PRODUCTION HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE if you run out of time ”
be happening in front of them,” Cernjul laughs. “That was very effective.” In the same sequence, the dragon breathes fire onto 12 people at once. “We did that practically; we did as much practically as possible,” explains Cernjul. “When you see people actually on fire, it’s very uncomfortable, even when you know that it’s in a completely controlled environment. As you could imagine, you can’t keep repeating this. That scene had to be well planned – not only for visual effects, but also for the stunt people.” To film this scene as efficiently as possible, Cernjul and Peristere planned everything down to the smallest detail. What began as a shot list became a storyboard and then a previs made by the visual effects department. “You have to be mindful of the resources and you want to be as economical as possible. With visual effects, it doesn’t matter how much money you have because, if you run out of time, there is no budget that can help you,” he concludes. SOARING, FLYING Cernjul and the directors wanted the series to maintain a visual subjectivity, as House of the Dragon is a character- driven family drama at its core. They achieved an immersive storytelling style both through camera and lens choice (ARRI Rental’s ALEXA 35 and ALFA anamorphics, primarily) and composition, particularly when the characters were riding their dragons. The team developed a filming style for these sequences that made it look “almost like there’s a camera operator on the dragon filming handheld,” Cernjul continues. He claims this would have been impossible to do practically. “First, there was no room, but also it wouldn’t be safe.” The actors sit atop a device called a buck (imagine a mechanical bull, but ‘far more complicated’) that simulates
the dragon’s movements while the camera is controlled via remote head. “Achieving that,” according to Cernjul, “involved integrating handheld camera movements into a motion-control system which was coordinated with the buck. In my testing, I saw that the operators’ cameras were too stable – after a while, the whole thing started looking disconnected.” Forced to find a creative fix, Cernjul first had the operator stand on their toes. “That was interesting, but you can’t ask an operator to do that for the duration of the scene!” he says. Eventually, he introduced half-balance exercise balls to help the operators find the correct level of unsteady movement without causing too much physical strain. “It was a simple solution that worked. The operators were game to try anything.”
LOFTY LOGISTICS Cernjul worked with two directors – the only Season 2 DOP to do so. This meant
10
DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
Powered by FlippingBook