Cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt continues to deepen G. R. R. Martin‘s universe. The Emmy and ASC Award nominated cinematographer returned for season two of House of the Dragon, once again collaborating with director Geeta Vasant Patel. Together, they delivered some of season two’s most visceral moments in “The Burning Mill” and the finale, “The Queen Who Ever Was.”
Prior to House of the Dragon, Goldschmidt shot episodes of Doctor Who and A Discovery of Witches. She’s no stranger to finding natural beauty and horror in the extraordinary. The American Film Institute graduate, who’s a founding member of illuminatrix, recently spoke with Immersive Media via email about shooting “The Burning Mill” and “The Queen Who Ever Was.”
How did you find the aesthetic of House of the Dragon grow or change in season two? For season one, it was said there weren’t as many rules aesthetically, but for season two, were there any?
Not exactly, no. We all sat down together- all the directors and the DPs, and talked through what was encouraged (developing shots, epic wides, grounded camera work) and what was discouraged (floating/disconnected camera work, unmotivated lighting, etc.). Between the DPs, we agreed roughly on the color temperature of moonlight (4000K) and a few other basic principles, but these were more guidelines than rules, I’d say.
With you and [director] Geeta Vasant Patel, how did you want to continue to deepen the characters and world with the camera?
Geeta and I love connecting camera choices to character. We love moving with characters, discovering things with them. When Daemon first comes to Harrenhal in Ep 203- this is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. We discover the space with him, and experience it through his eyes. He’s lost, he’s confused, he’s a bit scared, and the camera work here serves to disorient and haunt the audience as well.
In “The Burning Mill,” the shot of the sword in the neck, the bodies, the river, and the mill, it’s like a horrifying painting. Did you and Geeta immediately know you wanted that all communicated in one shot? How did you both and the crew pull off that shot?
Yes, we always envisioned that in one, elegant, moving crane shot. And we shot no other coverage, so it had to be this way! We scouted the location with a drone, so we could look at the distant view and get a sense of the final height of the shot. But we knew it had to be done on a crane, so we could start extremely close to the subject in the water and have the movement be finely controlled all the way up the sword. The art department and the prosthetics department had a lot to do with the success of the shot obviously, as it features their incredible work with all those bodies!
That shot communicates so much scale. For House of the Dragon, what shared ideas do you and Geeta have—whether lenses or camera placement—to best give the show its, for lack of a better word, epic-ness?
Yes- we do talk and think about epic scale a lot, and try to imbue that in all of our work. You’re right- it has everything to do with lens choice and camera placement choice, so we’re often trying to figure out how to get the camera higher or lower, or someplace it’s never been before. We love using wide lenses and getting as far back as possible. It’s not a wide shot to Geeta if she can see the people in the shot clearly. She wants them to be little specs on the horizon!
How about your choices for capturing emotion? I read you like to connect color subtly for character and emotion. How did those colors for characters deepen in season two?
I do enjoy connecting color to character where I can, but on House of the Dragon, the palette is typically quite muted and controlled. However, in Episode 208 we had the opportunity of introducing viewers to a whole new world in Tyrosh, so here we let the colors be more vivid and saturated and more contrasty. Tyrosh is a hot, desert island, with some very colorful characters, so we increased saturation and contrast to communicate the heat of the place, as well as the intensity of the people there.
In “The Burning Mill,” there’s a scene with the dragon far off in the background, almost silhouetted. Whether using natural or artificial light, how did you personally like to see light paint the dragons?
It’s important for the dragons to be situated in the world of the show, so that means even though they are CG creations, the VFX department lights them how I’m lighting the scene. I love using silhouettes in lighting because it’s very evocative- it makes the viewer ask a question- and so I equally love seeing the dragons lit this way because it makes them more mysterious and forces the audience to use their imagination more.
What about the point-of-view shot with Daemon on the dragon? How was the back-and-forth with the VFX supervisor about the qualities you were seeking with all the elements—rain, fog, lightning—surrounding the creature?
Geeta and I storyboarded this sequence first, and then took this to VFX where they did a pre-vis animation of what we had boarded. We talked a lot about how the dragon flying should be indicative of Daemon’s mood – he just had a fight with his wife and flew off, so the flying is erratic and emotional. The rain, the fog, the lightning all serve to heighten the tension of … is something bad going to happen here?
Much of the show is political maneuvering, sitting around tables and talking. As much as I ask about the more VFX-heavy sequences, what are consistent challenges with the interior, dialogue-heavy scenes?
The challenges with the dialogue-heavy scenes are always- how to make them visually interesting; how to put the camera somewhere new; how to underline the emotion of the scene with camera/lensing/lighting choices. Geeta and I are always trying to ask the question: whose scene is this? And sometimes, the answer is complicated because there are multiple storylines going on for multiple characters who all have a stake in what’s happening. But, we try to align the camera with one or a few characters, because that gives the scene more of a point of view.
Tyland Lannister’s journey to negotiate an alliance with the Triarchy is probably one of the most vibrant, colorful locations in the Game of Thrones universe we’ve seen. What about the production design and location, the color and light, did you want to capture?
Great- I’m glad you noticed! I spoke about this earlier, but we were trying to differentiate this place and these people from anywhere and anyone else that the audience had met before on the show. We wanted the audience to feel as Tyland does- like a fish out of water, so emphasizing the differences in this culture was very important. In the very first scene of the episode, we wanted the heat to feel oppressive, so you can see him sweating as he tries to plead his case. I wanted the light to feel hot and contrasty, so that was the intention behind the design.
In “The Queen Who Ever Was,” what kind of prep did you have to do for Daemon’s vision? Beautifully done, by the way.
Thank you! This sequence was very important to us because it was entirely visual. So, it wasn’t scripted per se- Ryan gave Geeta and me a lot of freedom to pitch the sequence to him as far as what the shots would be and how it would flow. So, we storyboarded it with our favorite storyboard artist Adam Pescott, and brainstormed how all the shots would build and develop to tell an abstract, visual story. Then, we had to actually figure out how to achieve those shots – there’s a lot in there as far as dry-for-wet, underwater, VFX stitch + composite work, etc. As always, it was wonderful to be able to collaborate with so many departments to pull this sequence off, including stunts, VFX, SFX, SFX Makeup, Art Department, etc.
What work did that sequence require in post-production? How did color timing go?
There are a lot of VFX shots in the sequence, so they had to do their thing. Color timing-wise, I am always working with the DIT on set to set the look at the image capture phase, so it wasn’t a huge stretch for us to get there in the final grade.
When shooting Daemon and Princess Rhaenyra, how do you want the camera to communicate the connection between the two of them? I ask because of a particularly intimate two-shot between the two in the finale.
I think I know the shot you mean. That scene in the finale when Rhaenyra and Daemon come back together again was one that Geeta and I loved getting to realize, because it’s something that is so satisfying for both of their characters. All season long, the audience has been wondering if Daemon will declare for Rhaenyra or for himself, and this is the scene where that question finally gets answered. The scene should start with the two of them feeling quite separate, because Rhaenyra isn’t sure herself of what’s going to happen. But as the scene plays out, it becomes clear that Daemon will stay loyal, and the scene actually becomes quite intimate. It was important to show their closeness here, their connection, and I’m glad you saw this in the shot choices!
When shooting Alicent and Rhaenyra debating, how did point-of-view and the push and pull between them influence your choices there? A very good battle of words.
Geeta was adamant that we try to maintain the balance between them, so this meant that we didn’t favor one person over the other in terms of where we put the camera. We come into the scene with Rhaenyra, because the audience is just as surprised as she is to see Alicent there. But once they start their back and forth, then we tried to move evenly and equally with both of them in the space. The audience should find it difficult to know who to side with here, and we didn’t want to give them any visual indication either.
For the montage, how was it pacing those shots with Geeta? Communicating as much as possible in those final moments about where the characters have been and where they’re going—how challenging was that?
The final montage, like Daemon’s vision, was really fun to craft, because again- it’s entirely visual. We’re showing the audience rather than telling them things about all the characters, and this lets the audience put the pieces together for the future. We storyboarded the whole sequence again with Adam Pescott, and we were adamant that the two sides- Greens vs Blacks should always be marching in opposing directions. We also wanted to shoot towards a low sun wherever possible. When we found the location for where we wanted to film the Hightowers marching from Oldtown we were horrified to see that the sun was in the wrong direction to both film towards it and also keep the correct screen direction for the Greens. We wound up filming the shot in the reverse direction and flopping it – something we could only do because the Hightower insignia is the same left to right. Of course, the day we arrived to shoot this was sadly cloudy, so sun direction didn’t wind up mattering as much as we’d hoped!
Was that always the final image of the finale? What did you want that last note to say?
The final images of the finale are of Rhaenyra and Alicent. This was Geeta’s idea, to show these two women separately, after their encounter, because everything rests on what they will do next. And they know that, and they’re both processing how to make their next choice, although the bigger decision clearly rests with Rhaenyra – the ball has been left in her court. We shot Rhaenyra entrapped and entwined in her web of history, of precedent, and of her weighty decision, whereas Alicent we shot with a wide open vista, more free from the shackles of responsibility that she just threw off. This visual contrast shows the different mental states of both women, and evokes the question in the audience of: what will they do now?
House of the Dragon is available to stream on Max.
