It’s one thing for a television director to get to fashion one iconic image from a television series. It’s probably even rarer for a director to get to fashion two. Greg Yaitanes, who has directed everything from an Emmy-winning run on “House” to “Damages” to “The Old Man,” had the opportunity to create three for “The Black Queen,” the 10th and final episode of “House of the Dragon’s” first season.
READ MORE: “House Of The Dragon”: Paddy Considine, Matt Smith and the fallen crown [Interview]
The moment that is likely most engrained in viewers’ minds, however, is the last shot of the episode. Prince Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) has been killed in a dragon battle while on a mission for his mother, recently crowned Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). The news is first delivered to Rhaenyra’s husband, Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), who then pulls his wife aside from a conference to inform her. Shot with only score and no dialogue, Rhaenyra learns of the news with her back to the viewer, but when she turns around, there are tears and fire in her eyes, and, in good cliffhanger fashion, the season is over.
Yaitanes, who also helmed two other episodes of the first season, says that direction wasn’t in the original script. He credits Smith for inspiring the staging (which required a very technical setup) and then D’Arcy for pulling it off emotionally.
“That was the last take we shot, and I had the shot one take before, but technically it wasn’t the best one, but the performance was good,” Yaintanes recalls. “And I asked Emma if she had one more in her. And she’s like, ‘I’m about to dry out.’ And I’m like, ‘Let’s just see what we get. We don’t like it; I won’t print it, I promise.’ And then, magic happened. The best performance and the best technical thing, like the heavens parted, and the perfect shot got created for that finale. I was so happy with that.”
Over the course of our interview, Yaitanes goes in depth about three other memorable moments from the season finale. And if you didn’t think it deserved an Emmy nomination before, you’ll be hard-pressed to believe it isn’t worthy of one after this interview, that’s for sure.
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The Playlist: I spoke to Paddy last week, and he was talking about how so many of his scenes and episodes were not shot in order and all over the place. Since you directed three episodes, was it like that for you? Was this not a traditional block shooting situation?
Greg Yaitanes: Let me put it this way, we had two [directing] mentees on the show. We had Oz and Marcus. And they were from the London Film School. And I told them the only thing you’re going to learn watching this show is how to make this show. It doesn’t work like any movie or any TV series in my 30 years. The way that the show operates is that we have two complete main units. And we named one unit “fire” and one unit “blood” after the book. And in both those units, all the directors start at the same time, and we have this checkerboard of schedule. And so, I was directing episode 10 from the second day to the last day, with episode two on the third day to the second last day. It’s spread throughout the 170-something days we shot the season. And in that, you have to keep track of where you are; what’s going on, and you’re editing as you go. And so, all of us, cast, writers, directors, we all have to lean on each other for exactly where we are in the story, what’s happened before and after, and not to play things that haven’t happened yet.
In that respect, Paddy told me a story about how his crown falls off in the episode where he dies. And there was an improv moment where Matt[Smith] picked it up and put it on his head. And that wasn’t in the script. But that could have informed a scene in a later episode if the show was being traditionally shot along more traditional lines.
Yeah.
Did you feel like there was any room for that in what you were doing for the 10th episode?
I mean, there are moments that we discover as we are in the scene. Speaking of the crown, in episode 10, when he’s handed it, the Queen’s guard comes and kneels and offers the crown to Rhaenyra. He goes to Damon first. And so, I thought there was a moment to have there of holding the thing that he wanted, or maybe didn’t want, or has a complicated relationship to, that represents his brother in so many ways to look around and take the read of the room as to what to do in this moment. And because it’s Damon, it was a nice unscripted moment of character suspense of what he was going to do at that moment. And then he turns and puts it on Rhaenyra, so. And, there are things like that as you get to know the characters, you can discover and create. Another improv concept was in episode two with Millie [Alcock, who plays the younger Rhaenyra]; we were rehearsing the scene with her picking her kings guard. And the set was so overwhelmingly huge that she had to get up on her tiptoes to look over in rehearsal. And I thought it would be great to represent how this world was built for men to have them run and find a stool. That wasn’t a scripted moment. And so, you find those things along the way and find those little bits of magic as you’re going.
Well, the final episode, which you submitted for Emmy consideration, does have perhaps one of the more memorable and dramatic dragon battles in it the entire season. And based on the shooting structure, was that something you shot early so that the visual effects teams had enough time to work it out?
I also directed the second and third “Dune” novels for sci-fi miniseries about 20 years ago.
Yeah, I remember that.
One of the things I learned from that was to front-load the visual effects work so that the team can have as much time as possible. So, one of the very first things that I created was that dragon sequence, which had moments of it scripted, and a lot of it had to be imagined. And that was one of the great privileges that [executive producers] Ryan [Condal] and Miguel [Sapochnik] had given me was to create something fantastic. And again, putting it into the storm and creating the staging and the moments of that was the first order of business. So, I would get together with Pepe [Avila del Pino], my director of photography, and we would, over tea and sausage rolls and dragon toys, create the choreography. Shooting on our iPhones, what the sequence was going to be. And then, I would edit this iPhone footage of toy dragons, and eventually, that would evolve into a previs of a larger sequence. So, at the end of the day, I was back to my seven-year-old self playing with my “Star Wars” figures, and just playing with my toys and creating the movies that I was seeing in my mind.
So was the moment when Lucerys breaks through the clouds and comes into the light and thinks he’s free, was that always in the script, or was that something you guys came up with when you were visualizing it?
That was something I came up with visualizing. That’s why I wanted the storm idea to have this moment. One of the things when I’m on an airplane and flying through a storm is like, “Oh, you get above the clouds, and it’s beautiful.”
Mm-hmm.
And, I wanted that same sense, and you feel like, “Oh, you’re safe now.” And I wanted to feel that sense of temporary safety, that we’ve been in this incredible storm, that the storm itself could have taken him down. And that the danger of the storm when you’re seeing him trying to get off the ground, that the storms pushing him down, then to feel like you break through the clouds and that you’re safe and that it’s beautiful. And then the idea of something horrible happening in the midst of beauty also interested me when I was visualizing the sequence.
The other visual moment that stands out for me in episode 10 is when Rhaenyra is greeted by the current hand of the king, Ser Otto Hightower, played by Rhys Ifans. And you have this long shot of them on the bridge. It has to be Twilight, right?
Yes.
And there’s just a little bit of sun peeking out. What did you want to convey with that image in the context of what was going on dramatically?
It’s interesting. We did a lot of virtual production on “House of the Dragons.” So, that involved using what’s called a volume, which is thousands of LED screens. And,] one of the incredible things about that is that you can design the exact time of day that you want to create. And, for me, it was interesting to have the restraint to create a time of day that is perfectly imperfect. So, on a technical level, I wanted the environment to disappear, so you just focused on performance. But also, it was still beautiful and at the right time, where you could still see the world around you and the dragons and the environment. So, that’s why in episode two, I chose to go with the mist and present the challenges of having it very fogged in, like the marine layer of California. There was a reference photo of Griffith Park soaked in by the marine layer on my Apple TV that I was like, “Oh, that’s the vibe of what the bridge should be there.” And then, I want that last moment of light before dark, which, because it’s right there that things are turning. So, it was, on a larger level, symbolic of the power shift that was about to take place.