This 'Game Of Thrones' Season 6 Featurette Explores How You Make A White Walker
Game of Thrones has no shortage of monsters. Some of those monsters are human beings, scoundrels and killers and torturers, who just need a great actor to bring them to life. Others, like the zombies and those mysterious ice demons, require a little more practical elbow grease.
A new featurette has arrived, showing off the ever-popular show's prosthetic department and offering a cool glimpse at just how much time, energy, and effort goes into making a single White Walker. And since there seem to be more and more of these guys every season, that's a lot of time, energy, and effort.
The focus of this video is is prosthetics designer Barrie Gower, who guides us through a look at his department and their impressive work. This is just old school movie magic. Computer generated stuff is nifty and useful and allows for all kinds of impossible filmmaking, but nothing will ever top watching a team of talented men and women transform latex into the skin of monsters and then apply that skin to an actor. It's borderline romantic. This is how you do it!
The featurette also offers a glimpse at how the series allows practical effects and computer generated imagery to work in tandem. In addition to all of the green screens scattered around the sets, the footage offers nifty glimpses at actors whose make-up is occasionally broken up by splashes of green, allowing visual effects artists to tinker with the actor's look. For example, look at the actor playing an undead wight in the image below. Most of his look is practical make-up, but a chunk of his face has been painted green, allowing the post-production folks to create a gaping hole in his head.
While the focus of the featurette is on practical television production and the thousands of hours that go into making Game of Thrones happen, there is one shot that requires closer examination. Look at the image below. Does that set look familiar? Because it looks an awful lot like the lair of the Three-Eyed Raven, that mysterious figure that showed up in the season four finale and promised to help Bran Stark unlock his unique, mystical abilities. The entrance to this space is under some kind of magical protection (the wights who attempted to enter were instantly decimated), but it looks like the White Walkers themselves are ready to take matters into their own hands. Unless it's just a vision of some kind. After all, Bran does have his fair share of wacky visions.
Game of Thrones season 6 will premiere on April 24, 2016. The show's creator would like you to start getting hyped.