Hot cinematographer Wagner makes movie-like TV
The cinematic eye at Game of Thrones will discuss it at Banff Story Summit
It’s probably not the first time Fabian Wagner has heard the compliment.
But he is nevertheless gracious when giddily told that the elaborate battle scene he helped orchestrate for Game of Thrones last year was like nothing this writer had ever seen before on television. The German-born cinematographer is on the line talking about what has become one of the most famous sequences on the HBO violent fantasy juggernaut.
Game of Thrones is chock full of famous sequences, of course, but the epic battle scene in Battle of the Bastards last year seemed to elevate the series to even higher levels of movie-like quality and scope. The gory battle, which pitted the armies of dashing bastard Jon Snow against those of dastardly bastard Ramsay Bolton, was terrifying, visceral, technically stunning and, quite possibly, without precedent on television.
Wagner acknowledges this was pretty much the intent. But it’s apparently still nice to hear.
“It’s great because it has been compared to a lot of amazing battle scenes from movies,” he says. “It’s great that it stands up with those. We always set out to do something that is very cinematic and as big as it can be for TV. Even though Game of Thrones is the biggest TV show in the world, it’s still a TV show. So you don’t have endless resources and you don’t have an endless amount of time. So you have to be very careful and very thoughtful and about how you’re shooting and what you’re shooting. I guess that’s what I’m really proud of, when people say it stands up to some very big movies I used to watch as a teenager.”
It will no doubt be a major topic of conversation on Friday, when Wagner joins camera operator Sean Savage for Game of Thrones — The Creative Collaboration, a keynote panel at this year’s Story Summit at the Banff Centre. The summit is a gathering of media and film and TV creators and workers from around the globe. Directing the photography and camerawork on GoT, the BBC series Sherlock and the upcoming superhero flick Justice League has made Wagner one of the most in-demand cinematographers in the industry and a high-profile guest for the event.
Battle of the Bastards was not the first collaboration between Wagner and director Miguel Sapochnik on Game of Thrones. Wagner earned an Emmy nomination for cinematography for his work on the 2015 Sapochnik-directed episode Hardhome, which included another epic and exhilarating battle scene involving Jon Snow, an approaching army of reanimated corpses and hundreds of fleeing wildings.
So the two had fairly daunting expectations of their own making to exceed when it came to the Battle of the Bastards.
“Miguel and I were talking a lot about how we could make this battle scene different to other battle scenes,” Wagner says. “We didn’t want to shoot just a straightforward battle. So we came up with his idea of focusing everything on Jon Snow and putting us with him into the middle of this battle. I think that’s what a lot of people talk to me about. How did that idea come about? Why did you approach it that way?”
Wagner said he re-watched famous battles scenes in films, including Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart. This was not to get specific ideas but to ensure the Game of Thrones sequence would be fully original.
It was shot in a suburban field not far from Belfast. A breakdown of numbers in Entertainment Weekly before the episode ran in mid-June, reported that the sequence took 25 days, required 500 extras, 70 horses, 25 stunt men and women, 600 crew members and four cameras, including the one operated by Wagner. The production was further complicated by temperamental weather and the timing limitations that come with using only natural light since Wagner does not like lighting exterior shots. He estimates that they had roughly 70 hours of footage to deliver to editors.
So, essentially, what the sequence required most was planning and lots of it, Wagner says.
“Miguel and I have got quite a shorthand so we knew what was important to us,” he says. “We sat down and made a short list. We knew what we had to get. I sat down in the evenings going through the next day and figuring out what each camera was going to do at what point, just so I could tell the camera crews and grips and everyone some sort of plan for the day. Literally every minute counted. We couldn’t afford to waste half an hour talking about what we’re doing next. Everybody knew exactly what we were doing at one point. I guess planning is the key, really.”
Wagner was recruited to the Game of Thrones team in 2014 after impressing producers with his work on Sherlock, which netted him his first Emmy nomination in 2012. If working on the world’s biggest television show wasn’t daunting enough, he has wrapped work on Zack Snyder’s superhero movie Justice League with Ben Affleck, Amy Adams and Henry Cavill.
“I still want to do TV, but I also want to do more film and that’s how that came about,” Wagner says. “I’m not necessarily looking to do giant movies like Justice League. I mean Justice League was an amazing experience and incredible to work on and Zack Snyder is incredibly visual and a lovely person.
“So it was great to do and I’d love to do another once of those if they ask me. But I’d also like to do something that is the complete opposite: Small, has no visual affects and is just about actors and locations.”