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00:07I wanted the Trial of Seven to have that feel old Westerns had.
00:15We've got 14 riders fighting all at the same time.
00:20There's a lot of components that can go wrong.
00:23Got a couple of cuts and scrapes.
00:26This was the most modest artwork I've ever done.
00:30We had all worked so hard.
00:32It was so satisfying seeing it come together as a show.
00:55Episode four is Dunk's Dark Night of the Soul.
00:58Outside in the courtyard at night, the rain has picked up. Dunk emerges from Ashford Castle. The night is half
01:04gone.
01:04Tonally, we really wanted to feel the psychological weight of Dunk's death sentence.
01:13They can't kill me twice.
01:16For the actual battle sequence, it needs to be really muddy and messy. So it needs to be raining a
01:22lot the night before.
01:24We do that sort of Warner that follows him. It's almost like an echo of the previous night and that
01:29other Warner.
01:30Similar but different because now he's alone.
01:33Sir Duncan.
01:35If y'all come for your shield, she left it with me.
01:39Dunk's shield, which was Sir Arlan's, has the biggest journey of its own throughout this show.
01:44You are not of Sir Arlan's blood.
01:46No, I am not.
01:47You must need to find a new device.
01:51A sigil of your own.
01:52It's another one of those nudges that says, go off and be your own person.
01:58The designs for this, we ended up much closer to the book.
02:02I like to honor George and the artwork from his books has always been a major source of pride for
02:08him.
02:09Gets a new paint job from Tanzel. So there you go. You've got the elm tree on sunset and the
02:13shooting star.
02:14It was a really challenging shield to paint because of the worn roughness of the wood effect on Sir Arlan's
02:21shield.
02:22We remade it with a cleaner version of the wood. We told ourselves story-wise that that would have happened
02:28when Steely Pate was renovating it.
02:30The final result is an emblem for who Dunk is. This tall, sturdy tree of a human being.
02:40At the edge of the paddock, down from their horses, except for one, are four knights.
02:47Egg has brought those knights there. He goes off and he says, I can find knights for you, sir.
02:52I cannot thank you enough. Nor it's the Stevron for bringing you.
02:55The fuck is the Stevron? Your boy family.
02:59Being Squire, I've trained a lot for this. I just started watching Cobra Kai and I said,
03:05Cece, do you know any karate? And he said, yes. And I said, can you teach me? And he said,
03:09yeah.
03:10Hand to ear. We're going to step out, bring our hand in front and we're going to drop down.
03:15One, and perfect.
03:17With the Targaryen costume, the sash is like red on the inside and black on the out.
03:23So I went to Cece and I went, I got to black belt.
03:28Right. Nice job.
03:31We have a lot of fun, me and Dexter.
03:33Trying to do a hat trick. Right, come on.
03:35Oh!
03:36That was so close.
03:38Every day when we have a bit of free time, we're like, oots, oots, oots.
03:42They're about to go fight a trial and Egg's just practicing, just in case they need a seventh or an
03:48eighth.
03:50On Dunk's side, it was a motley crew of, you know, people that just showed up.
03:55They didn't all dress together and line up.
03:58With Dunk's armor, the key was to make it really simple.
04:01I think we got there in the end with a beautiful helmet with no embellishment.
04:05His presence alone would make him so heroic looking.
04:09We made the chainmail shirt. It's riveted steel mail.
04:13He was actually quite keen to wear the steel as opposed to the aluminium.
04:17And that really helped because it gives a genuine feel of weight in the movement.
04:22We got two gauntlets, one of which doesn't have the fist gauntlet because of jousting,
04:28because holding the reins and stuff, and obviously the shield over that as well.
04:31There's like a concept art that was based on the graphic novel.
04:35I really loved that picture, so it was just, it's so cool to see it all in the finished product.
04:43Baratheon armor, we have obviously the Baratheon referencing with the antlers,
04:47but kind of taken to the extreme.
04:49With all sincerity, it is the most unwieldy and unbalanced piece of costume I've ever worn.
04:56You can't see anything and it's so heavy that the whole thing is dragging your head back.
05:01But it just looks so cool, it had to be done.
05:04Robin Riesling, he is, for lack of a better word, a hippie knight who doesn't dress himself
05:10or his horse in any leather products.
05:12It's difficult to go to the, we call it a 10-1, which is code for a peepee on set.
05:18That's very difficult, especially in armored gloves.
05:24Each one of our armors is very different.
05:26That has been a representation of people's characters at their core.
05:31Darren is straight from the book. He's got a little green feather on his helm.
05:36The armor was, uh, very involved. It's based on a 14th century coat of plates,
05:42a little over 200 panels just on the torso and skirts combined.
05:46I have a nice, great, big plate with the beautiful apples. We had some great fittings.
05:51It was really helpful for me to start finding his presence.
05:55So Stefan, one of your friends, we need one more to make our seven.
06:00I fought with Prince Arian and the accusers.
06:05I know none of you remember Sir Ireland of Pennytree, but I was his squire.
06:11When Peter was doing that speech, we were all so transfixed. In that moment,
06:17it felt like Peter himself became Dunk the Tall. We were watching the birth of a true knight.
06:23He was a good man, and he taught me how to be a knight. Not just sword and lance, but
06:29honor.
06:30I was not his blood, but I have followed his example.
06:33As your sons were following yours, as courage deserted the noble houses of Westeros,
06:40I will not believe it is so. It was kind of an emotional thing to actually be doing it in
06:45real life
06:46after months and months ago trying to get it right to get the role.
06:50And there are no true knights among you!
06:54Peter was really quite a skilled rider.
06:57I'll forever have a spot in my heart for Garacha, who played Thunder.
07:01He was just incredible that day. I kind of did something and I thought I was going to get in
07:05trouble.
07:06I wasn't allowed to canter, but I took off canter. All the extras started chanting.
07:14I'm never, ever, ever going to forget that, ever.
07:16It's rolling, rolling.
07:20Episode five, we go into a little bit of a longer story with Dunk, how he came up,
07:27and how that is going to make itself important in The Trial of Seven.
07:33All of the flashbacks we deliberately slightly stylized. You probably don't even notice when you're
07:39watching it. The camera doesn't really move. It's not a handheld camera, your memory. It does tend to be
07:44postcards of moments. It also changed the framing a little bit. More centralized, more air over the
07:52head, kind of show Dunk, being more vulnerable. Stick him!
08:03Danny is an incredible physical actor. Him drunk and having to turn on a dime and become Dunk's hero.
08:13You're acquiring someone who can find those levels of performance and make them feel utterly natural.
08:20Danny Webb was amazing. He picked a sword out and I thought, oh, this has made my life easy.
08:27Because I designed the sword for Dunk, it wasn't ideal for Danny, because Danny's a lot smaller than
08:32Peter. We did end up taking a couple of inches off the blade for Danny.
08:36Sam, here we go. Just so he could manage it and draw it from the scabbard.
08:41Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
08:49So much of that was Danny himself.
08:53I've done sword fighting through the years, theatre and drama schools.
08:58Up. Going up.
09:02We'd actually choreographed a lot.
09:05I was told that one is a little bit like a drunken master. You'll see him slip one way,
09:10slip the other. But it all sort of flashes back.
09:13It was interesting determining how drunk Sir Arlen was, and as a result of that, how much of his
09:19qualities of a swordsman would shine through or not shine through.
09:22Dunk's fighting with all of those attributes the flashback started to bring to life.
09:27Dunk would know how to street fight, at least.
09:36But coming into a joust, this is huge.
09:43Seven on seven, it's a bit like somebody saying you're going to do a demolition derby,
09:47but with horses. I'm like, yeah, I'm in.
09:51Me and Owen were a little bit terrified on doing this.
09:54If he's unsafe, don't do it.
09:59Brother against brother. Uncle against nephew.
10:03It's really going to go down in the history books.
10:07We've been used to seeing Ashford in a certain way and it's vibrant and it's alive and all of a
10:12sudden it's been cloaked in something that feels more sinister. To keep an entire valley cloaked
10:19in fog, it's super tricky. We had smoke machines in every type. For out there, we would use exterior
10:25fog, a food grade mineral oil. You just heat it and it vaporizes and creates fog.
10:32The smoke is going to be coming from one direction and then you could see it go that way because
10:36there would be a wind. You get to a point where you're like, this is all I've got. Hopefully this
10:41is enough. The continuity is all over the place. We're having to add layers in the foreground,
10:46mid-ground and background and painstakingly roto around each character, each element in the shot.
10:53We ended up with about 210 fog shots.
10:57We had actually done some tests and you only see your opponents at the last moment.
11:05The Atmos does create a brilliant atmosphere, but we do have to be careful to make sure these guys
11:10and these horses can see what they're doing. The seven versus seven is different to any joust that's
11:16ever been seen before because the tilts have been removed. The fact that there's 14 horses in this
11:20small arena galloping towards each other with lances and shields, that's a massive challenge in itself.
11:25The horses have got to be trained to use then the shields as markers and they're used to kind of
11:30go
11:30through the fences. That's something that becomes a bit more complicated in your rehearsals with horses.
11:37All of these sorts of layers, just to sort of isolate Dunk, it was really challenging that it's worth it
11:44because you get this very dramatic setting for this perilous clash.
11:52I thought it'd be soup, but it was banana. Banana smoothie.
11:55Banana smoothie. Oh, I love bananas. I was all right with it. Yeah, I didn't mind.
12:00Green fucking boys. He's now fighting the entire royal family, basically. It's to the death. If that
12:10doesn't make you nervous, you're Batman. Be vigilant. Don't die.
12:21There's a line from the novella. The narrow eye slit of the great helm limited Dunk's vision to what was
12:28directly ahead of him. Being inside that helmet and making it have that claustrophobic feeling,
12:34seeing the horses coming at us from inside this visor, it's a view that we've not had as an audience.
12:38I want to know what it feels like to be a knight charging into battle. So I've developed a shot
12:44where
12:44we actually put a camera on a wire cam and we'll fly into the back of his helmet.
12:48Obviously, that rider will be protected by a helmet, but we still have to black out the lens
12:55completely. It was a really tricky shot to design. We were like, we need to find a light camera.
13:03We've inherited this Ronin, but it's very light bodied. We can ultimately put it in positions
13:08that you can't put any other camera. We will put a helmet in front of that lens
13:13to get the POV of the rider. We fix the camera onto my chest or horse rider chest.
13:21So it's the hidden cut that jump into inside the helmet.
13:29You don't have 360 vision, so it'll really make you feel like you're in there.
13:44The shield immediately gets blown to shit, ending any hopes that this might turn out well for him.
13:53Aryan's Grey Stallion barrels into him at full gallop.
13:58Only very few times do we go handheld in the show.
14:06It just was a way of us pinning ourselves to dunk what was taking place around him.
14:11I like the fact that mud hits the lens, blood hits the lens. It's shocking.
14:17And I want to find moments that shock us all.
14:21Obviously, Peter is a very big man, and I am a slightly shorter man.
14:26Dunk's character is big and strong and not as trained as the others,
14:29and we have Aryan who's a bit more alive. So we definitely want to see that.
14:34Everybody moves different.
14:36Peter worked very, very hard, and he got very, very good.
14:39It was great because we just got to be two children playing with swords every day.
14:44What I'm going to do, I'm going to put a thrust to you,
14:46and you're going to block it.
14:48He's very physically able to retain the choreography really well.
14:52It was like, ooh, okay. I don't want you to be too good.
14:56Because Dunk, he hasn't got that experience behind him.
15:00Peter's like, he's a blank canvas. So with me, I have a fight coordinator, Troy Milanov.
15:05Troy works for Pete now, and Troy will ground him a little bit.
15:10There are parts of that sword fight that are actually me. It's pretty cool.
15:14The way Dunk has this kind of brute strength, I wanted Aryan to be really quick and aggressive.
15:20Add this, like, kind of angry flavor to it.
15:24Aryan's slightly like an assassin, and he has this horrible sword.
15:28In the script, it's described as thin, long, and pointy.
15:31That's always a challenge because he's going to be fighting against a broadsword, which isn't.
15:36You want to feel like these two swords can actually fight each other.
15:40We've had to try and make it a lot wider than we would normally.
15:43You can see there, that's the two different thicknesses of blade.
15:47Otherwise, this won't last two minutes.
15:55Everything about his fighting style and the weapons he uses is just, like, nasty.
15:59There's nothing honorable about the way he fights.
16:07We think we've devised a very cool way of getting Dunk's helmet off.
16:11It's not too early in the fight so that we can keep our cool stunt guy fighting.
16:17My stuntman, Jula, that was playing all the stuff with the helmet on,
16:21and then Finn's stunt guy, Zack.
16:24It was actually an honor to go out there and give those guys a break.
16:30Huge credit to Zack.
16:32The armor was as comfortable as it could possibly be.
16:36But, you know, it's clunky.
16:37It's meant to protect you.
16:39He moved so fluidly in it.
16:41It is unbelievable how he managed to do that.
16:47They deserve a hell of a lot of credit for this fun scene.
16:59Peter's big swollen eye, we tape his eye shut with a little bit of wig lace,
17:04and then we just glue this whole thing over the top so it's like a big rubber eye patch.
17:09We soaked them with all this blood, which was made primarily from sugar.
17:16They were a huge target for the wasps.
17:19My god, was there a lot of wasps.
17:22Lots of wasps.
17:28I think everybody knew that it was pretty tough with, like, the wind, the rain, the mud, the wasps.
17:39We wanted to have this feeling that it was hiring, and we were in it, and we were feeling it.
17:45That's what the guys will be feeling inside the armor.
17:49He's dead!
17:50It's over!
17:52You know, me and Pete, we're gonna kind of limp to our chair.
17:55You can sit down and pass a bottle of water back and forth.
17:58And, okay, we gotta go again.
18:01We were pretty exhausted from doing all the stuff anyway, so it, like, contributed to the
18:05exhaustion that Dunk and Arian felt.
18:09Dunk grabs a hold of Arian's shield with two hands and twists it until the straps break.
18:14Arian can do nothing as Dunk brings the shield down on top of the princeling's helm.
18:20Before Arian's shield, we've had to manufacture a crumple version when he is struck with it.
18:26At the bottom here, it is soft, but inside is a patch of lead.
18:32It's gonna crumple in camera.
18:36I did exactly what it says in the tin.
18:38It just kept, obviously, smashing as if it was smashing for real.
18:43All I had to worry about was going as hard as I could.
18:46And Peter, he went, oh, I think I'd like to give him a couple more punches.
18:52I'd be like, yeah, why not?
18:56So Arian's look, we have a few lacerations on the face.
18:59It should just feel frantic and scrappy and bloody.
19:02They put all this kind of, like, dental barriers in my mouth that made it look like it was swollen.
19:07Are you? Are you?
19:10This is the moment of triumph for Dunk.
19:13We wanted him to tower in the sky.
19:16That's why we kept the camera low and tracked along with them to get that hero shot.
19:23That really sucked.
19:27They have the kind of, like, harness on you.
19:30And then they cut a hole in your costume and you're being dragged from an anchor.
19:35When we did that, I remember saying to Owen, yeah, no, listen, if the wire's shown, don't worry,
19:40man, I'll pull them.
19:42Yeah, it'll be fine.
19:43And then we took the wire off of one of them and tried to pull them.
19:46And I was like, it's like trying to pull a sack of spoons through all the muck.
19:51And I was like, yeah, I'm going to need the wire.
19:54My armor got caught in the mud and the thing was still going, but my arm was very much left
20:00behind.
20:00But it's all pretty fun.
20:04God hugged you guys.
20:06You're going to have a bite and go.
20:08Are you?
20:09Yeah.
20:09This is called a crazy one night's day.
20:11Yeah.
20:13Just performing that level of exhaustion, take after take.
20:16By the end of a shooting day like that, they were both destroyed.
20:21This knight who you've been pulling for has been part of something far bigger than
20:25anything he could have ever dared to imagine.
20:32But tragedy is not done with Dunk.
20:35Originally, we planned to shoot the ending scene under a canopy out amongst the tents.
20:40It was quite challenging because first of all, you'd have lots of people still around.
20:44So it felt like we needed to give it its own setting.
20:48Owen came up with the idea when he saw that pathway.
20:51It gives you the privacy that that sort of scene needs.
20:55I need good men, Sir Duncan.
20:57The realm.
21:00Baylor's helmet was very important and I wanted the eye drawn to it.
21:04Sir Raymond, my helm, if you would be so kind.
21:08The design has a real strange, almost alien look about it that makes me attracted to it,
21:15but without telling me something's about to go down.
21:20Baylor's head had a section of skull removed and we do see through to the brain.
21:24We worked with Pippa and her prosthetics team to put something there that we can use.
21:30What they call an appliance, which would look photographically correct in the space, in the lights.
21:35She had kind of brain matter and the skull missing.
21:39Our goal is to kind of sink that in, make it look deep.
21:46I held back a bit in going full pelt on the injuries.
21:50Because we're not going for gore in this moment, things like gushing blood.
21:54Not cause need to stare at this wound too long to get it quickly and get back to the character
22:00and what this moment means.
22:02Jurgis, get up, sir. Get up, sir. Get up!
22:08Dunk begs him to stand, but the prince is gone and does not rise.
22:15Baylor of House Targaryen, heir apparent to the Iron Throne.
22:21We've got funeral pyre where we are, like this Targaryen kind of setting,
22:25and the areas like Volcanic. We'll have some little steam sources just to try and help sell it a little
22:31bit more.
22:32I just think obviously did the Valar scene.
22:34He's just lost his father and he's completely out at sea and lost.
22:38But I didn't actually see any full scripts until the table read.
22:42I think I was struck by how different it was to how I'd expected it to be.
22:46He had it in to be a great king, the greatest since Aegon the Dragon.
22:51Why would the gods take him and leave you?
22:54There's a scene where Dunk goes to talk to Baylor in the solar.
22:59That scene is like night, very candlelit, and then he goes to talk to Maker.
23:06Completely different feel. It was very deliberate, make it feel like the castle is colder.
23:11There's something about mutating the way a place feels, depending on where is your character.
23:18Some men will say I meant to kill my brother.
23:22He is probably the one who did it.
23:25The gods know it is a lie, but I will hear the whispers.
23:29You can find reasons for it being an accident, maybe so enough doubt in your mind to help you
23:36believe that it might not have been you.
23:39He has to contend with this, as he says...
23:41To the day I die, my youngest son seems to have grown fond of you, sir.
23:47He tells me he will serve no knight but you.
23:51Beg your pardon, lord, but I think I'm done with princes.
23:57I think we're really worried for what will become of Aeg if he doesn't go with Dunk.
24:02Maybe you're not the knight I thought you were.
24:05He clearly has a very dark side. You know, he has called for Aaron's death several times.
24:11There is a big difference in between feeling that sort of rage and carrying on with it.
24:17He's ultimately not that person.
24:20It's almost a moment of relief when we see that he goes with Dunk.
24:26Maybe there's a chance Aeg could still turn out okay.
24:29My lord father says I am to serve you.
24:32When Aeg shows up, it's a little ambiguous whether Makar thinks Aeg just ran away again.
24:40I will take Aeg to Squire, but not at Summerhall.
24:45Makar didn't say no. He said he's my last son.
24:50In the book, Makar has a very similar conversation with Dunk at his camp, but then disappears.
24:57So we still actually, even in the book, don't ever see the moment of Makar saying yes, you can go.
25:03Where the fuck is Aegon?
25:05This started as a joke other than it ended as something that's in our show, so.
25:13Our unlikely duo back on the road again.
25:17Peter and Dexter had to come into that huge world and be confident.
25:23And that was a big, big ask.
25:25I found myself championing both of them as much as I wanted the story to sort of champion Dunk and
25:30Egg.
25:31It really became for me about wanting to give them their best shot.
25:35That felt good.
25:38Dexter is a damn good actor.
25:41He's been brilliant on this and it's been lovely getting to know him.
25:44The two of them together, this was the show.
25:48Let's go to the Titanic.
25:50What do I make? I want to be a knight, but I don't know how to sew a patch.
25:56The moment Rap was called, everybody just felt so thrilled.
26:01I think the last bit of Rap was actually in Titanic.
26:03We had like just a few pickups we needed to do.
26:07Good, and reset.
26:08Reset.
26:08The water time.
26:10Let's go.
26:10Just getting back inside the studio felt like a victory.
26:13We'd made it through all of these exteriors and all the great unknown.
26:18Everything was so tough, but everyone worked so hard to accomplish it.
26:23It feels like it's gone so fast, but also feels like I've been here forever.
26:29Everybody felt a great sense of achievement.
26:31That's a wrap on season one.
26:34It was really emotional.
26:38The rap day was actually my birthday.
26:41Happy birthday to you.
26:44They brought me the cake, which was amazing.
26:46Happy birthday to you.
26:49I personally love birthdays on set.
26:52With this sake, it's been a very, very special group of people.
26:58People that I'll speak to for probably the rest of my life.
27:02I know he's got an allergy.
27:04I really want him to go.
27:05Yeah.
27:06Oh man, just to be like part of the history books.
27:09People have done like fan art and that fan art is going to be pictures of me now.
27:13Um, such a shit thing to say.
27:17It's the first of three of George's beloved novellas.
27:22Hopefully it's got a long way to go.
27:24I'll get it, Roger.
27:27I think we had all felt like we had done something special.
27:31Now it's time for a whole new adventure.
27:34Just a massive thank you to everybody that's made this possible.
27:40Can't wait to fucking do it again.
27:44Mark Peter.
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