Game of Thrones is easily the most spectacular-looking TV show in history. To make it that way, HBO employs an army of animators, modelers, matte painters and other special effects technicians dedicated to bringing the fantastical landscapes and creatures of Westeros and beyond to life.
Some of those technicians work at Pixomondo, one of several SFX houses working on the show. Not long ago, Pixomondo released a reel of their work on season 7, showing off how they rendered scenes like Daenerys’ arrival at Dragonstone, her star entrance into the Dragonpit meeting, and Jon Snow’s close encounter with Drogon’s snout.
Basically, it looks like Pixomondo was on dragon duty for season 7. Check it out:
Obviously, everything with Drogon is very impressive. No one renders mythical creatures like Game of Thrones; a lot of it impresses more than the stuff I see in proper movies, which can be chocked up to both the skill of the professionals involved and the fact that they’ve been working together for a long time.
I also love seeing the incidental details it doesn’t occur to me involve special effects when I’m actually watching the show. Take the the extra bits of stonework Pixomondo added to the Roman amphitheater in Italica, where the crew filmed the gathering at the Dragonpit. That location, an ancient ruin, looks more or less in real life how it appears on screen, but Pixomondo added a few pillars here and there to take it over the top.
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