Sean Bean‘s starring in Black Death, a medieval action/horror film which opens late next month. The trailer’s just been released, and one notices that Bean probably looks pretty close to how he’ll look as Eddard Stark, beard and all:
Thanks, once again, to raijap for retweeting this one.
I’m not quite sure how she does it, but PDF-hunting wunderkind raijap has tracked down an interesting tidbit: an official document from the Center for Cinematography in Morocco, listing the productions spends of all significant projects filmed in Morocco in 2009. Of interest, of course, is the listing for Game of Thrones, which gives the spend as 2.7 million dirham (approxmately $320,000 USD). Of course, one supposes this figure relates purely to the hire of crew, extras, lots, and so on incurred in Morocco specifically, and may not cover the budget for foreign actors such as Jason Momoa, Tamzin Merchant, Iain Glen, or Ian McNeice.
This figure is—to my admittedly-amateur knowledge of such things—surprisingly lower than one would have expected, but may help to explain part of the reason filming will once more take place in Morocco (the other being, doubtless, the need to reshoot many of the Daenerys scenes following recasting of the role.)
Another noticeable piece, the naming of Dune Films as the local production company contracted to facilitate shooting. Dune Films has extensive credits, including having participated in the production of Kingdom of Heaven, Prince of Persia, and the soon to be released Inception.
Mike the Productions has posted some interesting news regarding The Skin Trade, the award-winning horror novella by GRRM that they recently acquired rights to.
In the linked press release, they reveal that Filmworks/FXand its president, Ken Locsmandi, are attached to the project. Locsmandi and Filmworks have extensive credits as a visual effects and post-production provider, and have been involved in such films as City of Ember, Apocalypto, and Pete Smalls is Dead (which, coincidentally, stars Peter Dinklage).
In related news, GRRM shared a promotional image Mike the Pike Productions commissioned for the project.
Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune has posted her interview with George R.R. Martin concerning HBO’s Game of Thrones. A lot of interesting things ... and a bit of expected news: Tamzin Merchant has left the production, so the role is definitely being recast. This item is from HBO directly, rather than from GRRM it seems.
The transcript covers a number of topics, not just the HBO production, such as the comic book adaption of Fevre Dream by Avatar Press which came to fruition after they contacted George regarding rights to adapting A Song of Ice and Fire, something he may eventually do (and has been approached by a number of different publishers about) but hasn’t yet decided because he’s not sure it’s really feasible. He also mentions a novel idea he’s had for a long time, inspired by Chicago’s landmark Uptown Theatre, and of course he covers the current situation with A Dance with Dragons. It makes for good reading, especially as it touches upon GRRM’s early career both as a writer and in Hollywood.
Many thanks to Mo Ryan for the head’s up!
As promised, the SSM collection has been updated with a C2E2 transcript and other reports. And as an extra surprise, we have the link to a brand new podcast interview with GRRM at the Dragon Page. GRRM shares some very frank and interesting thoughts on the process of writing the series and the difficulties and delays that have taken place with the last novel and the present one.
A very brief shot of a camera test for HBO’s Game of Thrones can be found in this PDF document from Mediazoo, a Belfast-based green screen facility. In the pictures, you can see what looks to be an ARRICAM Lite, one of the camera systems we’ve previously reported on. From the images, you can see that color swatches and lighting are a part of the tests, presumably as part of an evaluation as to whether the system would be suitable for the production’s needs or perhaps to see what adjustments would be needed to get the look director Thomas MacCarthy wanted.
The most notable of them, of course, is the torch-lit scene in front of a wall. In all probability, this is our first glimpse at the sort of look and lighting we can expect for the scene in Winterfell’s crypt, when Eddard takes King Robert down to pay his respects to Lyanna.
Thanks to raijap for digging this one up.
In the course of an update on various fronts, GRRM notes a little cryptically that he’s spending his spare time with, “Varys, Littlefinger, the Old Bear, Jory Cassel, Septa Mordane, Bronn, and some other old friends.” This baffled us for a moment—at first we thought he meant the script he was writing, but at least one of the characters in that list wouldn’t appear in said episode. Then we thought perhaps he was rereading A Game of Thrones to help him get into the flow of the script.
And then, a moment after, it dawned on us: GRRM has been viewing audition tapes for those various roles. Exciting!
Since the Dothraki news, new items on HBO’s Game of Thrones has been fairly thin on the ground, but here’s a small handful of tidbits for those interested: raijap on Twitter has pointed out that Birds & Animals UK, an animal handling and training service for film and television, lists the series in its credits. They may well be the source of the direwolf pups used in the shoot.
The_Rabbit kept up his busy searches and came across items listing Coral Messam and Kemi Durosinmi among dancers who apparently performed in Game of Thrones. They would have been among the wedding dancers in the Morocco shooting, and seem to be visible in the photos GRRM has shared which we linked previously when we rabbit pointed out a third dancer earlier in the month. A fourth, Kharis George, can be found here, via Winter Is Coming, who notes the Casting Call Pro site lists a number of extras who list their credits as evocatively as “Free Rider” and “Buxom Serving Wench”.
Another extra, David Blair, can be found here as being listed as a “Squire” in Game of Thrones; thanks to Phoenix Torn and Ninepenny at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum for pointing him out. And raijap finds yet another, pointing out a young actress by the name of Laura C. Knowles who’s first professional acting job was on the pilot. Whether she was an extra, or a named extra (Jeyne Poole seems likely, in that case), is a question; so too whether she’ll continue on in the series.
So, dancers and extras and animals is all we have right now. We’re still digging as to whether there’s more to be discovered yet, such as progress on casting.
A guest blogger at Scientific American has published an open letter to HBO, George R.R. Martin, and David J. Peterson in response to the news that HBO’s Game of Thrones would feature a Dothraki language created by Peterson. It’s a fascinating letter, as it asks the production to consider helping science by including certain features that are non-existent or extremely rare in human languages. The blogger, Joshua Hartshome, mentions Klingon as one artificial language whose construction has provided some excellent opportunities for the linguistic sciences, because of it’s unusual word order.
In the comments, Peterson (under his handle Dedavls) offers up a curious feature of Hawaiian—subjects acting as objects and vice versa—which he suggests also exists in Dothraki in some classes.
David J. Peterson and Sai Emrys of the Language Creation Society, through whose auspices the Dothraki language was created for HBO’s Game of Thrones, are the subject of an interview at Tor.com. Quite a lot of interesting details about Peterson’s linguistic training, his approach to creating the Dothraki language, and an exclusive new piece of Dothraki (for the phrase “blood of the dragon”) with an accompanying MP3 file.
David and Sai can both be found at the Dothraki forum at Westeros.org, if you have any additional questions for them.
At his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin reports that he has acquired a limited supply of the 2009 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, produced by Dabel Brothers Productions with art by Michael Komarck. Rather than sell them, he’s offering them as an incentive for anyone who orders $100 or more in books fromhis Signed Books section of the official website.
Komarck’s art is gorgeous, and relatively few calendars got out there in relation to demand, so these are fine (and very handsome) collectibles. Komarck’s depictions of Jaime, Sansa, Eddard, and more could well be considered definitive.
Mike the Pike Productions have acquired the film rights to George R.R. Martin‘s award-winning urban horror novella, “The Skin Trade”. This follows on the news from September of last year that they had optioned the novella, and suggests confidence in their adaption plans.
Via a message over Twitter, it seems that they’re now sending out the project to potential directors, an important step as they move forward.
George R.R. Martin has returned home from C2E2 and has a post up about the experience. Some interesting pieces of news for fans of his work. Besides the release of Fevre Dream #1 by Avatar Press, he notes that Avatar is still hard at work on adapting his story, In the House of the Worm, script by Wild Cards-collaborator John Jos. Miller and art by Ivan Rodriguez, and they’re still trying to nail down an artist for the comic book adaption of his Bram Stoker Award-winning novella, “The Skin Trade”; Daniel Abraham has already written the adaption.
The above items were all previously known, more or less, however. For something completely new, GRRM announces that IDW has acquired the rights to producing a miniseries based on his science fiction television pilot from the early 90’s, Doorways. If it does well, there’s the potential for it to go forward for a longer period of time, as six back-up scripts were readied, including one written by GRRM himself. And if it takes off? Original stories are a definite possibility. As Martin notes, very few people have seen the pilot, which ended up released on video in Europe at one point but which was never aired in the U.S., so this is a fine chance to see what his show—which some believe inspired Fox’s Sliders from the same period—could have been like.
In other news, some half a dozen publishers met with Martin over the weekend to discuss the possibility of adapting “A Song of Ice and Fire” to comics. He’s uncertain of approving this still, but some formal proposals may follow on from these meetings and he’ll consider it. He cautions, though, that these comics would then be based on the novels, and not be an adaption of the HBO series or its scripts, due to separation of rights.
Finally, GRRM notes that he had a good lunch with Maureen Ryan, TV writer for the Chicago Tribune (and unabashed Ice and Fire fan), the setting for an interview which Ryan has teased with a remark from GRRM regarding the difficulties the production team will face in turning his expansive vision—a reaction to his days in Hollywood, when budget and time constraints kept scaling down what he wanted to do—into televised drama with budget and time constraints. The interview should be published later this week or early next.
We’ll shortly have a full report on his Q&A session in the So Spake Martin collection.
Songs of the Dying Earth, the Jack Vance tribute anthology edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, was on the short list of this year’s Locus Awards. Congratulations to them, and the authors involved! Neil Gaiman‘s story in the anthology, “An Invocation of Incuriosity”, was separately nominated in the short story category.
Mr. Dozois has two other anthologies on the nomination list and is also a nominee as best editor, while Jack Vance himself sees his memoir, This is Me, Jack Vance! (a book which I recommend for fans of Vance, as it’s filled to the brim with his musing style and contains a number of entertaining anecdotes from across his long life), nominated in the Non-Fiction/Art book category. We also note the name of John Picacio among those nominated in the best artist category; Picacio will be illustrating the 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, as we’ve previously reported.
The winners will be announced at the Science Fiction Awards Weekend, June 25-27, in Seattle.
There’s a production listing for HBO’s Game of Thrones, posted March 16th and last revised April 14th, which gives the filming locations of the production as Northern Ireland and Morocco, with a “late June” start. From what I can gather, this website accepts submissions from productions to list relevant information concerning their productions for those who may what to inquire about employment, hiring of equipment, and so on. The sample listings suggest that among the things they list behind their subscription wall are production office addresses and phone numbers.
The main point of interest here is the mention of Morocco. On March 5th, GRRM indicated that a return to Morocco (and Scotland) were possibilities that were yet to be decided on. While we can’t say for certain that this listing is 100% official, if it is official, it seems that the production has decided to go ahead with filming in Morocco after all. Further, again if it’s taken to be 100% official, it seems the production has decided to skip further filming in Scotland, perhaps due to expense or due to the difficulty of keeping shooting locations closed to the public, an issue which we were told bothered the production.
Going back to Morocco, to what degree was the decision to go back motivated by the ongoing casting for Daenerys? While we continue to caution against assuming that Tamzin Merchant, who played the role in the pilot, is definitely out, with each passing day it seems likelier and likelier—they’ll need to be certain of Daenerys by late May at the latest, we think, to give an actress and production time to start readying for her part. If Merchant is replaced, reshooting will have to be extensive since she’s present in every single scene in Pentos according to reports, and hence ... Morocco.
Or maybe not. Maybe they’ve decided Morocco offers too many useful locations for Daenerys’s part of the story, and we’ll be seeing Tamzin Merchant riding the silver across the arid Moroccan landscape, such as in episode 8, written by George R.R. Martin, where he’s confirmed that there’ll be at least one scene featuring the character.
We’ll report further when we have more information. Hat tip to The Rabbit01 for the pointer to My Entertainment World’s listing.
We have a fresh report on George R. R. Martin’s remarks while at C2E2 in Chicago, courtesy of Trebla, at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum. There’s some spoilerish material for A Dance with Dragons and “The Mystery Knight”, so beware.
For those who just want the news relating to HBO’s Game of Thrones, see the extended section. Mild spoilers for the TV show follow.
This may be of interest to expectant fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Chris Albrecht, head of HBO when the channel optioned George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series and now head of Starz, has revealed that his cable network is going to focus its development on historical/fantasy-flavored productions for the time being, according to this Variety report from the MIP TV exhibition at Cannes (familiar to GoT followers as the location where international broadcasting rights for Game of Thrones would first be negotiated).
Starz has already had a great deal of success with Spartacus: Blood and Sand, so much so that the delay in production in season 2 (due to lead Andy Whitfield’s ongoing treatment for a recently discovered non-Hodgkins lymphoma) has them considering a spin-off miniseries to fill time. They also recently acquired broadcast rights to Pillars of the Earth, a big-budget miniseries set in 12th century England based on Ken Follett’s international bestselling novel, and are bringing Arthurian romance-adventure Camelot into production.
This trend appears to be continuing, with Albrecht revealing that Starz is now also developing a mini-series titled William the Conqueror, based on the life of the Norman duke (known in his earlier days as William the Bastard) who would become King of England. There’s a choice quote from Albrecht as well: “The business model is going to be: If it’s got a sword, we want it,” Albrecht joked. “But (picking up) a good contemporary or futuristic piece right now might not be bad.” As to his former home, he calls HBO “kind of a colossus” as far as original programming goes, but he hopes Starz will carve out a niche as “entertaining”, suggesting this strategy is aimed at pleasing the crowds more than at pleasing critics.
What’s interesting about it is that Albrecht’s instincts seem to have been pretty solid, and his instincts have been indicating that there’s a definite place for historical/historical-fantasy original drama on cable. Others seem to agree, given Showtime’s bringing The Tudors to a close only to be readying Borgias to replace it as a sumptuous historical drama, and many more are making that very same bet with shows such as “The Medici” and “Pharoh” being produced internationally. Game of Thrones is the most clearly fantastical of the lot (it remains to be seen whether Camelot will take a more historical or fanciful approach), and certainly one of the highest-budgetted, so it may be argued that HBO’s taking the largest risk into unknown territory. Up to now, fantasy epics on television have been more along the lines of Xena than The Lord of the Rings.
It looks like fans of pre-Modern costume dramas are going to have a feast to choose from later this year and through next. Will all the bets on these costume dramas pan out? 2011 will let us know.
We have a report from C2E2 regarding GRRM’s remarks at the Q&A session on Friday night, (many) thanks to lady narcissa. GRRM remarked on the ages of the characters as they compared to the series:
“GRRM talked a bit about how well people age these days and how much better looking everyone is so they went with older actors to play the adult characters (generally 10 years older). With regards to the children’s ages, he talked about how he mistakingly didn’t age the children quickly enough in the first book…how the first chapter should have taken place 6 months before the second…so the children were made older for the tv series. He mentioned the obvious necessity for this with Dany and what she goes through and needing an older actress because you couldn’t go around trying to explain to the tv audience - but it was okay for 13 year olds to get married back in the old days.”
And in a somewhat more spoilery fashion (and spoiler-protected by the thoughtful lady narcissa), something of what his script for episode 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones series will cover. Visit the linked report to read the full details there.
Kit Harington, the actor cast as Jon Snow in HBO’s Game of Thrones, is presently playing in Posh, staged by the Royal Court Theatre in London from April 9th to May 22nd. The Royal Court Theatre has release a photo of the young actor in his role as Ed Montgomery. Two more photos, out of costume, can be found here and here.
A notable feature? His long hair, longer than at the Eason’s Signing (see last photo). According to those present, Harington said he wore a wig for filming but if the series recieved the greenlight he’d grow out his hair, and that does seem to be what he’s doing.
For those in the London-area who might want to see the play and report on Harington’s performance, there’s a review with some commentary.
Thanks to The_Rabbit01 for the tip.
In the course of a pre-C2E2 update, George R.R. Martin indicates that he had an excellent day of work, half of it spent on the book and half on the script for episode 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, something he says he never does, but it happened to work well.
He hopes for more days such as this, and will be back from Chicago on Tuesday.
He adds a final postscript: “Soon.” We leave the interpretation of this up to our readers.
As an addendum to our earlier report on how much impact having a television show associated with a novel series can have, we were very interested to read Andrew Wheeler’s 2009 genre bestseller review which provides some hard numbers to go with the figures.
The enormous sales of Stephanie Meyers works are, of course, duly noted. Of particular interest to HBO and Game of Thrones fans, however, would be Charlaine Harris’s works. In 2009 she released not one, but two, novels. The first of these became the 25th biggest hardfback fiction seller, with half a million copies sold, while the newest one had sold 270,000 copies by the time the list was compiled, despite an October publication. More notably, in terms of paperback sales, she had nine notable works and sold just shy of 6 million copies in the course of the year.
Compare to 2007, where Harris’s All Together Dead sold just over 105,000 copies in the year (May publication date) and you can see the quadrupling of interest in new release, hardcover fiction from the author. As noted in the previous article, the impact on sales of A Song of Ice and Fire will probably be not quite so noticeable even if it’s a runaway hit, simply due to the already-high sales of the series and the greater commitment involved in reading them compared to the lighter, episodic Stackhouse novels. Still, the gains (especially in paperback) could be quite considerable.
Although this interview posted by the Language Creation Society is with Professor Paul Frommer, most famous for having created the Na’vi language in the recordbreaking box office hit Avatar, there’s two reasons why expectant fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones should listen to it.
First, Professor Frommer’s remarks concerning the process of how he acquired the job, how he approached constructing the Na’vi language, and his experiences in teaching the actors and dealing with being on set, being called upon to create new language at a moment’s notice, and more, is certainly going to be informative about how the Dothraki language‘s creator, David J. Peterson, will likely be interacting with the television show. Details such as having MP3 files ready for actors to download onto iPods so they can memorize their lines are interesting.
Second, the interviewer just happens to be David J. Peterson. The interview was recorded in January, after he had done his work for the Game of Thrones pilot, and you can imagine his mentally comparing notes as Frommer reminisced on the process of constructing a language within the strictures of film making.
At the premiere for his latest film, Peter Dinklage was sporting longer, blonder hair than is his usual wont. Now, we’ll note that he just wrapped filming in New Orleans on Earthbound with Kate Hudson, so the styling may be for that; or, just as easily, it’s his personal choice and has nothing to do with Game of Thrones (I’m told that highlighting your hair months out from a shoot is probably not the most effective approach).
But ... it’s interesting to speculate, because when we saw it, what immediately leapt to mind is the description of Tyrion’s beard as a mix of pale and dark hairs. While in the novel, the hair of his head is supposed to be a platinum blond, might the production find it easier to take Tyrion’s beard for the whole, and mix blonde highlights with Dinklage’s darker natural hair?
Thanks to trio at the A Song of Ice and Fire forum for the tip!
Michael Lombardo, president of HBO, has remarked to the Hollywood Reporter about the fact thatGame of Thrones will be ready to air at about the same time as Treme‘s second season, which the cable channel ordered with remarkable haste after having just aired the debut episode. In speaking about Game of Thrones, he goes on to say, “It looks beautiful, the compelling scripts are just fantastic, we’re doing re-shoots but nothing major… The show is there.” The re-shoots were expected to deal with Michelle Fairley’s replacement of Jennifer Ehle in the role of Catelyn Stark.
The “nothing major”, however, is interesting. Given recent news, there’s the possibility of some decidedly major re-shooting in the near future… or is there? As we indicated in our original post, we recommend caution for those assuming with a certainty that the role of Daenerys has been recast. On the other hand, if they’re still searching for Daenerys, we suppose it’s true that there’s nothing major about the current reshoots… but Lombardo may be aware that future re-shoots may be much more significant.
The Language Creation Society has kindly provided some audio samples of a few of the words David J. Peterson has created for the Dothraki language. It’ll be great to hear more in the future as the series, and the language, progresses. The LCS have started up a Facebook Page for Dothraki, as well as a Livejournal account.
George R.R. Martin has shared his own relationship to invented languages, and finishes up with needing to find out what, “It is known,” is in Dothraki.
GRRM has reminded us that Avatar Press will be publishing the first issue of their adaption of his 19th century vampire novel, Fevre Dream, this Wednesday. You’ll likely be able to find it at your local comic book shop. To whet your appetite, here’s a preview of the comic book, courtesy of Avatar:
The adaption was written by Daniel Abraham with art by Rafa Lopez.
The Language Creation Society has posted the press release from HBO that we’ve reported extensively on. We’ve been told by the President of the LCS, Sai Emrys, that this will be the page to keep an eye on for future updates from the Society on their work for HBO.
We’ve spoken a bit with Mr. Emrys about the news. He’s added that they will look into posting audio files of spoken Dothraki so fans can get a taste of what they’ll be hearing on the show. As we noted from our initial report, LCS has the potential to provide all language creation services for the series, which could mean Valyrian and its dialects, and even the language of the First Men, could be on the table in the future. When I asked him about this, Mr. Emrys stated, “We’d be happy to create all the other languages in the world of ASOIAF,” although to some degree it will depend on whether the production company feels the time and effort has proved worth it.
And what decides that? Fan response and interest as the series air date approaches and the first season airs. If the production company believes that the created languages add verisimilitude and appeal for fans, they’ll likely commission more.
Keep an eye out on Westeros.org and the Language Creation Society for more news and interesting developments in the future.
After a long, bloody struggle between enthusiastic (and, in some few cases, over-enthusiastic) fans of both Rand al’Thor and Jaime Lannister, the Dragon Reborn narrowly took the title in Suvudu’s inaugural Cage Match. Just 180 votes out of just over 30,000 separated winner from loser. Hats off to everyone who took part and made it a fun event (and boo to those who tried to take the fun out of it!)
In particular, a warm thanks to Suvudu’s editors for conceiving and running the event, and who wrote a fine wrap-up (video wrap-up promised tomorrow), and to all the authors who participated with arguments and stories: Steven Brust (Vlad was robbed!), Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik, Brandon Sanderson (who has written a funny version of how Rand won), and of course George R.R. Martin, who gave many fantasy fans new reason to check out A Song of Ice and Fire thanks to his terrific write-ups.
HBO has sent out a press release concerning the Language Creation Society, which was hired to created the Dothraki language as shown in HBO’s Game of Thrones. That the producers had hired a linguist to develop the Dothraki language for the pilot has been previously reported at the time that the pilot was being filmed in Northern Ireland. The press release, with additional details and commentary, follows:
For Immediate Release%09April 12, 2010
EXPERT CREATES LANGUAGE FOR NEW HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES
David J. Peterson, an expert language creator from the Language Creation Society (LCS), has been chosen to create the Dothraki language for HBO’s upcoming fantasy series GAME OF THRONES, based on the book series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” by George R.R. Martin.
When GAME OF THRONES executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss needed a language for the Dothraki, Martin’s race of nomadic warriors, they turned to the Language Creation Society. The LCS solicited and vetted a number of proposals for the Dothraki language from its pool of experts, with Peterson’s proposal ultimately being selected by the GAME OF THRONES production team.
Peterson drew inspiration from George R.R. Martin’s description of the language, as well as from such languages as Russian, Turkish, Estonian, Inuktitut and Swahili. However, the Dothraki language is no mere hodgepodge, babble or pidgin. It has its own unique sound, extensive vocabulary of more than 1,800 words and complex grammatical structure.
“In designing Dothraki, I wanted to remain as faithful as possible to the extant material in George R.R. Martin’s series,” says Peterson. “Though there isn’t a lot of data, there is evidence of a dominant word order [subject-verb-object], of adjectives appearing after nouns, and of the lack of a copula [‘to be’]. I’ve remained faithful to these elements, creating a sound aesthetic that will be familiar to readers, while giving the language depth and authenticity. My fondest desire is for fans of the series to look at a word from the Dothraki language and be unable to tell if it came from the books or from me—; and for viewers not even to realize it’s a constructed language.”
“We’re tremendously excited to be working with David and the LCS,” says producer D.B. Weiss. “The language he’s devised is phenomenal. It captures the essence of the Dothraki, and brings another level of richness to their world. We look forward to his first collection of Dothraki love sonnets.”
Did you know? (Hash yer ray nesi?)
The name for the Dothraki people—; and their language—; derives from the verb “dothralat” (“to ride”).
The Dothraki have four different words for “carry,” three for “push,” three for “pull” and at least eight for “horse,” but no word that means “please” or “follow.”
The longest word in Dothraki is “athastokhdeveshizaroon,” which means “from nonsense.”
The words for “related,” “weighted net,” “eclipse,” “dispute,” “redhead,” “oath,” “funeral pyre,” “evidence,” “omen,” “fang” and “harvest moon” all have one element in common: “qoy,” the Dothraki word for “blood.”
Dothraki for “to dream” – “thirat atthiraride” – literally means “to live a wooden life”; in Dothraki, “wooden” (“ido”) is synonymous with “fake.”
The word for “pride” – “athjahakar” – is derived from “jahak,” the traditional long braid worn by Dothraki warriors (“lajaki”).
More information about the Dothraki language (and their love poems) will be released over the course of the series.
From a fan perspective, this latest news is quite remarkable because it shows the degree to which the producers envision the series as an immersive experience, bringing viewers into the living, breathing world of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The novels only feature a handful of words and phrases in the Dothraki language, as Martin has noted he’s not a linguist and only creates words when he needs them. The television show is apparently intent on extending this, in a way not dissimilar to how the Klingon language was created around the nucleus of a handful of phrases written by James Doohan for the Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The number of words reported—1,800, with a detailed grammar—is said to be right in line with “language that is actually meant to be used to communicate.”
We believe we’ve discovered the original call for submissions sent to the conlang community. It was first posted on September 4, 2009. One can see that the details fit the series: graphic violence, a fantasy setting with some prepared vocabulary, a pilot with the possibility of 10-12 episodes a season. According to this page, David Peterson provided the most interesting proposal but other names are mentioned.. One leaps out at us: Bill Welden, a Tolkienian language expert who was involved in The Lord of the Rings films. On his Livejournal, Peterson wrote at the end of 2009 of 2009 that the, “biggest bit of unexpected news was the television job to create a language. Still can’t wait to say more about that. Come March, I should be able to say everything. This project, though, cut into my August, September, October and November.” He had posted some additional information at the start of November:
But, of course, the largest enterprise I undertook over the course of the last month (two months, really) was I applied for a job posted by the LCS. Without going into details, the job was to create a language for an upcoming television show. The application process was exhausting (took most of my free time for the past two months), and there were a ton of excellent conlangers applying. At the beginning of this month, I was informed that I’d moved onto the final round, and this past Friday, I was informed that I’d won.
....
Until someone somewhere leaks the information, or I’m given the okay by the network, I signed a thing saying I wouldn’t say anything about the series, so all I can say for now is that it’s a major TV network, and the show is, at this point in time, guaranteed a pilot (and I’m guaranteed work for the pilot). If the pilot is picked up, the show will get a one season run, and I’m guaranteed work for the first season. Thereafter, I imagine it will depend on the show’s popularity, the quality of my work, and the direction of the show. Still and all, very exciting!
On December 2nd he remarked that the job proved to be less work-intensive than he had expected, suggesting that the amount of Dothraki used in the pilot is not as great as first envisioned; or at least, the amount of work that went into preparing the “artistic language” for the show was greater than what ended up on screen to start with. Examples of Peterson’s constructed languages can be found at his page on the Language Creation Society website.
The Language Creation Society was founded in 2007 and it seems they offer language creation services for television, film, fiction, and other endeavors, with Game of Thrones appearing to be their first major client.
Some amazing new miniatures from Dark Sword Miniatures, this week. Tom Meier has really outdone himself with his Eddard Stark and Samwell Tarly, as well as a beautifully sculpted Shae which really emphasizes how delicate his sculpting work can be (bear in mind that these figures are less than 2 inches tall).
On top of that, Jeff Grace has sculpted a Euron Greyjoy which GRRM calls the, “best version of him I’ve seen, better than any of the paintings, drawings, digital art, etc.”
Dark Sword has also posted additional, painted depictions of Arya, Theon, and the young Hedge Knight in their George R.R. Martin Masterworks gallery.
Ted Nasmith, who along with John Howe and Alan Lee is considered one of the foremost Tolkien artists, has posted about the fact that his artwork will grace the 2011 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, published by Bantam. He points to his George R.R. Martin gallery, which features a number of the pieces, and at the end expresses his hope that he’ll have more opportunities to work on A Song of Ice and Fire-related projects in the future, a hope I think we can all say we share.
This Is Local London, a conglomerate of local newspapers, has posted a brief article concerning a 26-year-old dancer, Kelechi Nwanokwu, who appears in HBO’s pilot for Game of Thrones. It seems likely she is one of a number of dancers who performed in the Dothraki wedding scene, a scene we’re guessing was choreographed by Javier de Frutos. A picture of Ms. Nwanokwu and other dancers can be found at GRRM’s “Not a Blog”, when he posted about the wrap party in Ouarzazate, Morocco.
GRRM has written a wonderful write-up for Suvudu’s championship match between Jaime Lannister and Rand al’Thor, with cameos by Birgitte of the Bow, Nynaeve al’Meara, Egwene al’Viere, Aviendha, the Great and Powerful Turtle, Lohengrin, Melisandre, and of course Tyrion. It has some wonderful touches aimed as nods towards Robert Jordan, who was a friend of George’s and whose blurb on the cover of A Game of Thrones was a big help when the series first started. There’s also passing references to a number of other authors, such as Jack Vance and a fun one right at the end to another of GRRM’s good friends, Roger Zelazny.
The last line is chillingly right, for all you fans of A Song of Ice and Fire.
There’s just one day left to vote, and Jaime presently trails by 600 votes. Read the write-up and vote at Suvudu!
This is what we get for being over-excitable at the moment. Below we discuss a casting call for a new TV series from a “Major American production company”, shooting to start in June, lasting 6 months. We assumed that it was very likely for Daenerys. However, a bit of googling reveals more details of the role:
“Description:
Playing age 14-18 years.
With the face of and Angel and the Heart of a devil, the leading lady in this groundbreaking TV series is from a Spanish family that have moved to Italy. Has to be very petite and Manipulative in nature. RP / Neutral Accent.”
At a guess, this is for Showtime’s Borgias. For the sake of completeness, we’ll maintain our full speculation below, but we’ll emphasize that it’s clearly wrong. False alarm!
Thanks to the sharp-eyed Rabbit, it looks like the mystery of U.K. casting calls for Dany—something we were sure was taking place, but could never find any evidence for—may have been resolved. There’s a notice at the Casting Website in the U.K. which states the following:
“Major American production company is launching a new TV series to be aired to a UK audience. Looking for the leading girl to star in this ground breaking production. 6 Months filming from June.”
Most notably? Closing date is given as March 21st, which implies a couple of things: the call must have gone out at least a week prior to that date, and perhaps longer, and that the U.K. casting may have already progressed to the point of narrowing down to a couple of choices there. Given GRRM’s recent reference to looking at audition tapes from HBO, we might assume they’re starting to get pretty close. However, we do know that casting is still going on in New York City, with head shots and resumes still being solicited for actresses.
It’s entirely possible that this is for some other show entirely, but the timing fits perfectly with what we’ve been told before: June start and ~24 weeks of filming. To be fair, the same might be said of Starz! Camelot, also set to begin production in June in Ireland. If we can get a definitive answer as to what production the breakdown was for, we’ll report it.
George R.R. Martin clarifies the situation for international viewers, in regards to if and when they will be able to watch HBO’s Game of Thrones on television in their native countries. GRRM goes through a list of countries and territories:
Canada: HBO Canada will air it at the same days and times as in the U.S. Canada, the show will be seen on HBO Canada, same days and times as in the US.
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Chile: It will air on HBO Latin America, though days and times may vary.
France: It will air on Orange.
Israel: It will air on DBS.
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic: It will air on HBO Central Europe
Asia: It will be offered by HBO Asia to countries within their territory, but not all will necessarily carry it (in some cases due to content restrictions in those countries).
As for the countries not listed here… next week in Cannes, the MIPTV trade show will be attended by broadcasters and program directors from around the globe. HBO will have a presence, screening its shows and selling foreign broadcast rights. Game of Thrones will be on the table as well, and Martin says that in a few weeks HBO should know which countries will be opting to air the series.
GRRM has shared a great pair of photos showing Maisie Williams—cast as Arya Stark—posing with Valyrian Steel‘s replica of Arya’s sword, Needle. She looks very Arya-like, if we may say so! Valyrian Steel has two additional photos on their site
GRRM also confirms that filming commences in June in Northern Ireland. Not all actors may be in the area at that time, however, as Jason Momoa and Nikolai Coster-Waldau have both indicated they’re scheduled to start in early July.
George R.R. Martin is keeping himself very busy, with Dance with Dragons, Fort Freak, and a host of other tasks and projects now that he’s gotten taxes out of the way. Among them? Reviewing the latest batch of audition tapes. This follows our previous report on the fact that casting is going on for the role of Daenerys Targaryen, which may or may not mean that Tamzin Merchant is definitely out of HBO’s Game of Thrones.
However, one other thing that hasn’t been mentioned very much is that it’s quite possible that casting has begun in the U.K. for the many roles that will need to be filled by the time late June roles around. As always, more information as soon as we get it.
It’s time to get out the vote, folks, as Suvudu.com’s popular Cage Match 2010 hits the final round. Two titans of fantasy are facing off. In one corner: Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, master of half of a continent, fated to save the world from the Dark One. And in the other: Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. In common: good looks, popularity, and an unfortunate lack of a hand.
Jaime issued a challenge, calling for a trial of seven. Rand’s response was to refuse to take six champions with him into battle ... but he allowed Jaime whatever support he wanted, and Jaime means to take it. We’re all waiting to see the write-up from GRRM, which he’ll doubtless post to “Not a Blog” once it’s ready. Brandon Sanderson has promised he’ll provide some sort of analysis (though not a full write up) of how things should go from his perspective.
But don’t wait until then, vote now! It’s neck and neck, and the comments section is filled with commentary.
A member of the A Song of Ice and Fire forum has poured an incredible amount of work to create an animated timeline map for the series. Ser Mountain Goat’s map is not anywhere near done, as of yet, but there’s enough there to see the possibilities that the map will offer, once it tracks multiple characters as they criss-cross Westeros. His FAQ goes into great detail about the origins of the map, his sources, and his methodology. We’re very much looking forward to see it develop.
If you’d like to comment on the map, there’s a thread dedicated to it.
Harry Lloyd is once again loquacious about his work in an interview in Re-Bel on pages 7 and 8. At the bottom of page 7, he directly discusses his role in the Game of Thrones pilot, and the following question discusses the possibility that being involved in such a major, American production could open doors to Hollywood. Nothing really new here, but it’s good to see actors involved in the show taking time to make sure people are aware of it.
Thanks to firestar267 for the tip!
Suvudu.com’s Cage Match 2010—reported on in the New York Times, among other places—enters the final round when voting opens tomorrow to determine who’s the most dangerous of them all. Jaime Lannister, surging with the help of his supporters, has prevailed to face Rand al’Thor… but at the advice of Tyrion, he issued a challenge. Rand’s response? A confident refusal to take advantage of the offer of having six companions join him.
But perhaps it was too confiden. He allowed Jaime his six, and Tyrion is liking the odds. We’ll soon see what George thinks will happen, some time after voting opens tomorrow.
Over the past months, traffic to Westeros—both to the various website sections and the forums—has grown steadily, in no small part due to the buzz surrounding HBO’s Game of Thrones project. Given this, we thought it might be fun to take a little look at the various sections that make up the site and introduce them to both new and old visitors.
First up, Blood of Dragons MUSH, the reason that this site exists at all as all of Westeros was originally envisioned as a website with information for players of the MUSH. As it happened, the website grew so that the pages associated with the game became one section among several and the MUSH itself took longer than expected to complete. But in November 2006 it finally opened and the story has been unfolding ever since. Perhaps you want to be a part of it?
George R.R. Martin has shared that Valyrian Resin, creators of licensed resin sculptures, are having a clearance sale and are moving on to other projects. The figures on sale are the Sandor Clegane, Eddard Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen minibusts and their variants. The full details and pictures can be found at GRRM’s “Not a Blog”.
Linda and I own the three regular versions of the sculpts, courtesy of Jed and Justice at Valyrian Resin, and we must say, they are excellent pieces of work: sizable, solid, and well-crafted. It’s a shame we won’t see any more of their versions of characters (we were hoping to see Tyrion at some point), but what they did create was very admirable. If you check out their website, you’ll see that there’s a lot of exciting work afoot for them as they focus on prototyping figures for major names such as Sideshow and Diamond.
The So Spake Martin collection has been updated with a new audio interview with George R.R. Martin, carried out by Gamer’s Haven. As the name of the site might suggest, there’s a special focus on gaming in the interview, discussing GRRM’s history with games and their influence on his work.
While this may be old news for some, we haven’t reported it up until now because we’ve had no official confirmation of any kind regarding it. We had contacted HBO about this immediately after the rumors based on Showfax’s new casting sides (pages of dialogue for use in auditions) had gone up. From our discussion with HBO, all we can say is that officially, HBO’s policy is to never discuss recasting or even rumors of recasting, and they’re unable to offer any information either confirming or denying recasting.
However, as we saw on Twitter, more than one actress has allegedly confirmed via Twitter that they are pursuing the role of Daenerys. So, we’ll take this as its being highly likely that casting is taking place for the role. However, we caution that we know nothing yet as to the reasons or the end results. Having read around a bit, there are possibilities that suggest that Tamzin Merchant remains the primary choice for the role, but additional casting is taking place as insurance against her departure for reasons unknown. While we agree that the likeliest supposition is that Merchant is no longer in the role, we’ll caution against taking this as an absolute certainty.
But if Merchant is out of the role, what does this mean? Well, it seems they’ll be forced to go back to Morocco—or build fresh sets in Belfast to represent it—to reshoot all the scenes there. As some may recall, GRRM indicated that a return to Morocco was a possibility but not a certainty. Starting the renewed production with major reshoots—on top of any new reshoots needed now that Michelle Fairley is in the role of Catelyn Stark—is not the greatest way to start a production, and may lead to a tight shooting schedule to begin with, but should be entirely manageable. Recasting is more the rule than the exception when it comes to pilots, and consequent reshooting goes hand in hand with that.
We’ll provide more information when we can.
Thanks to the fans who voted in droves, George R.R. Martin’s Jaime Lannister rallied and came from behind to defeat Patrick Rothfuss’s Kvothe. A tremendous battle! Now Jaime’s on to face the final challenge: the Dragon Reborn, Rand al’Thor, from Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. Rand is incredibly powerful, and the general opinion is that all he needs to do is use balefire. . .
But GRRM wants to even the field. Jaime has demanded home-turf advantage and that the final showdown be a trial of seven, as is his right as a knight under ancient Westerosi custom. What would this mean? If Suvudu’s editors agree, this means Rand will gain six companions—any characters drawn from the works of both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (who has continued the series following Jordan’s untimely death)—against Jaime’s six allies, drawn from Martin’s works and settings. This would mean that Rand could have Conan on his side (Jordan wrote a number of authorized Conan novels), or Lan Mandragoran, or even Moridin ... while Jaime could potentially have Haviland Tuf, Ser Arthur Dayne, or even the Ice Dragon on his side.
Will Suvudu’s editors go for it? We shall see! We’ll update when a decision is rendered and the polls open.
A small update, as production preparations on HBO’s Game of Thrones begins to pick up pace as the late June start date draws nearer. Over at Extras NI, they’re again recommending that extras avoid cutting or dying their hair, and that male extras consider frowing out their beards and getting a “timeless look”. One funny bit of trivia in the recent past was that for the pilot, members of an Irish heavy metal fan forum were recruited to play extras because they had the requisite look. Seems like Extras NI doesn’t want to be in that position again.
Most notably, they’re recommending that extras stay with this look until January 2011. This fits pretty well with our previous information concerning the many weeks of shooting, beginning in late June and apparently running through the end of the year.
Hat-tip to Winter is Coming for bringing this update from Extras NI to light.
Suvudu’s Cagematch 2010 is in its penultimate round and Ser Jaime Lannister needs your help! Though Suvudu’s editors have rated him the underdog three times in a row, he’s managed to defeat Hermione Granger, Cthulhu, and the dragon Temeraire. But now it’s his toughest match yet: Kvothe, Patrick Rothfuss’s creation in The Name of the Wind. This time, Suvudu’s editors placed Jaime as the victor… but that seems to have jinxed him, because Jaime’s trailing by the narrowest of margins.
Who’ll Jaime face if he manages to pull off the win? Looks like Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn. Who can resist seeing two such titans clash? Besides Kvothe’s fans, that is. ;)
If you want to tip the scale in the Kingslayer’s favor, there’s just one day left: voting ends on Friday at Noon, Eastern Time.
Go to Suvudu.com and vote now!
Green Ronin is proud to announce that A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventures in the Seven Kingdoms has been nominated for prestigious Origins Awards in the Roleplaying Game category. This is not the first time their work on the RPG and its supplements has drawn attention from gaming awards, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.
At his “Not a Blog”, George R.R. Martin has shared the cover and table of contents for the anthology he and Gardner Dozois co-edited, Songs of Love and Death: Tales of Star-Crossed Love. The title provides the thematic link that connects all the stories together. Contributors include Jim Butcher, Jacqueline Carey, Diana Gabaldon, Neil Gaiman, Robin Hobb, Tanith Lee, and nearly a dozen other authors. The anthology is due out in November of this year.