explains, every stunt performer wears three layers of fireproof underwear, all of it soaked in a fire-retardant material called Zel Jel. They also must apply Zel Jel to exposed skin, if there’s any left after adding on a rain suit, a fire suit, a thin cotton suit, and finally their costume, which in the case of the Loot Train Attack looked pretty heavy. These guys were probably already burning up before actual fire was brought into the mix.

And once the fire starts, there are new perils. “You need to be holding your breath, so you don’t breathe in any kind of flame,” Irlam says. “The danger is disorientation, or if you were to injure yourself or bang into something, you know. What you don’t want to do is breathe in because of a shock of pain or injury.”

Stunt people are allowed to remain on fire for no more than 15 seconds, so at least they don’t have to think about what will happen to their lungs if they accidentally take a breath for very long. Still, that’s a lot of stress. “If you do enough of it, you become competent and confident,” Irlam says. “We run a very controlled set, you know, we make a plan, and we stick to the plan, and we execute the plan.”

"The challenging thing is to make sure that you don’t make a mistake. If we can get through stuff and make it look really, really exciting and dynamic and not hurt anybody, then we’ve won."

Happily, Irlam and his team have done a great job of that so far, and we at home are reaping the benefits.

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