00:00This is Dan Weiss and David Benioff, executive producers and writers at Game of Thrones.
00:18I'm Charles Dance.
00:19They thought I would be a good narrator.
00:21Mostly because we're terrified of him.
00:23We don't want to call for Charles Dance in the middle of the night.
00:26Indeed.
00:27The two have been friends for over 17 years.
00:2918 years, I think, since 1995.
00:32They share an office.
00:33Why not?
00:34Seven years ago, a package of books showed up at David's door.
00:37I thought, there's no way in hell I'm going to read it.
00:39The shortest one is 800 pages, the longest one's 1100 pages.
00:42I said, what the hell is this?
00:43They loved the story.
00:44It got to the scene where Bran got tossed out that window.
00:48Spoilers.
00:49I didn't see that coming at all.
00:52I was hooked.
00:53Why not make a TV show?
00:55It's a chance to tell a human story on an epic scale.
00:57Their goal was to stay faithful to the books, which, let's not forget, have giants, dire
01:02wolves, and dragons.
01:03We're trying to figure out how to juggle all the different storylines.
01:06We knew that it made no sense as a feature.
01:08They had to sell the idea to George R. R. Martin.
01:11We wanted to take this to HBO.
01:13He said, I never imagined it anywhere else.
01:16And we had this great, long, long lunch.
01:17At lunch, they received a test.
01:19And he said, so who do you think is Jon Snow's real mother?
01:24We threw out our guess, and he had that great poker face, and then, slowly, he smiled.
01:29And then we were in.
01:30So who was it?
01:31I can't tell.
01:32Come on.
01:33Whatever.
01:34Weiss and Benioff pitched the series to HBO.
01:37We were off to the races.
01:38Well, it took three years to get the pilot made, so I guess it wasn't really off to the
01:44races.
01:45Somehow, they convinced HBO that two writers who'd never done TV before.
01:48Or movies before, or the internet, or really anything at all.
01:51Knew what they were doing.
01:53I don't think we really spent any time at all dwelling on what a crazy undertaking it
01:58would be.
01:59They received an edict from George's wife.
02:01Don't fuck it up.
02:02Mistakes were made.
02:03At an early screening of the pilot, they were told.
02:06You guys have a massive problem.
02:08Massive.
02:09It was a massive problem.
02:11Some of the things that were crucial for people to understand weren't clear to them.
02:16Season one started 93 minutes short.
02:18We had to come up with 93 minutes worth of scenes that could be shot incredibly cheaply.
02:22George Martin had said it was unfilmable, with sigils, new languages, and names that
02:27don't exactly roll off the tongue.
02:30Some might call Game of Thrones complex.
02:32So many characters, he just wanted to write something where he didn't have to kill his
02:36darlings.
02:37And then he started killing them anyway.
02:38And some might call it sexy.
02:40Gratuitous sex?
02:41Where?
02:42This is where Weiss and Benioff adapt the unadaptable.
02:46One of us will write the first half, the other will write the second half.
02:48Pass drafts back and forth.
02:50Just keep passing them back and forth.
02:51I wonder if they ever get writer's block.
02:54There's no time.
02:55It takes a cast and crew of hundreds to bring this story to life.
02:59The show is shot in seven countries.
03:01Northern Ireland.
03:02Croatia.
03:03Morocco.
03:04Malta.
03:05Iceland.
03:06Scotland.
03:07And California for our wolves and our bear.
03:08And in spectacular locations.
03:10On any given day, you've got two of your directors shooting from two different episodes in two
03:13different countries.
03:15What could go wrong?
03:16Basically, the saying on set is, the worse the weather is, the better it's going to look.
03:22Though sometimes they're enhanced by visual effects, which is how a boat in a parking
03:26lot can become this.
03:31One season of Game of Thrones includes 100 locations, 3,000 costumes, 4,000 props, 257
03:37cast members, 703 crew members, 87,014 visual effects frames, and eight bottles of hot sauce.
03:44I just like hot sauce.
03:45We have been so lucky to have the cast that we have.
03:48Some of the greatest actors.
03:50Some of those great actors' characters didn't make it.
03:52They killed off the lead in the first season.
03:55Probably spent two weeks arguing about how many frames we should show of the sword cutting
03:58into the neck.
03:59It's left some fans shell-shocked by the deaths of a few major characters.
04:03Two words.
04:04They dead.
04:05Like so dead.
04:06Like OMG dead.
04:07My mother and brother are dead.
04:11Work on Game of Thrones takes 52 weeks a year.
04:1451 and a half.
04:1552.
04:16A typical day includes.
04:17Editing the episodes.
04:18Working with the VFX team.
04:20Working with our composers.
04:21Working with the sound team.
04:22And outlining the coming season.
04:23They have good chemistry and try to keep things light on the set.
04:26Script jokes.
04:27Fool actors into thinking that they've got certain scenes.
04:30They're not as gullible as they used to be.
04:32George comments after watching every episode.
04:34He's a pretty tough creator.
04:36Yeah.
04:37Game of Thrones has become part of the cultural zeitgeist.
04:39The fan response has been overwhelming.
04:42Saw the artwork and so much of it blew us away.
04:44One piece of that's actually in my bedroom at home.
04:47They've dedicated their life to this show for the last seven years.
04:50Kind of pathetic how much time we spend together.
04:52Our wives give us a lot of shit about it.
04:54They say we're married at this point.
04:57We love it and it's the best job in the world.
04:59A job that shows no sign of slowing down.
05:01The story grows with each episode.
05:04And nobody except Mr. Martin, Mr. Benioff and Mr. Weiss knows where it will end.
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