House of the Dragon Cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt Takes Us Inside Episode 3’s Pivotal Visuals: Spooky Harrenhal, the Crownlands Chase and More

WELCOME TO HARRENHAL

“Episode 3 is our first introduction, properly, to Harrenhal,” Goldschmidt says. “So that was a really exciting set for us to establish and explore for the first time with Daemon.” She recalls that the script was practically written for a cinematographer like herself, “about how he’s lost, and the place is just completely in shadow, but it’s raining and it’s lightning. He’s seeing things and hearing things, and it’s quite spooky… We’re sort of dancing on the edge of a horror/genre kind of a sequence, which we obviously didn’t do anything like in Season 1.”

She adds that she had fun playing with a visual representation of Daemon’s disorientation as he walks the hallways, sword drawn. “I’ll just tell you: The production designer was actually sort of horrified when he saw the dailies,” she says, laughing. “Because, from his perspective, he wants us to show off the entire set and see all the incredible detail that the art department puts into the sets. And that was sort of the opposite of our approach.”

Goldschmidt also hints that there’ll be a return to Harrenhal by the end of the season. “The place transforms,” she adds. “It’s a progression. And so [Episode 3] is where we wanted to start.”

CARAXES' FLIGHT

Before Daemon even sets foot in the crumbling castle, however, we first see it from the sky as he rides in on Caraxes. We asked Goldschmidt to walk us through the creation of the visual effects-heavy sequence.

“It starts with Geeta and I storyboarding it. We storyboarded the entire sequence, including the dragon approach and then Daemon walking through the halls. And then the parts that are visual effects- heavy — which is, obviously, the entire approach on the dragon — they take that into [filmmaking software] previs so that everybody can see exactly how the dragon is flying, from which side of Harrenhal are we approaching, how it is first revealed and all that.

“We’re making notes, and then we know what are the elements we have to shoot to get those shots accomplished? Obviously, it’s a Daemon performance piece. So all the dragon-riding [footage], we do on a mechanical buck,” she continues, referring to the contraption on which the actors sit in order to mimic dragonback riding. Though most of that type of filming this season took place on a soundstage with LED screens that served as interactive lighting sources, “because the Harrenhal scene involves a ton of rain, we took that and shot that outside, at night, with some rain,” Goldschmidt explains.

SHIP OUTTA LUCK

Though the storm that accompanies Daemon to Harrenhal was written into the script, the rain that pours down around Coryls and Rhaenys at the shipyard was not. “We’re shooting in England, and it was going to be raining,” Goldschmidt says with a chuckle. “So then we had this choice: Is there any way to keep the schedule the same and shoot the scene on this day, in the rain, or do we need to throw everything up in the air and try to change things up? And Geeta felt, ‘No, actually I think the rain could be an interesting dimension.’ And it was literally because of the rain that we put them where we put them, under that bridge. Because that was like, ‘Well, if it’s raining, where would they hang out?'”

As beautifully as the scene turned out, behind the scenes, the water and mud formed “this muddy pit,” Goldschmidt recalls. “And so basically, to get rid of it, they had to start madly digging under the ship, because there’s no drainage.” She laughs. “We had been shooting out in Wales for weeks, and we’d never experienced as disgusting conditions as we did that day on the backlot.”

THE CROWNLANDS CHASE

Remember how Caraxes’ approach to Harrenhal was a study in high-tech filmmaking? For Baela’s chase of Ser Criston Cole & Co. in the Crownlands, Goldschmidt says she and Patel started a little more low-tech. “There’s actually some hilarious videos that exist of us using our hands as dragons, describing how we want Moondancer to dive when she sees them,” she says, laughing. (And, of course, the pre-visualization software was used, too.)

“The Crownlands sequence was especially challenging for us, just because there are these two halves to the sequence,” Goldschmidt explains. “There’s Baela in the sky, and there’s the guys on the ground, and just how we would be intercutting between that and what the actual interactivity was.”

But first, they had to find the perfect location — which proved harder than expected.

“To have a flat, open plain that then leads into a wood where it’s possible to ride horses and get tracking vehicles and all that [equipment], to have the two of those together in one place was really tricky to find,” she says. “But eventually, we found it in Salisbury. So we shot that on the Salisbury Plain.”

The chase allows for some insight into Baela, played by Bethany Antonia. “You can feel that she has this fiery, unpredictable, sort of Daemon-esque side to her character. The whole point of the sequence is: Is she, or isn’t she, going to actually get these guys?”

Goldschmidt adds that, at one point, budget concerns threatened to make the scene not quite as big. “Geeta especially, but all of us, were really fighting to keep this in there, because it’s a great character moment for Baela, and it’s really fun.”