Game Of Thrones' Pilot Prominently Featured A Piece Of Monty Python History
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
We all know "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" to be one of the funniest films of all time. What the film gets less credit for is being remarkably ingenuous in its use of limited resources. They may be regarded as a legendary comedy troupe now, but when they were creating their take on the King Arthur legend, they only a few hundred thousand pounds to work with. Adjusted for inflation, it still wouldn't even be £3 million five decades later. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is a rather expansive film, as each knight of the Round Table has their own storyline that sends them to various places.
So, how were they able to have such a large scope with so little money? Clever framing, specific set decoration, and the beauty of a historical location. The vast majority of "Holy Grail" was shot at Doune Castle in Scotland, where it was used as the setting for several different castles throughout the film. Directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones knew just how to use the confines of the frame to trick the audience into thinking they were hopping all around the country.
Some other folks who understood the appeal of Doune Castle were David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of "Game of Thrones." They could see that same period magic that Python harnessed in their medieval film and thought it would be an appropriate ambiance and setting for Winterfell, home of the Stark family.
The glories of Doune Castle
The best way to ground your show in reality is to shoot at an actual location, and in the early days of "Game of Thrones," that was the intention when it came to Winterfell. That was to be a major home base for the series, and they needed to make sure it not only fit the time period in which the show was set but could be a visually dynamic place to shoot. In their location scouting, Doune Castle was that place. Co-creator D.B. Weiss recalled in Bryan Cogman's "Inside HBO's Game of Thrones: Seasons 1 & 2" how they settled on that location:
"It was difficult because it needed to feel like the kind of place the Starks would come from: solid, trustworthy, simple, grounded, and ... well, stark. But it also needed to be unique and not just pulled into the orbit of 'standard twelfth-century Scottish castle.' We shot pieces of the pilot at Doune Castle, a medieval stronghold in central Scotland which is an amazing place, not to mention the location for much of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' — but we wanted to introduce different elements and influences to keep Winterfell looking like a real place yet unlike any real place we'd ever been."
No matter how right the location is, shooting at one for a long-running TV show is completely impractical. So, for season 2, according to production designer Gemma Jackson, "an exact replica of Doune's great hall was built on the soundstage in Belfast, along with other Winterfell interior sets." This is exactly like how "The Bear" shot the pilot at Mr. Beef in Chicago and recreated it on a stage for the rest of the show.
Monty Python definitely couldn't afford to do that.