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Episode Intro


krakenblood

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[quote name='Ran' post='1635087' date='Dec 31 2008, 14.50']Well, the review of the pilot script at the Winter is Coming blog includes a detailed description of the intro as written in said script. Could change, of course.[/quote]
I hope they don't change it...it's good. :thumbsup:
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I'm thinking that the series needs an empowering and uplifting piece of soft American rock set to an inspirational montage. Y'know, like the intro to [b]Enterprise[/b] :leaving:

Actually, the idea in the script sounds good, although I like the idea of using the Painted Table and maybe people moving figures representing armies and stuff across it. Maybe at the end of each title sequence the table could segue into an aerial view of the landmass and the camera zooms in wherever the action is starting that episode (so the Wall for episode 1, Winterfell for episode 2 etc). However, that might take the viewer out of the action somewhat.
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Thanks Ran, I didn't know that script review was there. It sounds good, but there was one thing I noticed that might stray a little bit from the book. Tyrion is introduced in a brothel in Kings Landing, enjoying the services of one of the girls. But in the book, when he first meets Shae, he tells the reader that it has been over a year since he's had sex. Is this something that differs slightly from the book, or did that much time really pass between him leaving Kings Landing and meeting Shae?
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I'd like to see Robert's Rebellion acted out with finger puppets to the tune of "It's a Small World After All."

If the producers don't have the courage to take such a progressive artistic approach, then I'd go with the map flyover. ;)
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What kind of music will it be set to I wonder?
A strange, empowering beat using brass and drums, like Rome.
A slow, soft melody with wood wind punctuated by that screeching sound, like I, Claudius
Perhaps some sort of classical bit?

I dunno, it's hard to figure out what music would be good with it.
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The opening credits are reminiscent of [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-wVey-zGk"]the credits sequence for "Angels in America,"[/url] so I keep hearing the lovely music from that 2-part HBO movie running through my head whenever I think about it.
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In regards to the opening and closing music I could totally picture a post-rock type sound like something off Westworld by Valley of the Giants.

I think the introduction has to have more impact than a flyby over a map. I imagine something highly stylized and dark (color and tone).
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  • 2 weeks later...
I would like to hear a [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYVTr1u3EYc"]Conan the Barbarian[/url] type score for the opening. It's a great soundtack.
Brude is right in that the Angels in America opening sounds a lot like the script report describes. That would be cool as well.
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[quote name='dizzy' post='1648718' date='Jan 14 2009, 11.52']I would like to hear a [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYVTr1u3EYc"]Conan the Barbarian[/url] type score for the opening. It's a great soundtack.
Brude is right in that the Angels in America opening sounds a lot like the script report describes. That would be cool as well.[/quote]


Its too bad that Basil Poledouris passed away. He could have really captured the flavor of Westeros, just as he did for the Hiborian Age. But there are other very capable composers out there. I'm sure D&D will find one that will do it justice.

Maybe Harry Gregson-Williams would have time and he is composing for Wolverine, David might be able to contact him more easily than some others.
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Ever since hearing the [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-wVey-zGk"]Angels in America[/url] opening sequence Brude mentioned, I keep going back to it, and trying to fit in the opening sequence as described in (the description of) the [url="http://winter-is-coming.blogspot.com/2008/12/winter-is-comings-exclusive-pilot.html"]leaked script[/url].

Warning for wall of text. :)

[b]Theme[/b]

First off the general theme, which is to show the layout of Westeros and it's houses. The most logical way to do this is to hop between a real bird eye castle flyover and the abstract Westeros geography as depicted on an old travel map.

[b]House selection[/b]

The script says the opening starts from Castle Black and ends on the Iron Throne, and depicts the castles of the mayor Houses in between. As these are set, we only need to create a route between them as the crow flies.

Listening to the sound track, I divided the sequence between scenes of castles and scenes of the flyover over the map, each roughly 10 seconds in length. I wanted to make the time needed to traverse a piece of land to roughly correspond to how long the flyover takes, in order to get a good spatial and temporal correspondence.

The best fit I could make was to include five castles, including the starting and finishing locations (Castle Black and the Red Keep respectively). It was easy to name three of the houses to include at the very least, Stark, Lannister and Baratheon.

Baratheon has the problem that their ancestral castle (Storm's End) is not really mentioned all that much, because they also have Dragonstone in their possession, as well as King's Landing at the start of the series. In the end I put Baratheon on King's Landing, because it's the easiest fit and allows us to include more houses.

This leaves only one spot open, which was harder to pick. Some houses where dismissed quite early because the are either too far away and not yet that relevant in the first season (Tyrell, Martell), or without a castle to show (Targaryen).
This leaves Greyjoy (Pike), Tully (Riverrun) and Arryn (The Eyrie). First off this list is Greyjoy, because they don't get a lot of screen time in the beginning of the series.

This leaves Tully or Arryn. Both are about of equal importance at the start, but Tully is more of an upstart in that they grew powerful only quite recently by marrying off daughters into houses Stark and Arryn.
Though there are enough arguments for both sides, I chose Arryn, as their House is more involved in the main plot of the first Book, even though it's not visited a lot (but the same can be said about Casterly Rock).

[b]Route[/b]

With the castles chosen, it was quite easy to choose a path between them, from Castle Black down to Winterfell, south east to the Eyrie, south west to Casterly Rock, and finally west to the Red Keep to finish on the Iron Throne.

Two of these paths between Castles are longer than the others, so I gave them roughly double the time (~20s) to traverse. To interrupt these longer runs, the icons of the Twins and Riverrun are flown over in map form (the Twins between Winterfell and the Eyrie, Riverrun between the Eyrie and Casterly Rock).
The icons used are simple glyphs, not the full heraldry as to not distract too much (twin tower bridge and leaping fish respectively).

[b]Visuals[/b]

I decided not to show any of the official heraldry, but keep all the scenes clean. Instead the environment is used to evoke the correct association to the primary house colour, as well as hint at some of the characteristics of the Houses.

[list]
[*]We start of in dead of night at Castle black, with flickering torches and howling winds and vast stretches of [i]black[/i]ness, evoking a in-the-middle-of-nowhere frontier feel.
[*]When we arrive at Winterfell it's a gloomy snow covered winter morning, signifying [i]white and grey[/i] as well as calm and tranquility.
[*]The Eyrie is visited at full noon, with an icy cold clear [i]sky blue[/i] mountain sky, looking lonely and austere.
[*]We approach Casterly Rock from over the coast at a deep [i]golden red[/i] sundown, showing both rich contentment as well aspirations to grandeur.
[*]Finally when We reach King's landing it is a hazy warm a bit past sunrise, with a bright yellow sun bathing the enormous city in [i]yellow[/i]ish light. A cross between London and Rome, the city seems a bustling center of power.
[*]We center on the gigantic Red Keep atop Aegon's Hill, and enter the Great hall through one of the windows.
[*]Here the Iron Throne sit alone, with dusty beams of light displaying a myriad of colours around it from colourful stained glass windows.
[/list]

[b]Details[/b]

The raven is only shown at two castles, being released at Castle Black, and settling on the backrest of the empty Iron Throne in the Red Keep.

It might be interesting to include some reference to dragons in King's Landing or the Red Keep, for instance passing over the abandoned Dragon Pit domed castle, or making the stained glass om the Great Hall depict a dragon.

Going from north to south the population density increases, as well as the percieved climate. The map flyover parts are accented by sound effects like waves crashing on the shore, sounds of both rural and urban activities.
King's Landing has the longest exposure, as this is what it's all about, a Game of Thrones.

[b]Audio Timing[/b]

I used the opening sequence on the Angels in America Soundtrack, which pretty much corresponds to [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-wVey-zGk"]this youtube version[/url] of "Music Angels in America - Thomas Newman", which has 5 seconds extra at the start and some weather sound effects added.

[code]Start (YouTube) Location Environment Color Duration

0:00 0:05 Castle Black Night time Black 10s
0:10 0:15 Map Blizzards, Snow 10s
0:20 0:25 Winterfell Gloomy Morning Grey 12s
0:32 0:37 Map Forests, Coast 10s
0:42 0:47 The Twins Tower Bridge Glyph 0s
0:42 0:47 Map Mountains, Vales 8s
0:50 0:55 The Eyrie Cold Clear Noon Blue 10s
1:00 1:05 Map Riverlands 10s
1:10 1:15 Riverrun Fish Glyph 0s
1:10 1:15 Map Hilly lands 8s
1:18 1:23 Casterly Rock Warm Sunset Red 12s
1:30 1:35 Map Farmlands 10s
1:40 1:45 King's Landing Hazy Sunrise Yellow 10s
1:55 1:60 Red Keep Sprawling cityscape 15s
2:05 2:10 Iron Throne Dusty Sunbeam Steel 13s[/code]
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The script only mentions a few points of interest being resolved from the map into an image of the actual place:

The bird starts at Castle Black, and then it goes to the map, we then see Winterfell, The Eyrie and then finally King's Landing. I suppose they could add Riverrun and maybe The Twins if there is time or if it makes sense, but most features will simply be points on the map that the bird is flying over. Also, I think the intro won't be quite as long as Angels in America's opening - that was a mini-series with only 2 episodes, for a weekly TV show they will want to keep it shorter, I think.
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We have yet to see Casterly Rock yet, so I think I'd prefer if they kept that as something to reveal within the context of the show(if it appears in a later book) rather than have in the credits when we may never see it in the series itself.
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Yeah this was more fitting script to the song, disregarding the length. It's probably better not to show any castles that aren't visited for a long time in the books either.

I guess my interpretation was more aimed at the book readers than the actual tv series watchers. :)
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Sparg that was a great job, but I've one disagreement with you regarding the castles. Casterly Rock is too far to the west and I think the logical choice is to remove it totally : 1. Castle black 2. Winterfell 3. The Twins 4. The Eyrie 5. King's Landing.

In the series we never read anything about the western realm and I think it's better to keep a mystery.
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[quote name='NoSpeakEnglish' post='1653202' date='Jan 18 2009, 21.28']Sparg that was a great job, but I've one disagreement with you regarding the castles. Casterly Rock is too far to the west and I think the logical choice is to remove it totally : 1. Castle black 2. Winterfell 3. The Twins 4. The Eyrie 5. King's Landing.

In the series we never read anything about the western realm and I think it's better to keep a mystery.[/quote]

Yeah you're right. But it's kind of unfair, the Starks get all the glory, and the Lannisters don't even get a flyover. Part of me just wants to see how badass Casterly Rock looks. Perhaps in a future book it'll get some love. (invasion from the west?).

You could pull in Riverrun, and swap out the longer stretch with Harrenhal as a glyph. Or go the other way around and try to include Dragonstone somehow. Or Pike.

I should probably stop now. :)
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