PJ Dillon ASC, ISC sets the look on “House of the Dragon” S2

The second TV series in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” franchise, based on books by George R. R. Martin, “House of the Dragon” is set around 200 years before the events in HBO’s hugely successful original series, “Game of Thrones.” Continuing the turbulent story of House Targaryen, season two was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, in the UK, and on location in Spain and Wales. Cinematographer PJ Dillon ASC, ISC shot episodes one and four, selecting the equipment for the series and setting the look. Subsequent episodes were shot by Alejandro Martínez AMC; Catherine Goldschmidt BSC; and Vanja Černjul ASC, HFS.

New format, new camera, new lenses

PJ Dillon wasn’t involved in the first season of “House of the Dragon,” but was recruited by the showrunners for season two because of his previous work on “Game of Thrones.”  He says, “I thought that all the DPs on season one did amazing work, especially Fabian Wagner ASC, BSC, who set the look. It was one of the best-looking shows on TV, so my brief was to continue the overall look of the ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ world, while maintaining the quality of cinematography that had been established on season one. The only additional thing was that there had been feedback from some viewers about season one looking a little bit dark at times, and HBO wanted to address this without compromising the established look of the show, so we looked closely at that but in the end any shift was actually very slight.” 

Season one had mixed the 65 mm and full-frame formats, using ALEXA 65 and ALEXA Mini LF cameras with DNA lenses from ARRI Rental. For the second season, the producers wanted to work with a single camera and format to make things more streamlined in post. Dillon notes, “The ALEXA 35 had come out in the meantime and I proposed that we shoot with it because the sensor is so impressive and we were going to be doing a lot of low-light work. Moving to Super 35 raised the issue that 65 mm has a much shallower depth of field, so we needed to figure out a way to maintain the shallow-focus feel of season one. We decided to achieve this by using anamorphic lenses.”

Dillon worked with ARRI Rental to evaluate anamorphic options, and quickly settled on ALFA lenses. He says, “I was aware of the ALFAs because I'd used them on the Netflix series ‘Three Body Problem.’ The ALFAs were designed for large format and we were shooting on Super 35, so there was a crop factor on the sensor, but when we tested them, we just thought they were beautiful. The slight softening at the edges worked really well.”

As well as standard ALFAs, referred to by ARRI Rental as ALFA V1s, Dillon also utilized variants called ALFA V2s, which have a slightly more detuned look, with exaggerated fall-off at the edges. The cinematographer says, “Our preference generally was the more detuned ones, but sometimes it was a little too extreme, depending on the composition. For example, in situations where you had two people on the edge of frame and neither was in focus because of the stronger fall-off, then you'd switch to a V1. And there were certain V1 lenses that we just preferred, in the way that you always find favorite lenses over the course of a job. For other focal lengths, we preferred the V2s. They were beautiful and really came into their own for center-punch portraits and wide proscenium shots.”

VFX and interactive light

Being set in a world of fire-breathing dragons and vast, medieval-style battles, “House of the Dragon” incorporates extensive visual effects. Despite the ALFAs being equipped with lens metadata chips, some trepidation in the VFX department during prep meant that the production also carried a set of ARRI/Zeiss Master Anamorphic lenses, which are distortion-free across the frame. Dillon notes, “There were situations in the first few weeks where we'd line up a shot with a VFX element and I'd ask the VFX supervisor, ‘Should we go to a Master Anamorphic?’ And initially they said, ‘Yes, we should always do that.’ But as the show went on and they got to know the ALFAs, they would often say, ‘Actually, it doesn't matter so much.’ When we did use the Master Anamorphics, we could soften the edges in post to bring them more in line with the ALFA look.”

For dragon-riding scenes, which were the most critical from a VFX perspective, Master Anamorphics were always used. These were shot in what Dillon describes as “a semi-LED volume.” He explains, “They had used a volume in the first season, but decided not to for this one. The initial plan was to shoot traditional bluescreen, but because of things like reflections in armor, I felt that the lighting needed to be more dynamic than can easily be achieved in a bluescreen environment, especially as the riders were on a hydraulic rig, so their position in space kept changing.”

He continues, “We built LED video walls on three sides of the stage, with an LED ceiling on top and a couple of additional floating LED walls on Manitous. Then we put imagery on the screens that provided interactive lighting, although there was always a section of bluescreen on the LED wall behind the rider, usually a blue frustum programmed to the movement of the hydraulic rig, so the actor was backed by blue as they moved around in space. It meant that the VFX team got the strongest compositing key and we could envelop the actor in scene-appropriate light—around the blue—from images that didn’t have to be shot-specific but could be generic footage of moving clouds, or fire, or whatever else. And because the background wasn’t burnt-in, there was more freedom to adapt the pre-viz later.”

Highlights and shadows

Having worked with the earliest model of ALEXA camera on episodes of “Game of Thrones,” which was the first major series to use the system, Dillon has seen the ALEXA family evolve over more than a decade. He says, “The main thing with the ALEXA 35 is that it holds so much detail in the highlights. We were able to shoot confidently with flame sources because we tested extensively and knew that at 2000 ISO, or even in the 2560 ES mode, you would retain all the color and detail in a naked flame. In other words, it wouldn't clip to white. This allowed the flame to be far more interactive and much more of an actual source. Previously you would often have to supplement the firelight, but there is far less need to do that with the ALEXA 35. We also liked the fact that if there was a flambeau or a torch on a wall, for example, the interactive light felt very naturalistic and real.”

The 2560 ES mode mentioned by Dillon is one of the camera’s Extended Sensitivity settings, which range from the equivalent of 2560 ISO up to 6400, allowing for low-light shooting and exceptional retention of shadow detail. This proved helpful for flame-lit scenes that had a low overall light level but needed to not get too dark, given the audience feedback from season one. Dillon says, “I think all the DPs on the show used the ES modes at times. We found that 2560 ES was a very good place for us to be without worrying about noise or having any of the artefacts that you might previously have had with earlier sensors at that sort of speed. We were very comfortable at 2560 ES, and for one shot, when we were losing the light, I actually shot at 4800 ES. We used it in the edit, and it looks great. I’d challenge anyone to watch the show and single it out!”

Although Dillon was designated as the lead DP and set the look in the opening episode, there was a great deal of communication and collaboration between all four of the season’s cinematographers. Dillon explains, “We were in constant dialogue, talking about stuff. What tended to happen was that I did the initial pre-lights on the sets, after consultation with the other DPs. When a new set was being established, myself and the studio gaffer, Charley Cox, would draw up the lighting plan, then go in and implement that to put a general look on the set. Then each individual DP would come in and adapt that lighting setup for their particular needs on their specific episodes. I think it worked well as a way to give the show a unified look throughout the season.”