There’s a couple of Game of Thrones relevant articles out of the U.K. press this morning that may be of interest. The first, reported at 4ni, covers a set visitmade by Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister. Naturally, it refers to the economic value of having the production in Northern Ireland, but adds the detail that the production could be present for as long as a decade if it’s a success (this is probably drawn from GRRM’s remarks to UTV, and so were just off the cuff). Some of the other details—such as the reference to a move to Malta “soon”—are erroneous.
Besides that, the Essex Echo has an article about muscian Wilko Johnson, who was cast in the role of Ser Ilyn Payne, the King’s Justice. The article states:
Thanks to ninepennyking for the pointers.
Here’s a different sort of Malta report from Ty Franck, George R.R. Martin’s assistant. In it he discusses the things in his life that are, from his perspective, quite surreal in part due to his association with GRRM, including his trip to Malta. Drinking and having lunch with actors, discussing Converse shoes with an award-winning costumer (Michele Clapton), looking at hundreds of years old plate armor, and the following which he describes as the most surreal thing he experienced while there:
Franck’s debut novel, Leviathan Wakes (co-written with Daniel Abraham, under the shared pen name of James S.A. Corey) is due to be published in June of next year.
For fans in Minnesota, Fantasy Flight Games’s upcoming November 12 - November 14 “Days of Ice and Fire” event will be a great chance to meet George. A schedule has been published, including signing sessions on Friday and Sunday, plus a reading, seminar, and panel on Saturday including fellow authors (and Wild Cards collaborators) Melinda Snodgrass and Ian Tregillis.
Members of the Brotherhood without Banners have been working to organize a get-together at the event, more details of which can be found here.
HBO’s Making Game of Thrones website has been updated with a few choice quotes from the set, provided by Bryan Cogman. Among them is a new phrase in Dothraki (without a translation) and some corpse feng shui. Only on a set!
Suvudu’s latest cage match series focuses on villains, and representing George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is the Mountain that Rides, Ser Gregor Clegane. He’s defeated Dracula and Morgan le Fay in his last two matches, but now he faces his biggest challenge yet:
Gaius Baltar, the sleazy, self-aggrandizing celebrity scientist of Battlestar Galactica.
Voting on the result of the cage match continues through Thursday. The winner of this contest—and we’re sure it’ll be the Mountain, right?—will go on to face the winner of the contest between the T-800 Terminator and Fenris the Feared. The Terminator seems to be winning that one handily, but if you have the time to vote, we urge you to vote for the Feared, one of Joe Abercrombie‘s more memorable villains.
In any case, go and vote for the Mountain!
Stuart Levine at Variety interview HBO’s co-president Richard Plepler and programming president Michael Lombardo (who’s been a good source for Game of Thrones information) about their programming plans. Much of it deals with the challenges of programming when they have so many high-quality original series, mini-series, and documentaries, and having to turn away interesting, high-quality projects because they simply don’t have the room in their schedule.
They do discuss Game of Thrones to some degree towards the end of the interview, where they confirm it will air in the 2nd quarter. Here’s a few quotes:
RP: I would just say this: While it is a different genre, the storytelling piece, meaning the themes that it takes up—power and strife and people vying for their piece of the crown, metaphorically—those are themes that have been all over the network for years. And David Benioff, who’s the creator, had a wonderful line at the very beginning of this project. He said, “You’ll quickly forget where you are, because the themes are universal.” Having read all the scripts, I think that’s absolutely true.
ML: At this point, we have not seen any cuts. All we have seen are dailies.
RP: And the pilot. It’s beautiful.
And sci-fi fans and fantasy who have been very satisfied with “True Blood” are probably willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
ML: You know the interesting thing about this show is I am not a sci-fi fan, and this show really transcends the genre. When we first read the pilot script, there is nothing that really gives you a full hint of the magic in the Martin books. It’s a bunch of compelling and well-crafted stories. There are such interesting and complex characters that we were excited by the drama, not by the genre. I hope people don’t look at this as a genre play and refrain from taking a look at it, because I think it is much more than that.
RP: I think it’ll satisfy the passion of its natural fan base, but also intrigue and satisfy those people who might not typically be connected to the sci-fi genre. That would be fantastic for us, and I think that’s really likely.
Three new pieces of casting have been confirmed by HBO. First up, they have confirmed that Brian Fortune has been cast as “Night’s Watch Officer”, but that his role will basically fill that of the First Steward, Bowen Marsh, from the novel. Fortune has an official site here, and a showreel .wmv file here.
Besides this, the roles George had hinted at as being near to being announced—the wildling Stiv and Ser Kevan Lannister—are now filled. Stiv is played by Stephen Don, a Northern Irish actor. As to Ser Kevan, the younger brother and right-hand man to Lord Tywin, he’s played by Ian Gelder, who U.K. viewers may recognize from a number of genre TV show roles such as Torchwood and Robin Hood.
Here’s Gelder in a tribute video to his notable turn as Mr. Dekker in Torchwood: Children of the Earth:
ETA: Oh, and missed one, Hugo Culverhouse is cast as a stableboy. One with a brief, but rather final, scene.
Just have word in from HBO that the focus groups, which were scheduled to assemble next week, is now postponed. Everyone who has been scheduled to participate will be on the top of the list to be contacted to see if they’re available on the new date. So, if you’ve been selected, hang tight and wait to hear back from the market research group.
Subterranean Press is selling a limited, illustrated edition of Jeff Vandermeer’s story (published by WSFA Press) for George R.R. Martin’s and Gardner Dozois’s award-nominated anthology in tribute to Jack Vance, Songs of the Dying Earth. This is the original form of the novella, titled The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod, that Vandermeer wrote as the published version in the anthology was somewhat shortened. As Vandermeer explains:
“When it came time to write the story for Songs of the Dying Earth, Sarnod and his three familiars leapt into my mind, and Grod was one of them. I wrote a draft, revised it, and sent it to the editors. When I heard back, the feedback indicated they liked the story but Grod wasn’t Vance-an enough, not tied enough in his quest to Vance’s world. So, thinking that eventually I might have a chance to publish my version, I cut Grod out of the story for the version published in the anthology;.
“This version is very close to my heart, and I hope you enjoy it as much as you enjoy my friend and master designer John Coulthart’s marvelous approach to book art.”
Subterranean reports there’ll only be 500 copies of this book, and that Vandermeer limited editions tend to go fast.
This is a detour from my set visit reports. You can get to the last segment before this by going here to Part 3.
I had made grand plans to go out for dinner at a well-reviewed restaurant after getting back from Magheramorne ... but after witnessing the traffic and realizing just how much I wanted to share with Linda (including uploading some photos for Linda to oogle over), I grabbed a quick bite at the Subway near my hotel instead. A couple of hours later, refreshed and ready, I took the short walk to Robinsons Bar where the Brotherhood without Banners had taken over the basement bar, dubbed BT1 (after the street code for the City Centre). Outside, I saw HBO’s representative with a reporter and cameraman from UTV who were waiting for George. A slight miscommunication led to a little delay prior to his arrival, and I soon joined Parris and some of the other BwB members to collect decorations and prizes for the charity raffle which the BwB was holding.
We got things set up just in time for George’s arrival, with many cheers and applause from the crowd. There were many extras present, many fans, and one very noticeable actor: Kristian Nairn, who plays Hodor. I ended up meeting some of the fellow GoT-watching fans, who were all very hospitable and pleasant! Among them was Joe Campo, an American actor/filmmaker and Belfast resident who’s made a quest of getting cast on the show, and it sounded to be like he was getting closer thanks to advice from GRRM. At some point in the evening, a number of actors started to arrive, and after this point I sort of start to get fuzzy on the conversations I had and their order. So what I’m going to do is just try to run through the actors I spoke to, and my impressions of them, as well as anything interesting regarding the production they mentioned. This will be in very rough order:
Voyager, George R.R. Martin’s publisher in the U.K., has informed Westeros.org via via Twitter that they’re going to have a meeting with Sky (the U.K. broadcaste with rights to Game of Thrones) with the intention of sorting out plans to re-release A Game of Thrones with a media tie-in cover, much as Bantam will be doing in the U.S. in March. This edition would also feature brand new typesetting. They also noted to us that “properly proofread” ebooks (unfortunately, the U.S. editions—at least in the Kindle format—have introduced many typos into the text) are in the works, and clarified that these would be coming out well before Spring. They explained that usually, the process of converting to e-book is done out of the sight and hands of the editors, but that in this case Voyager is making a special effort for George.
This was all prompted by this tweet: “Also v busy prepping for THE George R. R. Martin on Mon. Building a fort of A Game of Thrones books around my desk. I think he’d be proud.” It looks like George will be in London for a day or two after taking leave of Malta, and doubtless will then be headed back home. His next public appearance will be at Days of Ice and Fire, a Fantasy Flight Games-sponsored event in Roseville, Minnesota.
Continued from Part 2.
Before we headed off to Paint Hall, though, we dropped by Fire and Blood production office. There, I finally got to meet Bryan Cogman, script editor for the series and right-hand man to the executive producers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. I’ve sort of seen him as a kindred spirit, as he’s basically of keeper of the lore of the setting for the production, and is responsible for envisioning many of the little details that show up in the nooks and crannies (like a certain hefty book with a rather dry text). Bryan was very warm and welcoming, and didn’t seem to notice that I was looking past his desk at the concept art on his wall featuring things such as designs for Winterfell as well as a part of a storyboard of a very important scene (Bryan would later tell me that in many cases these were very early concepts and were no longer what was envisioned, but he kept them around because he liked how they looked).
George R.R. Martin has a “Not a Blog” post discussing the filming in Malta. It is a bit spoilerish for those who’ve not read the first book! He discusses where he’s watched filming set in King’s Landing involving Maisie Williams’s Arya Stark, as well as a scene featuring Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen “at the edge of the Dothraki sea”.
Not all has gone well. GRRM confirms reports we’ve had that a unexpected, massive rainstorm washed away a Dothraki encampment set. Also, a little tongue-in-cheek, he claims two actors have taken a “dislike” to one another and one was left bloodied after a fight ... which we’re guessing may be a reference to a fight scene mishap rather than any genuine hard feelings (we hope!)
Recently, reports in the Maltese press have been concerned with possible environmental damage caused by the production of HBO’s Game of Thrones at a protected site in Dwerja, which is where the famous Azure Window can be found and where a major Dothraki scene has been filmed (as previously reported). The location has certain fossil beds which were to be carefully protected by the use of tarps on which sand was poured, and that sand was then to be removed by manual equipment (spades and brooms). However, recent heavy rains hardened the sand and led a sub-contractor to bring in heavy equipment to remove it, which was contrary to the permit and could potentially damage the site.
When Fire & Blood Productions learned of this, they immediately called a halt to the use of heavy equipment. They have since issued an apology for the error, taking full responsibility for the sub-contractor’s error, and they intend to rectify matters. They also emphasize their “positive experience of filming in Malta” and their intention to continue to adhere to all the requirements placed on them for the benefit of the cultural and natural heritage of Malta.
Via the Rabbit, there’s a list out there of some of the sites where filming for HBO’s Game of Thrones will have taken place in Malta. We’ve already previously reported on the Azure Window location, which is also known as Dwerja.
Besides this, other sites include the medieval town of Mdina, Fort Ricasoli (which we’re told has a famous gate which has been used for the entrance into the Red Keep, or possibly into Maegor’s Holdfast), Fort Saint Elmo, the San Anton Palace and Gardens, the Verdala Palace, Fort Saint Angelo in Birgu (as an aside, this was also the location of a significant part of Dorothy Dunnet’s third novel in the Lymond series of historical novels, Disorderly Knights; we heartily recommend this series to fans of A Song of Ice and Fire), Fort Manoel, and the medieval walled city of Cittadella on Gozo in the Maltese archipelago,
The area of Rdum id-Delli was also considered, but then the production appears to have sought permission to film in Mtahleb instead, although that is still pending.
