Michele MacLaren discusses directing Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones has had a lot of great directors over the years, and one of them is Michele MacLaren. Being the only female director on the show, she has worked on some fine episodes, like the Season 3 episodes “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” and”Second Sons”, and the Season 4 episodes “Oathkeeper” and “First of His Name”.

She now works on the new HBO show starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Deuce, which explored the world of pornography in the 70s. She recently spoke to AssignmentX about directing Game of Thrones, and more. Read on!

Starting off, she was asked how Game of Thrones filmed their episodes, considering the scenes are filmed in different locations, which are far away from each other :

“They do. They cross-board all ten episodes. So there’s one one-liner, and there are two crews, and a director and their d.p. [director of photography] and their first a.d. [assistant director] and their second a.d. move from crew to crew and location to location, depending on where and what they’re shooting. The directors shoot all of their own episodes. Everybody shoots their own episodes. And so it’s a giant feature that is cross-boarded. So it’s not block-shot, it’s cross-boarding.”

“What they do is, there’s always a crew in Northern Ireland, and then at some point in the season, one of the crews go to the different location, and the actors and the director and their team fly in and out as the schedule needs them for their particular episodes. So I would be shooting in Northern Ireland, then I would fly to Iceland, or Morocco, wherever the crew is at that time, to shoot the scenes for my episode.”

She was also asked about how different it was to work on The Deuce as compared Game of Thrones :

“Well, 1971 New York, the way we portrayed it was as accurate as possible, so it is our world, it was our world in 1971, and we tried to make it as authentic and real as possible. Every sign is real, every poster is real, every costume and car – we try to make it as authentic as possible. When you’re doing GAME OF THRONES, there’s a fantastical element to it, so we can create weapons that never existed, we can create wardrobe that never existed. In THE DEUCE, all this wardrobe, it existed. We’re inspired. I would say we have more of a framework to be inspired by.”

MacLaren will not be returning to direct any of Game of Thrones Season 8, but she is going to be working with Vince Gilligan, with whom she has worked before on Breaking Bad, to develop a show called Raven.

If you’re looking forward to follow her work, we would recommend you catch up with The Deuce. What did you think of this interview? Talk to us in the comments, down below!