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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘House of the Dragon' director and cinematographer on the ‘spontaneous creativity' of the fan-fave ‘The Red Sowing'
One of the standout episodes of House of the Dragon's second season was "The Red Sowing," from director Loni Peristere and cinematographer Vanja Černjul. In a new Gold Derby interview, the artisans share their insights from the fan-favorite seventh episode, which centered on Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her urgent quest to acquire more dragon riders. House of the Dragon, the prequel series to HBO's megahit Game of Thrones, was created by Ryan Condal and author George R. R. Martin, with D'Arcy leading the ensemble cast alongside Emmy nominee Matt Smith (The Crown) as Prince Daemon Targaryen and Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower. Season 2 is eligible at the 2025 Emmys, and filming for Season 3 is underway right now in England. More from GoldDerby Golden Reel Awards: MPSE bans generative A.I. sound from awards eligibility to 'keep artists at the forefront' Clancy Brown, Joel McHale, and more actors who self-submitted at this year's Emmys Netflix debuts 'In Your Dreams' trailer, Keke Palmer joins 'Spaceballs' sequel,' and more of today's top stories Gold Derby: Vanja, you've been quoted as saying that Season 2 was 'a testament to the marriage of meticulous planning and spontaneous creativity.' Talk us through what that means to you both. Vanja Černjul: What was wonderful about House of the Dragon is that we were given a proper amount of time to really prepare and get ready. Loni's background is in visual effects, so he really knew how to take advantage of all the tools that we had available. We storyboarded a lot of it, and it was just a wonderful process. But then, I had situations where it was raining on location, but we were completely adapted to what was happening. We planned for a sunny summer day in Wales and a couple of times we had mist and clouds, and we learned that it worked even better for the scene that we couldn't plan it better. Loni Peristere: There's a scene with Alicent, as she goes for her wander in the woods. We spent a lot of time growing flowers in this field, and we had this concept of Alicent going out into this ideal space as she tries to escape the Red Keep, maybe for the one last time, and we showed up on location, and it was pouring rain, and somehow it just made that scene a thousand times better to be pouring rain, and when she went into the water it was so much sadder as the water poured down on her. So that's that spontaneous creativity that we just embraced together. Similarly, you know the opening scene on the beach. We spent a meticulous amount of time in prep figuring out the right time to be there, so we could have this beautiful golden morning. And yet here we were again in the rain and the wind, and it just made it angry and it really lent to the scene to have Emma D'Arcy screaming through the wind. It just made it so much more powerful, and that is that spontaneous creativity that Vanja is referencing. HBO What was the most challenging part of the scene where Alicent wades into the Kingswood Lake? Peristere: The best part of our relationship is that we really appreciate the craft of cinema. We were given an episode that had a sequence like this with no dialogue, but we needed to convey Alicent's emotional state — her desire for freedom. I think Vanja and I probably rejected 15 different lakes, to find this space, because what we wanted to feel is that as she comes out of the Kingswood and into this lake, we wanted to 'break out of jail,' with the physical cinematic trees of the Kingswood, and then break out and be faced with this epic baptismal visual. We literally had to do it with a tenth of the crew that House of the Dragon normally has, because it was such a difficult location. Černjul: It was a good lesson in how sometimes the most impressive shot you can get just by being at the right place with just the camera. We decided to shoot the last couple of shots of the scene in the studio, so that beautiful shot of Olivia's hair going through the water; that was in-studio, and the two overhead shots also were in the studio. Peristere: And again, spontaneous creativity, the beautiful shot of the hair underwater that we ran backwards, so it looked like her hair was growing towards the camera. HBO The sequence that everyone wants to talk about is of course Hugh Hammer claiming Vermithor. What was the most difficult part of getting that whole sequence right? Černjul: There were many scenes in this episode where the script offered opportunities for a really cinematic approach, and Loni knew how to take advantage of that, because it's maybe one quarter of the episode that has no dialogue. When there's no dialogue, cinematography and sound really become the main language, the cinematic language that the narrative is communicated through. And that's a dream for a cinematographer. That's why this episode was so special for me, because of that particular sequence. Loni knew from the very beginning that he wanted to do a large section of the action in a oner. The most difficult challenge was orienting ourselves in this large blue screen space. We had a large stage, but the actual imagined space was supposed to be five times larger than the stage that we had, and the only physical things that were built were the plinth that you see in the background, and everything else was blue screen. So, we needed to orient ourselves, like once you determine the light source, for example. Where is that light source now, because you're supposed to be much deeper into the cave. And how large is the dragon in this large space. Orientation in the imagined space was challenging. I remember another challenge was that we really wanted a really raw handheld feel, and we wanted to film the whole sequence handheld. We fortunately had a rehearsal the day before, and Kieran was running so fast that it was really hard to keep up with him with a handheld camera, and the image became too shaky. We had amazing grip support, and our key grip came up with a solution real quick. He built the cable cam that supported the handheld camera. So, the shot ended up being a hybrid between handheld and cable cam, and we came up with that the day before. Peristere: There was a lot of stunt folks that we lit on fire! HBO A highlight sequence is where Ulf is flying over King's Landing, and then Aemond retreats when he sees Rhaenyra at Dragonstone surrounded by dragons. Talk us through shooting the sequence. Peristere: Vanja actually drew that frame himself. He hand drew it himself! Černjul: The composition of all these characters in that frame was so important because it was going to be the last frame of the episode. We were trying for a while, and then I finally drew the characters and played with the composition in Photoshop. Peristere: The idea that Rhaenyra was going to confront Aemond with a wall of dragons, a wall of nuclear weapons, changes the entire power dynamic of this entire series. What made it such a powerful thing was the writing, which gave us the opportunity to develop the visuals to support that. And that's what we really wanted to do when we read it. We knew that this is part of the narrative that is going to carry on for many seasons. HBO Loni, when you're witnessing a really committed performance from an actor, how do you collaborate and provide guidance or guardrails without compromising the intensity and the raw emotion that they're giving you? Peristere: That's a really good question to relate to this particular sequence, because Kieran's communion with the dragon was written as a quiet moment in the script, where Vermithor and Hugh were going to come together slowly, and Rhaenyra was going to watch it. And then Kieran decided to scream at the dragon on his own, and I remember when he did that, I couldn't believe it. I was like, "Wow!" It's giving me shivers just thinking about it, like how that happens with actors that are really good at their craft. That's how you commune with Vermithor, the second biggest dragon in the Westeros universe. That's how you do it. You show that dragon that this little man is bigger than it, and it was mind-blowing. Those moments happen quite a lot. We have an incredible cast that offers these types of moments because they are that good, and no matter how much prep, no matter how much experience Vanja has in photography, or I have in visual effects, nothing can compare with how a great actor can transform the word. HBO You have both just come off a really long day on set, so you're in the thick of Season 3. Obviously, you can't spoil anything, but what can we generally expect? Peristere: It's definitely everything that the fans want. Everything they've read in the book, everything that they know is coming. This season goes to 11. Černjul: The thing that I noticed when I came back, and I was very happy to be back, was that all other key collaborators came back as well, which says a lot about how much we enjoyed this opportunity to be part of building this universe. It's really a family now. But the fact that everybody was happy to come back says a lot about the experience that we have on set. The first two seasons of House of the Dragon are now streaming on HBO Max. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Tina Fey on 'The Four Seasons': 'It was a challenge to be restrained about where we put jokes' 'The best job I ever had': 'From 'Supernatural' to 'The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, 'Tarzan') 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How some Emmy categories lost and others gained nomination slots
Emmy nomination voting started Thursday, but voters won't get to fill out as many names in some categories as in previous years. When nominations are announced July 15, there will be the fewest nominees in the lead acting categories since 2008. That was the last year all acting categories had five slots before the Television Academy expanded to six. In 2020, the TV Academy mixed things up again with a sliding scale. Excluding Best Drama Series and Best Comedy Series, which are fixed at eight slots each, the number of slots per category will be determined by the number of submissions. Since then, some of the lead categories across drama, comedy, and limited/TV movie have gotten six slots. Last year, drama and comedy leads had six, while limited leads had five. This year, however, barring a tie, all of the lead categories will have five slots for the first time ever under this system. More from GoldDerby Peter Straughan breaks down the power plays and personal tragedy in 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light' 'House of the Dragon' director and cinematographer on the 'spontaneous creativity' of the fan-fave 'The Red Sowing' Golden Reel Awards: MPSE bans generative A.I. sound from awards eligibility to 'keep artists at the forefront' The lead races are the only categories that saw the number of submissions dip from last year. The limited/TV movie supporting categories will drop to six from seven. Best Limited/TV Movie Writing will shrink to five. Best Talk Series will go from four to three slots, due to just 13 submissions this year. And while the number of slots is unaffected — still five — Best Limited Series only had 33 entries this year compared to 49 in 2024. On the other hand, some categories gained slots: The comedy supporting races will go from six to seven. The drama guest ones will increase from five to six. And drama directing will bump up to seven. The other major categories will have the same number of slots as last year. So how did some categories lose a slot and others gain? SEE 2025 Emmy nominations voting: Here's the number of slots in the major categories Overall, there are 600 submissions across all the program categories this year, 14 fewer than last year. In just drama, comedy, and limited series, there are 228 entries, one fewer than last year. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out this had led to the decrease in slots. The submission decline isn't surprising as we're now in the second post-strikes Emmy cycle, and lots of productions are still recovering from the industry shutdown or were just shut down altogether. In 2023, there were 309 submissions across drama, comedy, and limited series. In terms of leads, there will always be fewer leads of shows in general compared to supporting cast members. The comedy lead categories last year were supposed to have five slots, but they ended up with six due to a tie. Some shows might have one true lead but a big supporting cast. And with fewer shows, there are fewer leads. This season, some of the biggest shows also have large ensembles or supporting casts, like The White Lotus, which has always submitted its actors in supporting, or The Pitt, which only counts Noah Wyle as a lead. The Last of Us is also fielding supporting players for the first time alongside its leads Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal (and don't forget, lots of fans don't think he should submit in lead due to his diminished presence in Season 2). The drama lead categories came very close to scoring six slots. You need at least 81 submissions, and drama actor had 77, while drama actress had 75 (only one category needs to hit the threshold because of a parity rule). It might make one wonder why don't studios submit as many performers as possible or why don't more performers (or their reps) pay the fee and self-submit to try to clear the thresholds and get as many slots as possible. But if a show is canceled, it's a tough call to make, for networks at least, whether to invest in submissions, let alone a campaign. Some do, some don't. Starz, for example, did not submit the canceled The Serpent Queen, and none of the actors self-submitted either. Comedy Central The roughest drop is arguably Best Talk Series only getting three slots, but it's also reflective of the waning number of late-night shows over the years and the end of such shows as Conan and The Late Late Show with James Corden. Per TV Academy rules, for categories with eight to 19 submissions, the number of slots is determined by dividing the number of submissions by four and rounding to the nearest whole number. Thirteen submissions means three slots. Had there been 14 submissions like last year, there would be four slots. It's another blow to the late-night community, which in 2022 successfully lobbied for the category to retain a fifth slot. Last year, The Daily Show won Best Talk Series over Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. So one of these shows will now be boxed out. This year's talk series submissions are The Daily Show, Everybody's Live with John Mulaney, Hart to Heart, Have I Got News For You, Hot Ones, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Midnight Snack with Julie Chan, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Very Important People, and Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. In 2023, the TV Academy rejiggered the variety categories and moved seven-time champ Last Week Tonight with John Oliver from variety talk series to the revamped Best Scripted Variety Series category, where it beat Saturday Night Live and A Black Lady Sketch Show. Last year, Last Week Tonight and SNL were the only nominees in scripted variety series, which is likely to be the case again this year. There are only six submissions, sending the category to peer group review. Those with 70 percent approval will get a nomination. The comedy supporting categories gained a slot, but it nearly didn't happen. Best Comedy Supporting Actor had 163 submissions, barely surpassing the 161-entry threshold for seven slots. Had it not done so, there would've been six slots again in the comedy supporting categories as supporting actress only had 141 submissions. Best Drama Directing is also getting seven slots, which is not that surprising. First, there was also a rule tweak this year that paved the way for more directing submissions. A director or directing team can now enter multiple submissions per category if they're for different shows. Previously, they could only submit one entry per category. Now, they will be able to submit an episode from each show they directed per category. Second, a bunch of shows over-submitted here. If you're nomination-competitive, it's best to be conservative with submissions — one or two episodes, maybe three if you're a top-tier show — as to not vote-split. Numerous dramas submitted four or more episodes in directing, including The Boys (five), House of the Dragon (five), Yellowjackets (five), Your Friends & Neighbors (four), Will Trent (six), and Doctor Odyssey with a whopping 11. These shows will probably not get a directing bid, but they did their greater part in ensuring more slots for everyone. Maybe other categories will take note next year? Best of GoldDerby Tina Fey on 'The Four Seasons': 'It was a challenge to be restrained about where we put jokes' 'The best job I ever had': 'From 'Supernatural' to 'The Boys,' Eric Kripke talks his biggest hits — and miss (ahem, 'Tarzan') 'Cross' star Aldis Hodge on building an aspirational hero — who's not a superhero Click here to read the full article.
