Westeros

As part of our weekened getaway to Northern Ireland, Linda and I attended the Winterfell Festival held at Castle Ward. Among the events and activities were Q&As and interviews with Mark Addy (King Robert) and Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan). Below is a video of one of the two public events Mr. McElhinney attended, discussing his career, horsemanship, and of course Game of Thrones.

Unseen Westeros is an ambitious project by a group of matte painters and visual effects artists who have all worked on HBO’s Game of Thrones. With the approval and support of George R.R. Martin, German publisher Penhaligon, and Westeros.org, the artists have produced scores of paintings depicting locales from The World of Ice and Fire, many of them first introduced in that book.

Suffice it to say, it’s very flattering to have been a part of something that has inspired so many artists. Linda and/or I are likely to attend one or more of the days of the exhibition, and we may have some more to announce in that regards down the road. We’ve seen quite a bit of the art, and suffice it to say these artists are all extremely talented, and it’s remarkable to see how they bring some of the many fascinating, strange, or epic locales described in the world book to life.

The exhibition is targeting January 23rd to January 27th, with an impressive venue—a former powerplant in Berlin—for the art to be displayed in. Of course, all these things cost, and the project has a Kickstarter to help cover the costs (which they itemize). Supporters to the Kickstarter can get anything from a credit on the backers’ wall at the exhibition to an album from official exhibition music composers Wolf & Moon and on through a limited edition art catalog or even (at the 2500+ euro level—two of those are gone, already!) an original painting.

To learn more about the project and support it, visit the Kickstarter. To apply for free tickets in advance, go to Eventbrite.

Keep an eye out on our Youtube channel, as we’ll be making a video or two responding to some as-yet-unseen artwork to give everyone a taste of what’s to come!

As we’ve noted in our recent Game of Thrones news roundup, Linda and I were away to Northern Ireland this past weekend on a trip sponsored by Tourism NI to see the Winterfell Festival at the beautiful Castle Ward estate that served as a filming location for Winterfell and much, much more. It marks my fourth visit to Northern Ireland, and each time has been a pleasure from the very first visit to look at the set and watch some of the filming with George to the previous visit thanks to Tourism NI to see the beautifully carved Doors of Game of Thrones, and now on to this one.

We’ve captured a lot of photos and video footage from the junket, just over 30 gigabytes. Keep an eye out over the coming days for posts and videos featuring some of the iconic locations, and even actors—we met with Mark Addy and Ian McElhinney when they were there at Castle Ward, and filmed a lengthy interview McElhinney held before an audience that we’ll publish soon.

And as it happens, some of the treasures are still coming—such as the following treat from Boyd Rankin, weaponmaker-extraordinaire responsible for many of the iconic weapons on the show who also served as Mikken on season 1 on the show (he says it was his well-worn, slightly charred leather apron that was cast) . We’ve already shared a couple of photos on our Instagram from seeing Boyd at Castle Ward, featuring an image of the original Longclaw before it was burned, bear’s head-pommel and all, and another of a new memento for us in the form of a knife made for season 4 that was never used…. but this is a bit different.

Boyd happens to have been involved with the show right from the pilot, and was on hand for filming in Morocco where the original meeting and wedding of Daenerys and Drogo was filmed (that’s when Tom McCarthy was directing, and Tamsin Merchant was playing Daenerys). As fans may know, George R.R. Martin had a cameo during the filming, a cameo that was never repeated… and never made it to air, as the Dany role was recast and the whole of her sequences were reshot. There have been one or two leaked photos from the pilot since then, but none has ever shown George in his costume for his cameo…

... until now, that is. Taken by Mr. Rankin, and used with his permission, this is the first time that we know of that anyone outside of the production has seen this:

We’re back from having spent the weekend in Northern Ireland, looking at the sites and enjoying the Winterfell Festival. We have a lot of photographs and video from the trip, including a Q&A with Barristan Selmy himself, Ian McElhinney. For some sneak previews, make sure to check our social pages at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Of course, while we were away, there was some Game of Thrones-related news of note that we thought we should quickly cover, including some remarks from George from the red carpet at last night’s Emmy awards. See below for the quick news roundup!

As we’ve previously reported, Linda and I have the pleasure of attending the Winterfell Festival this Sunday at Castle Ward, famed as a shooting location for Winterfell and a number of other places in Game of Thrones. Now, the National Trust has published the full programme, starting with an opening ceremony with Game of Thrones‘s Ian McElhinney who’ll be around for a Q&A and meet and greet.

Besides McElhinney, fans will have the chance to see and meet Mark Addy, visit swordsmith Boyd Rankin who’ll have weapons from Game of Thrones on display, witness the stunt riders of The Devil’s Horsemen joust and perform feats of horsemanship, see dogs used as direwolves on the show, and many more GoT-inspired activities and entertainments. Including archery, as it happens:

Linda and I plan to photo and video across the day, and hope to get in some interviews with performers and visitors alike. If you see us, feel free to say hello!

On September 16th, Castle Ward—a National Trust site in Northern Ireland which has famously served as a location for Game of Thrones—will be hosting a Winterfell 2018 event which will feature a number of entertainments, including displays by the Devil’s Horsemen who’ve worked on the show’s horse stunts for years, a display of weapons from the show made by Boyd Rankin, and more.

And among that more is the newly-announced inclusion of Mark Addy—King Robert Baratheon himself!—to be part of a Q&A session.

(Atop of all that, Linda and I will also be present to report on the event, but we’ll have pens handy if anyone wants to lug their copy of The World of Ice and Fire over there to get our autographs.)

See below for the full details in the press release, explaining how to get a ticket to attend the Q&A with Addy, and providing more information about the event:

The popular mobile and PC game, Reigns, a “swipe ‘em up” is releasing it’s third edition—and this one is under license with HBO, meaning that this time players will be able to play as characters from Game of Thrones desperately clinging to power while trying to fend off rebellions, assassins, Others, and more!

We’ve been playing a beta and having great fun with it, but we’re not quite sure how much we can talk about it so we’ll write a follow-up post when that’s clarified.

The game will be released for iOs, Android, and PC (via Steam) this October for $3.99, but pre-orders are available in some countries. An official website for the game, reignsgame.com, is now live, and fans can follow @ReignsGame on Twitter to get a glimpse of some teasers.

More details below:

Last night, George R.R. Martin and John Picacio took the stage at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City for what turned out to be two and half hours of conversation and Q&A. We believe the SF in SF organization, along with co-sponsor of the event Locus Magazine, will be posting the audio (and perhaps video) of the full event at their site, but in the meantime there have been reports, and even a bit of video.

One of the detailed reports from the Q&A comes from Twitter user clintw, which we’ve threaded and posted to the So Spake Martin collection. In the course of the interview and Q&A, Martin remarks on the name of the latest Princess of Dorne, the whereabouts of the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister, hints about the various ideas HBO is still exploring for successor shows, and more.

Via EW, HBO exec Casey Bloys provided some light at the end of the tunnel for eager Game of Thrones fans, indicating that the final season of the show will be airing in the first half of 2019. Given that in general the show has started airing in March or April, it seems odds are good for the final season to follow suit.

Besides that, Bloys has also clarified earlier reports sourced from the Belfast Telegraph which indicated an October date for the production of Jane Goldman’s pilot for a Game of Thrones prequel/successor show. Bloys indicated that in fact a director has not yet been found (which may put paid to the idea that Goldman’s gotten Matthew Vaughn on board) and that in fact they’re hoping to get the pilot into production early next year. How this fits into the Telegraph’s report of trying to find a window to use the Paint Hall studio facilities is unclear.

An interesting set of reports from yesterday touch on HBO’s future and the future of Game of Thrones.

First, the Belfast Telegraph reports that allegedly staff at Paint Hall—the massive studio space used by Game of Thrones as its main base of operations for all of its seasons—have been told that the prequel pilot ordered back in June will begin filming this October.

Suffice it to say, if true, this is a very fast production path by HBO standards. By way of comparison, the original Game of Thrones pilot was ordered in November 2008 but filming did not begin until October 2009—almost a full year after. And Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen show had a pilot order in September, and began filming in May, eight months later.

If the Telegraph’s report is accurate, it’ll just be four months from pilot order to pilot shoot. But it’s important to stress that caveat—it’s entirely possible that October will see the beginnings of pre-production, such as set building, location scouting, and costuming, rather than actual filming. What can it mean, however, if this tight deadline really is true?

We have two thoughts on it.

Reports from over the weekend reveal that the final scenes have been filmed for Game of Thrones season 8, the final season of HBO’s hit fantasy series. It’s been an extraordinarily long shoot, beginning on October 23rd of last year, meaning just over 8 months have gone into filming the last six episodes of the show. Maisie Williams has posted a farewell image on her Instagram which has caused a bit of a stir in and of itself:

Though no air date has been announced, we do know from HBO that the show will not air until 2019.

I’m off to the U.S. for the week to visit family, but ahead of that Linda and I found some time to sit down and (finally) record a video for the Youtube channel where we discuss the news (including comments from George R.R. Martin at Not a Blog) and consider just what the writer and prospective showrunner, Jane Goldman, brings to the table.

Also, wild-eyed musings about whether she could convince her frequent collaborator Matthew Vaughn to direct the pilot…

Big news today, thanks to EW: HBO has ordered a pilot to be filmed of one of the several successor shows that have been in development, and we have a lot of details to go with it.

The pilot will be from Jane Goldman, who has previously given hints about what she was working on. And the new report shows that yes indeed, there’ll be magical creatures of some kind in her work…

While some fans mused going that far back, we admit, it was something we considered quite unlikely because it’d surely give a vastly different feel to the setting. But HBO seems to have been quite intrigued. And, as the EW article notes, this doesn’t necessarily mean HBO is done with pilot orders, as the article notes, “[s]ources say the other four prequel ideas are still under consideration.”

It should be stressed this is a pilot order, rather than a greenlight straight to series. HBO is known for being careful with productions, and often ordering pilots, many of which never end up being made. But it’s another step closer for there being some sort of Game of Thrones spinoff in 2020 or later.

For those with a 4K monitor or television with internet capability, HBO has released a short, sweet 4K trailer for today’s release of the Game of Thrones Season 1 4k Blu-ray. We’ve discussed the details of this release in our initial post, but suffice it to say the 4K scenes featured in the trailer look very detailed indeed!

You can see the trailer below:

(And for those wondering, we’ve wrapped up our own contest for two copies of the UHD release! Congratulations to Al and BransNotTheNightKing!)

As previously reported, HBO is preparing to release the first season of Game of Thrones in 4k Blu-ray format on June 5th. In time with that, we’re pleased to announce a contest to win a copy of the Blu-ray!

This contest is, first off, US only! But that said, there’s two of these Blu-ray collections on offer. You’re allowed two entries, and only two, one each for Facebook and one for Twitter. To enter via Facebook,  post to the comment thread of this very post either directly at Westeros.org or via the Westeros Facebook Page. To enter via Twitter, simply reply send us a reply to the tweet about this post on the Westerosorg timeline.

Winners will be chosen on the 5th of June, with the sets sent out on June 6th.