This Game of Thrones season 7 DP's job sounds like an absolute dream
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Your support makes all the difference.There are plenty of jobs to covet on the set of a major HBO production, but director of photography sounds particularly delightful.
Robert McLachlan, who served as cinematographer on memorable Game of Thrones episodes including 'The Rains of Castamere', 'The Dance of Dragons' and 'Mother's Mercy', and who will return for season 7's fourth and fifth episode, talked about his role with Deadline this week.
The interview was primarily about Westworld, which he also works on, but he offered up this tidbit about Thrones:
“My primary visual references are fine art. One of the things I love about working on Game of Thrones is that you can hop on a plane and go to the Louvre, and go to the Prado, and go to the Rijksmuseum in Holland. That’s what I do, and I spend a lot of time in there, looking at the masters, really, and aiming for a more painterly look.”
Imagine for a second how nice that must be. No major risk and responsibility to manage like a director or producer, no limelight to navigate or lines to learn like a cast member. You just phone up HBO like "Guys, need to jump on a plane to go stare at some Byzantine architecture in Bucharest for a few days, okay?"
Primarily in charge of the camera and lighting crews and dealing with shot composition, the DP gets to arrange sumptuous shots for the show, be it breathtaking vistas in the Irish hills or Icelandic mountains. The VFX sounds kind of a buzz kill though.
“With the huge vis effects component, everything is storyboarded for the bigger sequences ahead of time, and quite frankly, on the day, it takes a lot of the creativity out of lighting on the set," McLachlan explained. "We had some storyboards for Westworld, for a couple sequences, but mostly we didn’t, and we almost never do for Ray Donovan, for instance.”
He also teased of the new season, promising: "I think you’re going to see — whereas before, we’d have one or two showstopping, major episodes per season, this season, probably at least half of them are whoppers. They’re not going to disappoint."
Game of Thrones season 7 is set to arrive on HBO and Sky Atlantic 16 July.
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