During the filming of the episode, which is expected to feature the Battle of Winterfell, things are especially hard for Maisie Williams as it is her first time to take part in a filming for a battle.
- Mar 5, 2019
AceShowbiz - "Game of Thrones" is going to be bigger for its eighth and final season which is set to arrive in April. A new report suggests that the show has been blown out to unprecedented proportions as it will feature a climatic battle that perhaps marks the longest ever put on film.
Director Miguel Sapochnik offers details about the upcoming highly-anticipated season in an interview for Entertainment Weekly's new cover story. "One thing I found is the less action -- the less fighting -- you can have in a scene, the better," he reveals.
"I find the best battle sequences are when you have a strong point of view. I keep thinking, 'Whose story am I telling right now?' " he adds.
The site also shares that during the set visit, it was heard that star Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, jokingly said the battle episode in season 8 would end up running 90 minutes. While it remains to be seen how long it will be, EW states that the episode is expected to feature the longest continuous battle ever filmed.
One of the most iconic battle scenes on the show, "Battle of Bastards", took 25 days of shooting. Meanwhile, the crew and cast spent 11 weeks to film the final season episode with most of the filming happening at night.
According to Sapochnik, who previously helmed "Battle of the Bastards" episode, the crew "basically broke it down into so many pieces, it would be shot like a Marvel movie, with never any flow or improvisation." He goes on detailing, "But I turned to the producers and said, 'I don't want to do 11 weeks of night shoots and no one else does. But if we don't, we're going to lose what makes 'Game of Thrones' cool, and that is that it feels real."
"What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie," co-executive producer Bryan Cogman adds, dubbing the epic battle scene unprecendented for both TV or film. "This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle."
He continues, "There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It's been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away."
During the filming of the episode, which is expected to feature the Battle of Winterfell, things were especially hard for Maisie Williams. Her character Arya Stark focused on learning to be an assassin in last seven seasons, so it marks the first time for her to take part in an actual battle. The British actress took a training before the shooting. "Nothing can prepare you for how physically draining it is. It's night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn't stop," Williams says of the experience.
However, she notes that "the hard work pays off on this show. After one of those really tough days, you know it's going to be part of something so iconic, and it will look amazing."
