It took nearly four weeks to film but it was well worth it.
Before we continue, let’s get the obligatory spoiler alert out of the way…
Now that that’s taken care of, wasn’t the last episode of Game of Thrones just amazing?
Season Six had slowly been building towards something special and as has been the case in previous seasons, it was in the penultimate episode that all the drama happened.
The highlight (there were many to be fair) was the ‘Battle of Winterfell’, the much-anticipated showdown between Ramsay Bolton and Jon Snow, and we don’t think we’re exaggerating when we say it was one of the most impressive battle scenes in TV and movie history.
And, as you might expect, the cast and crew worked bloody hard to make sure it came off.
HBO have released a ten-minute clip that gives a fascinating insight into the amount of effort that went into making the battle scenes, which were filmed near the village of Saintfield in County Down, Northern Ireland.
Some of the fascinating insights in the clip include:
- The shoot took 25 days in total
- 80 horses were used
- Kit Harington really did have to face up to a herd of onrushing horses
- Every single fake corpse was dressed in appropriate house sigils and armour
- The scene where Kit Harington (Jon Snow) repeatedly punches Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) took ten hours to shoot
- Sansa walking away with a wry smile on her face is Sophie Turner’s favourite Game of Thrones scene and co-creator D.B. Weiss’ favourite Sansa moment in the entire show to date
Clip via GameofThrones