“It Was Too Clean”: These set pieces that caused problems for the Dragon House production

When shooting on location, the biggest challenge for a production is not necessarily finding the perfect location, contrary to what you might think, but adapting it to the needs of the production. That’s a concern the HBO team faced while filming the first season of Dragon House in Spain.

As with Game of Thrones, the producer shot part of the prequel series in the Iberian Peninsula, highlighting cities such as Calahorra, Trujillo, Lloret de Mar or Cáceres, a favorite of production designer Jim Clay.

The city of Extremadura, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was chosen to represent a slum in Port Real called Culpucier. A place that presented a real challenge because it was too clean for production needs The Wall Street Journal.

No waste

Even worse, there was a limit to the amount of fake dirt that production could spread over the walls and cobblestones of city streets. a limitation that Jim Clay feared might render “Look a little Disneyfied and freshOne of the first steps was to adapt the floor:

“Obviously, we cannot change the masonry, but the authorities cooperated as much as possible and we managed to lay floors on all the streets. This is partly for aesthetics, and partly so horses can maneuver on wet cobblestones without slipping.“.

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So the team worked with the relevant authorities to achieve the desired look so that this version of Caceres would be closer to the Targaryen world. The task was difficult because, according to Clay, no matter how many layers of dirt you put on, it always looked a little cleaner on camera than they intended.

While House of the Dragon Season 2 production is also currently filming in Cáceres, Jim Clay and his team have a plan B to present Culpucier in all its glory: a setting with layers of mud and streets full of debris!