'Game of Thrones' season 7 behind-the-scenes: Building the massive Silence ship

A new behind-the-scenes video of “Game of Thrones” season 7 has been released online, showing how the production team built the massive ship The Silence. The ship was used in the naval battle against the Greyjoy fleet and is the flagship of Euron (Pilou Asbæk).

In the video, (see below) production designer Deborah Riley said The Silence was so big they didn’t have the budget to build it for the show. Instead, they decided to “be clever” about it, only building the front portion of the ship then use computer graphics for the rest of it.

In the naval battle against the Greyjoys, it is this front portion of The Silence that crashes into Yara’s (Gemma Whelan) ship. The design team built a naval ram at the head of the ship, and added the kraken to give it a menacing look.

The scene was filmed on land with 60 feet green screens around the set. To make sure the scene looked believable, they added a big splash of water at the time the two ships collide, giving it the illusion of being in the ocean.

The special effects team had a lot of challenges to sell the scene to the audience. They had to show the ship burning. There were flames, flares and guns specially built to give the atmosphere a fiery look.

HBO is yet to announce the production dates for “Game of Thrones” season 8. Fans may have to wait a long time to see the conclusion of the popular show. The series is expected to return in 2019.

Credit: GameofThrones/ YouTube