Game of Thrones used very little CGI to film the iconic Battle of Bastards - Kit Harrington actually had to face 40 galloping horses

HBO's hit fantasy drama adaptation Game of Thrones aired more than a decade back and after a successful run of 8 seasons and 73 episodes, came to a rather controversial conclusion.

The David Benioff-D.B. Weiss show has some of the highest-rated episodes in TV history and the iconic Battle of Bastards is yet another example of creative genius.

As sources confirmed over the years, the brutal battle sequences were mostly shot in "live action," and very little CGI and visual effects were used to give it an authentic touch. The mind-bending clash between Ramsay Bolton and Jon Snow's armies was so perfectly portrayed by the creative team that Game of Thrones ended up bagging an Emmy Award for the first time in Season 6.

According to Glenn Melenhorst's (Game of Thrones' Visual Effects Supervisor) statement in 2016:

"The sequence was all in the preplanning, necessarily so as there were so many stunts and horses charging about on set."

Moreover, the famous shot where we see Kit Harrington's Jon Snow standing all alone with a sword in his hand and facing the Bolton troops was actually filmed in live-action.

Keep reading to learn more about the BTS moments of this brutal Game of Thrones sequence.

How did Game of Thrones' iconic Battle of Bastards seuqnece come to life? Details revisited

According to reports, it took a lot of crew members and stuntmen to successfully film Game of Thrones' infamous Battle of Bastards episode. Though CGI was used to produce the perfect shots, live action sequences and their simulation reportedly played a major role in the same.

As mentioned by VFX supervisor Melenhorst in a 2016 interview, they used "live elements and green screen bits and pieces," but the focus was always on live-action. To quote his exact words:

"We used live elements and green screen bits and pieces as often as we could. My mantra has always been to use live action as often as possible. Nothing beats reality."

As sources revealed, a software known as Massive was used by the visual effects providing team (from Melbourne) named Iloura. The whole process of bringing the episode to life took eight months and 120 crew members were employed. 70 real horses were present on set and the aforementioned software helped in simulating huge crowds from which 3 separate armies were created.

According to Melenhorst's statement:

"Everything was hard, particularly as we had to generate totally photo-real humans and horses acting in close-up as well as simulate and animate thousand-strong armies in wide shots."

Moreover, the famous scene where Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) stands all by himself facing 40 galloping horses was kept as real as possible by balancing live-action with CGI simulation. We see Jon Snow drawing his sword out of the sheath and it was something that was initially not planned.

There was reportedly a lot of mud on set, which slowed down the horses approaching Kit Harrington and to adapt to the delay, the creative team made the changes later. Harrington actually faced the troops and after it seemed a bit risky for the star, the VFX team decided to use a CG figure and a digitally composed head of Kit Harrington for filming the subsequent fight scenes.

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