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#video #Episode 03 #drama2026 #movie2026 #hotmovie
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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.
00:57Outside in the courtyard at night, the rain is 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, if 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, Sir.
01:51A sigil of your own.
01:52It's another one of those nudges that says, go off and be your own person.
01:57The 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.
02:11So there you go, you've got the elm tree on sunset and the shooting 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.
02:25We told ourselves story-wise that that would have happened when Steely Pate was renovating it.
02:30The final result is an emblem for who Dunk is.
02:35This 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.
02:49He goes off and he says, I can find knights for you, Sir.
02:52Can I thank you enough?
02:53Norris or Stefan for bringing you.
02:55The fuck is this Devron?
02:57Your boy family.
02:59Being Squire, I've trained a lot for this.
03:02I just started watching Kubrick Eye and I said, Cece, do you know any karate?
03:06And he said, yes.
03:07I said, can you teach me?
03:08And he said, yeah.
03:10Hand to ear, we're going to step out, bring our hand in front and we're going to drop down.
03:16One, and...
03:17Perfect!
03:17With the Targaryen costume.
03:19The sash, it's like red on the inside and black on the out.
03:23So I went to Cece and I went, I got the black belt.
03:27Hmm.
03:28Right.
03:29Nice job.
03:31We have a lot of family in Dexter.
03:33Trying to do a hat trick.
03:34Right, 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.
03:44And Egg's just practicing, just in case they need a seventh or an eighth.
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.
04:06His presence alone would make him so heroic looking.
04:09We made a chainmail shirt.
04:11It's riveted steel mail.
04:13He was actually quite keen to wear the steel as opposed to the aluminium.
04:16And that really helps because it gives a genuine feel of weight in the movement.
04:22We got two gauntlets.
04:24One of which doesn't have the fist gauntlet because of jousting.
04:28Because holding the reins and stuff.
04:30And obviously the shield over that as well.
04:32There's like a concept art that was based on the graphic novel.
04:35I really loved that picture.
04:37So it was just, it's so cool to see it all in the finished product.
04:43Baratheon armor.
04:44We have obviously the Baratheon referencing with the antlers but kind of taken to the extreme.
04:49With all sincerity, it is the most unwieldy and unbalanced piece of costume I have 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.
05:02It had to be done.
05:04Robin Riesling.
05:05He is, for lack of a better word, a hippie knight who doesn't dress himself or his horse in any
05:11leather products.
05:12It's difficult to go to the, we call it a 10-1.
05:15Which is code for a peepee on set.
05:18That's very difficult.
05:20Especially in armored gloves.
05:24Each one of our armors is very different.
05:27That has been a representation of people's characters at their core.
05:31Darren is straight from the book.
05:33He's got a little green feather on his helm.
05:36The armor was very involved.
05:39It'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.
05:50We had some great fittings that were really helpful for me to start finding his presence.
05:54So Stefan, one of your friends, we need one more to make our seventh.
06:00I fought with Prince Arian and the accusers.
06:05I know none of you remember Sir Ireland of Pennytree.
06:09But I was his squire.
06:11When Peter was doing that speech, we were all so transfixed.
06:16In that moment, it felt like Peter himself became Dunk the Tall.
06:20We were watching the birth of a true knight.
06:24He was a good man and he taught me how to be a knight.
06:28Not just sword and lance, but honor.
06:30I was not his blood, but I have followed his example.
06:33As your sons were following yours.
06:36As courage deserted the noble houses of Westeros.
06:40I will not believe in his soul.
06:43It was kind of an emotional thing to actually be doing it in real life.
06:46After months and months ago trying to get it right to get the role.
06:51Are there no true knights among you?
06:54Peter was really quite a skilled writer.
06:57I'll forever have a spot in my heart for Garacha who played Thunder.
07:01He was just incredible that day.
07:03I kind of did something and I thought I was going to get in trouble.
07:06I wasn't allowed to canter, but I took off canter.
07:10All the extras started chanting.
07:14I'm never, ever, ever going to forget that.
07:16Ever.
07:20Episode five, we go into a little bit of a longer story with Dunk.
07:26How he came up and how that is going to make itself important in the Trial of Seven.
07:33All of the flashbacks we deliberately slightly stylized.
07:37You probably don't even notice when you're watching it.
07:40The camera doesn't really move.
07:41It's not a handheld camera, your memory.
07:43It does tend to be postcards of moments.
07:47Also change the framing a little bit.
07:49More centralized, more air over the head.
07:52Kind of show, dunk, being more vulnerable.
07:55Stick him!
07:58Three, two, one.
08:00They left by me!
08:04Danny is an incredible physical actor.
08:08Him 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.
08:22He 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 Peter.
08:33We did end up taking a couple of inches off the blade for Danny.
08:36Set, here we go.
08:37Just so he could manage it and draw it from the scabbard.
08:41Yeah!
08:42Yeah!
08:44Yeah!
08:44Yeah!
08:45Yeah!
08:46Yeah!
08:47Woo!
08:49So much of that was Danny himself.
08:53I'd done sword fighting through the years, theatre and drama schools.
08:57So instead of there, a little bit there.
09:00Up, going up.
09:02We'd actually choreographed a lot.
09:05I was told that one is a little bit like a drunken master.
09:08You'll see him slip one way, slip the other.
09:11But it all sort of flashes back.
09:13It was interesting determining how drunk Sir Arlen was.
09:17And as a result of that, how much of his qualities of a swordsman would shine through or not shine
09:22through.
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, but with horses.
09:49I'm like, yeah, I'm in.
09:51Me and Owen were a little bit terrified on doing this.
09:55If he's unsafe, don't do it.
09:59Brother against brother.
10:01Uncle 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.
10:11And all of a sudden, it's been cloaked in something that feels more sinister.
10:17To keep an entire valley cloaked in fog is super tricky.
10:22We had smoke machines in every type.
10:24For out there, we would use exterior fog, food grade mineral oil.
10:28You just heat it and it vaporizes and creates fog.
10:32The smoke is going to be coming from one direction.
10:34And then you could see it go that way because there would be a wind.
10:37You get to a point where you're like, this is all I've got.
10:40Hopefully this is enough.
10:42The continuity is all over the place.
10:45We're having to add layers in the foreground, mid-ground and background.
10:49And 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 atmosphere does create a brilliant atmosphere, but we do have to be careful to make sure these guys and
11:11these horses can see what they're doing.
11:13The seven versus seven is different to any joust that's ever been seen before because the tilts have been removed.
11:18The fact that there's 14 horses in this small arena galloping towards each other with lances and shields, that's a
11:24massive 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
11:30going through the fences.
11:32That'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.
11:41It was really challenging that it's worth it because you get this very dramatic setting for this perilous clash.
11:52I thought it'd be soup, but it was banana. Banana smoothie.
11:56Oh, I love bananas, so I was all right with it. Yeah, I didn't mind.
12:01Grin fucking byes!
12:03He's now fighting the entire royal family, basically. It's to the death. If that doesn't make you nervous, you're Batman.
12:14Be 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.
12:30Being inside that helmet and making it have that claustrophobic feeling, seeing the horses coming at us from inside this
12:36visor, 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 we actually put a camera on a wire cam and we'll fly into the back of his helmet.
12:49Obviously, that rider will be protected by a helmet, but we still have to black out the lens completely.
12:56It was a really tricky shot to design. We were like, we need to find a light camera.
13:02We've inherited this Ronin, but it's very light bodied. We can ultimately put it in positions. You can't put any
13:09other camera.
13:10We will put a helmet in front of the lens to get the POV of the rider.
13:17We fix the camera onto my chest or horse rider's chest, so it's the hidden cut that jump into inside
13:24the 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.
13:53Arian'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 Arian 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, and you're going to block it.
14:47He's very physically able.
14:50Retained 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.
15:01So, with me, I have a fight coordinator, Troian Milanov.
15:05Troian works for Pete now, and Troian will ground him a little bit.
15:10There are parts of that sword fight that are actually me. It's pretty cool.
15:15The way dunk has this kind of brute strength, I wanted Arian to be really quick and aggressive.
15:20Add this, like, kind of angry flavor to it.
15:24Arian'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 broad sword, 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 moves so fluidly in it.
16:41It is unbelievable how he managed to do that.
16:45And pull!
16:48They 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,
17:07so 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,
17:31the wind, the rain, the mud, the wasps.
17:39We wanted to have this feeling that it was hiring,
17:43and 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 can kind of limit to our chair,
17:55and you can sit down and pass a bottle of water back and forth,
17:58and, okay, we've got to go again.
18:00And we were pretty exhausted from doing all the stuff anyway,
18:03so it, like, contributed to the exhaustion that Dunk and Arian felt.
18:09Dunk grabs a hold of Arian's shield with two hands
18:11and twists it until the straps break.
18:15Arian can do nothing as Dunk brings the shield down
18:18on top of the Prinsling's helm.
18:20For Arian's shield, we've had to manufacture a crumple version
18:23when he is struck with it.
18:26At the bottom here, it is soft, but inside is a patch of lead.
18:32It's going to crumple in camera.
18:36It 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,
18:47I 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
19:05that 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
19:17and tracked along with them to get that hero shot.
19:23That really sucked.
19:25Yeah.
19:27They have the kind of, like, harness on you.
19:30And then they cut a hole in your costume
19:32and you're being dragged from an anchor.
19:35When we did that, I remember saying to Owen,
19:38yeah, no, listen, if the wire's showing, don't worry, man,
19:41I'll pull him.
19:42Yeah, it'll be fine.
19:43And then we took the wire off of one of them
19:45and I tried to pull him and I was like...
19:48It's like trying to pull a sack of spoons through all the muck
19:51and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna need the wire.
19:54My armor got caught in the mud
19:56and the thing was still going,
19:58but my arm was very much left behind.
20:00But it's all pretty fun.
20:03We're actually going to hug together.
20:06Yeah.
20:07I'm gonna have a bite together.
20:08Are you? Yeah.
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,
20:18they were both destroyed.
20:21This knight who you've been pulling for
20:22has been part of something far bigger
20:25than anything he could have ever dared to imagine.
20:32But tragedy is not done with Dunk.
20:35Originally, we planned to shoot the ending scene
20:38under a canopy out amongst the tents.
20:41It was quite challenging because, first of all,
20:43you'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,
21:01and 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
21:12that 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,
21:23and we do see through to the brain.
21:24We worked with Pippa and her prosthetics team
21:27to put something there that we can use.
21:30What they call an appliance,
21:32which would look photographically correct
21:34in the space, in the lights.
21:36She 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.
21:52Things like gushing blood.
21:54Not cause need to stare at this wound too long
21:57to get it quickly and get back to the character
22:00and what this moment means.
22:03Jerkis, get up, sir.
22:04Get up, sir.
22:07Get up!
22:08Dunk begs him to stand,
22:10but the prince is gone
22:12and does not rise.
22:15Baelor of House Targaryen,
22:18heir apparent to the Iron Throne.
22:21We've got a funeral pyre where we are,
22:24like this Targaryen kind of setting,
22:26and the area's like volcanic.
22:28We'll have some little steam sources
22:29just to try and help sell it a little bit more.
22:32Maldisling obviously did the Valar scene.
22:34He's just lost his father
22:35and he's completely out at sea and lost.
22:38But I didn't actually see any full scripts
22:41until the table read.
22:42I think I was struck by how different it was
22:44to how I'd expected it to be.
22:46He had it in to be a great king.
22:48The 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 Baelor
22:58in the solar.
22:59That scene is like night, very candlelit,
23:02and then he goes to talk to Maker.
23:06Completely different feel.
23:07It was very deliberate.
23:09Make it feel like the castle is colder.
23:12There's something about mutating the way a place feels,
23:16depending on where is your character.
23:19Some 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,
23:27but I will hear the whispers.
23:29You can find reasons for it being an accident,
23:32maybe so enough doubt in your mind
23:35to help you believe that it might not have been you.
23:38He has to contend with this as he says,
23:41to the day I die.
23:44My youngest son seems to have grown fond of you, sir.
23:47He tells me he will serve no knight but you.
23:51I beg your pardon, Lord,
23:54but I think I'm done with princes.
23:58I think we're really worried for what will become of Egg
24:01if 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.
24:07You know, he has called for Aaron's death several times.
24:11There's a big difference between feeling that sort of rage
24:15and 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 Egg could still turn out okay.
24:29My Lord Father says I am to serve you.
24:32When Egg shows up, it's a little ambiguous
24:36whether Makar thinks Egg just ran away again.
24:40I will take Egg to Squire.
24:43But not at Summerhall.
24:45Makar didn't say no.
24:47He said...
24:48He's my last son.
24:50In the book, Makar has a very similar conversation
24:54with Dunk at his camp, but then disappears.
24:57So we still actually, even in the book,
24:59don't ever see the moment of Makar saying,
25:02yes, you can go.
25:03Where the fuck is Egg on?
25:05This started as a joke,
25:07and then 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
25:22and be confident, and that was a big, big ask.
25:24I found myself championing both of them
25:28as much as I wanted the story to sort of champion Dunk and Egg.
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?
25:51I want to be a knight, but I don't know how to sew a patch.
25:54Yeah!
25:56The moment Rap was called,
25:59everybody just felt so thrilled.
26:01I think the last bit of Rap was actually in Titanic.
26:04We had, like, just a few pick-ups we needed to do.
26:07Good, and reset!
26:08One more time!
26:10Just getting back inside the studio felt like a victory.
26:13We'd made it through all these exteriors and all the great unknown.
26:18Everything was so tough, but everyone worked so hard to accomplish it.
26:24It feels like it's gone so fast, but also feels like I've been here forever.
26:29Everybody felt a great sense of achievement.
26:32That's a wrap on season one!
26:34Achievement!
26:36It 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.
26:47Happy birthday!
26:49I personally love birthdays on set.
26:52That was fucking great.
26:54With this set, 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.
27:06Oh, man, just to be, like, part of the history books.
27:09People have done, like, fan art, and that fan art's gonna 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! Mark!
27:45Mark!
27:46Mark!
27:47Mark!
27:47Mark!
27:49Mark!
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