The phenomenal success of Game of Thrones has been paying the bills for the last five years at HBO and the biggest and craziest show on TV is not showing any signs of slowing down. Last month we took a look at the show from the POV of the camera operators on Game of Thrones, which provided some really fascinating insights into the world of the show. And now, just hours before the premiere of Game of Thrones Season 6, HBO takes us on a behind the scenes look at the Visual Effects and make-up involved into making some the show’s most fascinating characters and fantasy creatures come to life such as giants, dragons and white walkers.

Game of Thrones VFX supervisor Joe Bauer and VFX producer Steve Kullback discuss what it takes to achieve the scope, vision and sheer grandeur of the massive scale of the show, which rivals even the biggest Hollywood productions.

The best compliment in Visual Effects is to be invisible – VFX supervisor Joe Bauer

Some of the most fascinating insights form the show’s VFX gurus are the gigantic green screen that was required to achieve the scope of some of the battles on the Wall in the previous season. Apparently the monumental green screen that measured at 30 feet tall and 400 feet long was used for the battle sequence of the attack on the Wall. According to VFX supervisor Joe Bauer it was the largest green screen constructed at the time.

To make the massive fire-breathing dragon as believable and realistic as possible, the VFX team used an actual flamethrower spitting actual fire onto stuntmen. The flamethrower was strapped onto a robotic techno-crane to simulate the creatures movements as it was barbecuing the poor stuntmen. Despite the the VFX industry ever growing reliant on computer graphics on Game of Thrones they used quite a bit of organic elements such as real fire to enhance the sense of realism.

The make-up in the show is in a class of its own too. The prosthetic make-up effects used on the White Walkers especially require pain-staking dedication and a lot of work to pull off.

To see the visual effects in action, check out this video: https://youtu.be/jqus7BEcyTI.