This year on Game of Thrones, the dragons are bigger and nastier – so the VFX crew bringing them to life had to come up with two new methods for portraying Drogon, the biggest of the bunch. Including “the world’s largest fire-breathing crane.”
The Emmy-winning visual effects team-led by producer Steve Kullback and visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer – had to use two new methods to bring him to life. The Drogon is twice the size he was last year. He’s about 40 feet long and 20 per cent bigger than the other two dragons. Drogon gets to perform more this year than ever and have more complex interactions with Dany.
To create Drogon’s movements, they started with a “Technodolly,” which is a 15-foot crane usually used to hold a camera on its telescopic arm – but instead, they put a flamethrower on the end of it. “Standing 50 feet away from the dragon fire, you could get a nice tan,” said producer D.B. Weiss to TV Insider.
After the segments that used the Technodolly were edited, digital artists sketched in the fine details of Drogon. His physical traits were modeled after real animals: Komodo dragons, iguanas, horned lizards, and crocodiles. His movements were derived from eagles and bats, and his takeoff from pelicans.
The other new method employed was the SimulCam system, where the appearance of the dragon was saved into the camera. Good thing, because in Season 5, we’ll see more of Drogon’s emotional range. “Drogon gets to perform more this year than ever and have more complex interactions with Dany,” Bauer added.
