Last week it was announced that Game of Thrones would receive a special award at the BAFTA Craft Awards for “the craft behind the making of the critically acclaimed series and their outstanding contribution to revolutionising and pushing the boundaries within the various crafts involved in making all the 67 episodes to date”. As we reported they would, two cast members accepted the award, but an introductory video also features certain former cast members reminiscing about the experience! And that wasn’t it for Game of Thrones: on the ceremony today, season seven specifically won two awards!
Streamed live on Youtube (watch it here!), the ceremony recognized season seven’s marvelous production and costume design, led by Deborah Riley (with set decorator Rob Cameron) and Michele Clapton respectively, with two different Craft awards:
After all the nominees battled to the death for their respective award (that’s how it works, isn’t it?), a final special production award was given to Game of Thrones—to the series as a whole, that is, not just the previous season. Before anyone got on stage, the award was introduced with a wonderful (and wonderfully long) video featuring current and former members of the cast and crew, including Sean Bean and Michelle Fairley:
Finally, it was time for BAFTA Chair Jane Lush to introduce the award, and for cast members John Bradley and Hannah Murray (Sam and Gilly) to accept it on behalf of everyone in the cast and crew. They were there instead of showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who couldn’t be there as they are busy shooting season eight right now, as you well know if you follow our filming reports. You can see it all here:
Bradley humbly but right points out that “it feels quite strange for any two people to be up here trying to collect this award on behalf of such a vast team.” Every season of Game of Thrones is a massive endeavor, and if you put the whole production together its immensity beggars belief. Even the show’s detractors must admit it’s difficult to choose a TV show that deserves this special production award more than Game of Thrones. Bravo, everyone in the cast and crew, past and present. You deserve it!
I have so many loves for this. ❤
That highlight video and music… simply the best
I love watching John speak. He’s the best. <3
my people: we drink and we make stuff
So true! Love that GoT won the two awards AND the special award. Most deserving, too! <3 <3 <3
The video is SO wonderful!!!
Deb and Michele blow me away and have for so many years, and honestly I cannot even begin to imagine how so many people and so much talent can all be a part of something like GoT. It is just mind boggling.
Big up each and everyone on the production crew, special shout out to Maester Clapton & crew. I would gladly spend an entire year (or perhaps more!) making tea/coffee, sweeping the floor, and clearing the trash baskets in their atelier.
3eyes,
AMEN, I would be the happiest man alive to be surrounded by such talent!
Congratulations to all the winners! they totally deserved it!
Looking forward to Queen Gilly sitting on the Iron Throne at the end of season 8.
If my understanding is correct Sam is still a sworn brother of the Night watch. He is away from the wall to train as a Maester.
His vows will not allow him to become a Lord.
They have been quick to behead deserters so he needs a release.
So well deserved!
Colin Armfield,
There’s no wall left to defend anymore, so I suppose that would be Sam’s release.
This brings up an interesting question as far as whether or not the Night’s Watch would even exist after this is all over.
Congratulations GoT! Well deserved!
Mr Derp,
As far as I’m concerned their job will be complete as soon as the NK would be destroyed. The ‘few’ remaining now still have that fight, but afterward the entire purpose of the Night’s Watch is done. That is unless they’re only able to drive the Others back into hibernation beyond the Wall and they repair the breach. I suppose they’d have to come up with a new purpose for the NW to still exist, and most purposes wouldn’t seem to require being in such a remote location.
Congratulations to all the talented, creative, hard-working designers, craftspeople and artesans who make GoT what it is! A well-deserved special BAFTA award indeed! (How often do BAFTA give out this kind of special awards, anyway? Not every year.)
One thing that really stuck in my mind from the vid was Ned Sta… erm, Sean Bean saying how Ned’s office desk was littered with all these wonderful objects (did you notice the little bronze horse thingy whith wheels?) and giving acknowledgement to people who actually thought of all those things, designed and made them, put them there and made him feel like he was in another world.
Similarly, Michelle Fairly said, just putting on the exquisitely crafted (and then “broken”, i.e. worn and dirtied) gowns helped her characterization of Catelyn Stark.
I think it’s this kind of attention to detail and letting visionary designers and master craftsmen and craftswomen to show their mettle, inspire them to do their very best, even when budgets and time were tight in the early years, that is a huge contribitor to the popularity of GoT worldwide. It’s a fantasy series but it looks real. Like our world, but just a bit different, and everything there seems absolutely real, even the White Walkers, thanks to the efforts of these BAFTA winners. CGI dragons seem real, not just spectacular CGI thingys, because the rest of the world is so tangibly real.
Once again, well done, everyone. Congratulations! Well deserved!
As to Sam an Gill… I mean John Bradley and Hannah Murray accepting the award on behalf of GoT… Well, obviously they weren’t filming on that day – and knew it well in advance to be booked for the ceremony. Are they dead in the show?!
OK, OK, calm down. Things are filmed out of sequence, and any Sam scenes or Gilly scenes would probably be indoors, i.e. in the studios in Belfast. He was sighted in Belfast in October, I think, and who’s to say some scenes will be filmed inside the studio once they get the outdoor shoots (which require trees not in leaf as it’s winter) out of the way.
As to them accepting the award. Hannah Murray sounded a bit like reciting a memorised script, but John Bradley was great, funny and articulate. Every single interview/talk show appearance I’ve seen, he’s very personable, intelligent, witty and funny. BookSam, while smart and a bit devious, is more drab and self-pitying and pathetic, but I think John Bradley brings just the right balance to ShowSam. And Hannah Murray is perfect as ShowGilly. I hope they aren’t dead.
talvikorppi,
I don’t think Sam or Gilly will die, some people have to be alive at the end. But I don’t see both of them fighting in battles. They will probably be somewhere inside in Winterfell with Bran and a scene with Jon/Aegon about his parents. Then have an escape scene when Winterfell is attacked. To reappear alive at the end. All of that doesn’t take much time filming. It’s for the battles they need lots of filming. Kit Harington will have to film the most scenes. And maybe other fighters too like Jaime, Brienne, The Hound, Ser Jorah, Arya and Dany on top of Drogon.
It’s speculation, I haven’t read any leaks.
I have to say personally that for quite a while now, Sam has been a character I’ve thought would make it through to the end. After all, someone needs to write down an account of the great war, right?!
Also, one thing I noted about their appearance was that – like a lot of the male actors during this filming season – John’s beard seems a bit thicker than in season seven. This seems to be a trend.
#beardwatch2018
I’m headcanoning that the living won’t even know whether it’s a decisive, final victory. They apparently win this war (is any other outcome realistic storywise?) but they won’t know.
So the all but destroyed Night’s Watch gets reinstituted, just in case. Under the leadership of Lord Commander Eddison Tollet (a.k.a. Dolorous Edd, he practicaly jinxed it on himself in the books, and the show has already seen him given the LC’s cloak).
The Night’s Watch obviously need reform. Now everybody knows the threat from the north is real, not just grumpkins. It could, once again, become an honourable calling for second and third and so on sons of noble houses. Ordinary people could be similarly fired up, and younger sons of yeomanry and tenant farmers, with few to nil prospects at home, could try their luck at the Wall, where they could rise to better positions due to merit.
The monarch could decree that no man shall be knighted unless he has served 2 years at the Wall. So all highborn boys do a “tour of duty” at the Wall. Get to know the northern conditions, the northern threat, and each other, away from their parents, which could promote national cohesion.
The problem with this scenario, not for life NW for highborn boys, just training (for a possible royal army?), is that the common people, the small folk, will think it unfair if nobs only swear for a few years, the smallfolk for life.
The monarch could opt for promising some lands (in the Gift and the New Gift, presently depopulated but apparently good agricultural land) to rank and file, if they serve for ~ 20 years… Wasn’t that what the Roman empire did with their legions? A plot of land to call your own after your 20 or so years. Enough to dream of social and economic advancement, especially if your commander got big and happened to remember you and put in a good word in for you.
Hahaha #beardwatch indeed.
We know Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) is now sporting more facial hair than ever since S3. Book readers know that the scruffier and longer Jaime’s beard becomes, the further away from Cercei and her influence he is. Jaime’s beard is important to book readers. The show will probably go there, have a bearded Jaime to symbolise his break from Cersei.
Plus my Lady of Tarth is more used to seeing him scruffy, her Ser Jaime. The man she loves. Anybody who denies this one true match… Well, just screw you! Jaime and Brienne have to be together. So there!
In all seriousness, I expect Jaime to die before he gets to marry his one true love. Ho hum.
Oh, yeah, he might even die in her arms, as per his stupid wish expressed to Bronn in Dorne in S5 – but we can all forget S5 Dorne, can’t we? Can’t we?? 😀