"Non semper ea sunt quae videntur; decipit
Frons prima multos: rara mens intellegit
Quod interiore condidit cura angulo."

  Phaedrus

 

New information about GoT shooting locations in Iceland

Two days ago reddit user u/gravemaster7 discovered a picture of a drone on Instagram, with the text "Shooting entire week with this amazing machine in Iceland for VFX" and the hashtag #gameofthrones: Instagram post by koenvrintspilot

This drone is a Neo model by AceCore Technologies. We've seen those specialized drones before - last year they were used for shooting GoT scenes in Iceland too: "The Drone Behind the Throne".

Now just this morning AceCore Technologies published a new video showing off its Neo drone shooting material in Iceland, again. Of course they don't tell us what exactly they were shooting and which client they did it for, but there are a some very interesting clues:
 

• The shooting was performed by "Pegasus Pictures", a production company in Iceland that has been working for GoT since season 2.
   
• During preparation of the shooting, we see the driver pulling into a car park filled with trucksowned by "Media Rental" - a big supplier of camera and shooting equipment in Iceland, who also worked for GoT before.
   
• And finally at 01:12 in the video you can clearly see it's the same scene and context as in the Instagram picture - just look at the railing, the concrete fundament and the guy's glove and jacket.
   

Taking all these hints into account, we can be very sure the scenes we see in this video are from recent shootings for Game of Thrones, shootings to be used for vfx scenes.

Now to the most interesting part: which exact locations are shown in the video?

Here's a list of the ones I could identify:
 

Fjaðrárgljúfur / Fjadrargljufur canyon
Svínafellsjökull Glacier, where GoT filmed last year
Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon
Lakagígar / Laki Craters
Háifoss waterfall

So to sum it up: these are some of the spectacular locations we are very probably going to see in vfx-enhanced scenes in season 8 - prepare yourselves!

Season 8: Directors and cinematographers

So now we know the names of the directors who will work for GoT in season 8: Miguel Sapochnik, David Nutter, and David Benioff / D. B. Weiss. But there are some other persons who are just as important when it comes to making the show what it is: the cinematographers, or Directors of Photography.

Up to now we have confirmation that DoP Fabian Wagner will be part of the team in season 8, but still nothing about the other two. It seems highly probable that for the final season HBO will chose DoPs which have lots of experience with GoT, and have either worked closely with the S08 directors before, or worked recently (S07) for the show.

Let's take a closer look at the candidates:

1. Miguel Sapochnik: From Fabian Wagner's Instagram post we know he will be back in the team, together with Sapochnik. Which could be expected, because Wagner shot *all four episodes* Sapochnik directed up to now, and he worked for the show during the last 4 seasons (in S07 he did some additional photography only).
    
2. David Nutter: When it comes to Nutter, there is a very high probability that his director of photography in S08 will be Robert McLachlan. McLachlan shot 4 of the 6 episodes Nutter directed (during seasons 3 and 5), and he recently did the two Matt Shakman episodes in S07. So he both worked a lot with David Nutter and shot recently for the show.
    
3. David Benioff & D. B. Weiss: The last one is also the hardest one: who might be the DoP for the final episode directed by Benioff and Weiss? As they only directed two episodes before (in S03 and S04), using two different DoPs, there is no clear precedent. Probably they will either use one of those two DoPs, or one who worked for GoT very recently:
    
   
   • Of the two DoPs they have worked with before, I guess Matthew Jensen (though he now has a name as DoP of "Wonder Woman") is rather an improbable choice: his cooperation with D & D back in S03 was his only contribution to GoT ever. Jonathan Freeman on the other hand has shot a total of 8 episodes for GoT; after 401 with Benioff & Weiss he shot 605 and 606 with Jack Bender, and 706 with Alan Taylor.
      
   • Of the S07 DoPs, we already have McLachlan and Wagner included in our list, and Gregory Middleton told us he won't be in S08 - which only leaves us with P. J. Dillon. He shot 5 episodes alltogether, four of them being the Mark Mylod episodes in S06 and S07.
    
   So probably it will be one of those two - Freeman or Dillon. My bet is on Freeman, because he has more GoT experience and D & D worked with him before on their S04 episode.

TL;DR: These will probably be the director / cinematographer pairings for season 8:

• Miguel Sapochnik / Fabian Wagner
• David Nutter / Robert McLachlan
• David Benioff & D. B. Weiss / Jonathan Freeman (or, maybe P. J. Dillon)

Aegon Targaryen

More clues and details from the official promotion pictures

Browsing through the official pictures we got, I looked a bit closer into the files to see if we could get more clues about episodes and storylines (as we did before season 6).

And while most of the pictures have been renamed and scrubbed of all specific information, a bunch of them still carry interesting details: mainly episode numbers, scene numbers, location description, characters shown and shooting date.

Some location names are revealing - for example they confirm that the shot of the Brotherhood members is taken at the FARMHOUSE we know from season 4, and one picture of Sam takes place in the AUTOPSY CHAMBER of the citadel.

Additionally, we learn the name of young Lord Umber, who together with Alys Karstark takes part in the meeting of the Northern lords: he is called Ned Umber - which may sound strange at first, but is not too surprising, as the Umbers were always loyal bannermen to the Starks; at least until Smalljon Umber switched sides and joined Ramsay Bolton.


Almost all of those pictures are from episode 1, which allows us to have some insight in the order the scenes will be shown in the first episode. Here's what we have:
 

EPISODE 1

SCENE 01   The army of the dead trudging towards the wall	(According to u/awayforthelads)
SCENE 02 EXT CASTLE BLACK TUNNEL   Bran and Meera arrive at the wall
SCENE 03 THE TWINS   Arya murdering the remaining Frey men	(According to u/awayforthelads)
SCENE 04 EXT WINTERFELL CASTLE   Exterior shots of the winter landscape	(According to u/awayforthelads)
SCENE 06 INT WINTERFELL GREAT HALL Meeting of the Northern lords
SCENE 08 INT KINGSLANDING MAPROOM Jaime and Cersei look at the new map
SCENE 10 EXT FARMHOUSE The Brotherhood arrives at the farmer's cottage
SCENE 14 EXT WINTERFELL COURTYARD Conversation between Tormund and Brienne, Podrick also being there
SCENE 17 KINGS LANDING THRONE ROOM Cersei receives visitors
SCENE 39 INT AUTOPSY CHAMBER CITADEL Sam in his laboratory clothes
SCENE 44 INT SAMS ROOM OLDTOWN Gilly and Sam reading
SCENE 49 EXT DRAGONSTONE BEACH Daenerys and her team landing on the beach of Dragonstone
SCENE 53 INT DRAGONSTONE AUDIENCE CHAMBER Daenerys and her team entering the throne room of Dragonstone
LAST SCENE Daenerys in the war room	(According to u/awayforthelads)