‘Home of the Dragon’ cinematographer talks dragons, ‘Succession’ inspiration, and extra

Cinematographers on Home of the Dragon face a tall order every episode, engaged on the whole lot from huge crowd scenes to draconic set items to hushed Small Council periods.

Season 2, episode 6 options a number of such standout moments, all with their distinct sense of rhythm and motion from behind the digicam. In an interview with Mashable, cinematographer Vanja Černjul broke down how he shot three key sequences, together with traditional movie influences and drawing on Succession for inspiration.

The riot in King’s Touchdown

Whereas episode 6 options two prolonged dragon set items — each of which required in depth collaboration with Home of the Dragon‘s VFX crew — essentially the most planning on Černjul’s finish went into the King’s Touchdown riot. Right here, an indignant mob surprises Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and her daughter Helaena (Phia Saban), and the 2 should struggle their approach by way of the crowds to flee of their carriage.

“We must have had 300 extras, and we had two days to shoot it,” stated Černjul on getting ready for the scene.

Taking pictures on location added additional issues: “With medieval architecture, it was a very challenging place to move the camera, because first, [Alicent and Helaena] run down very steep stairs, and then they [go] through the square, and then they hop into the carriage, all while being chased by a huge crowd of smallfolk,” Černjul stated. “We wanted [the scene] to have flow, so we shot it in order, and as much as possible consecutively.”

The riot sequence locks us into Alicent’s viewpoint till she and Helaena get within the carriage. A remotely operated digicam awaited their arrival within the carriage to supply protection for the inside part, maintaining us skilled on their anxiousness as they departed the scene.

Aemond’s Small Council assembly

Ewan Mitchell in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton/HBO

Small Council conferences are a staple of Home of the Dragon, with episodes usually exhibiting the fraught Council periods from each Workforce Black and Workforce Inexperienced. Černjul relished these sorts of scenes particularly, saying, “The most special scenes in that episode were scenes that only included a couple of characters in the room, talking and discussing how this war is going to unfold.”

For these scenes, together with a gathering of Aemond’s (Ewan Mitchell) Small Council, Home of the Dragon drew on one other HBO heavy hitter for inspiration: Succession. Episode 6 director Andrij Parekh — who Černjul attended movie college with — directed a number of episodes of Succession, even serving as cinematographer for the pilot.

“Andrij brought his experience from his previous projects of shooting these rooms where powerful people discuss the fate of other people,” Černjul stated. “He had a very good sense for developing a camera behavior that gives you a seat at the table, basically a fly-on-the-wall approach, where the camera also becomes a character that is subjectively reacting to whatever is happening.”

Within the Greens’ Small Council assembly, that usually meant the digicam reacting to Aemond as he prowls across the room. “We wanted to shoot the scene in that observational style, but we also wanted Aemond to be at the center, so we granted him the power to move the camera in the scene,” Černjul defined. “We designed blocking where Aemond was walking around the table throughout the scene while addressing the council. Two cameras were following him all the time, circling around the table on a so-called “dance flooring,” but then they would react to whoever Aemond was addressing. The camera movement appeared more observational, which worked well in contrast to House of the Dragon‘s overall style, which has a more intentional and designed feel.”

Seasmoke chases down Addam of Hull

Clinton Liberty and Abubakar Salim in “House of the Dragon.”
Credit score: Ollie Upton/HBO

It would not be Home of the Dragon with none dragons, and episode 6 includes a first for the present: Seasmoke, a riderless dragon, chasing down a potential rider in Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty). The scene performs out with a good bit of suspense, as Addam tries desperately to flee. It is sensible, then, that Černjul and Parekh drew on the work of the Grasp of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

“To jumpstart the process of shot listing, we would use references from classical cinema, just to get us going,” Černjul defined. “For that particular scene, we wanted to look at the famous scene from North by Northwest, where Cary Grant’s character [Roger Thornhill] is being chased by the cropduster. We thought, ‘It’s just like the dragon in our scene, this plane.'”

The similarities lengthen to Roger and Addam as nicely. “[Roger] doesn’t understand what’s going on or why he is being chased. Same with Addam,” stated Černjul.

Whereas the North by Northwest cropduster scene served as a jumping-off level, the Addam and Seasmoke scene grew into its personal as soon as Černjul and Parekh started creating it for its particular taking pictures location in Anglesey, Wales. Nonetheless, they nonetheless needed to keep up the cropduster scene’s “kinetic energy,” as Černjul stated. Totally different taking pictures strategies proved key right here.

“In that scene, we moved the camera in every possible way,” Černjul stated. “We shot handheld, we were on a dolly, we had a techno crane moving from an extreme high angle to an extreme low angle, a drone. We were moving the camera to match the energy of the scene.”

New episodes of Home of the Dragon air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max.