Behind the shot: House of the Dragon

Combining dragon combat, naval warfare and VFX on an unprecedented scale, the Battle of the Gullet is House of the Dragon’s most ambitious undertaking yet. Lead cinematographer PJ Dillon, ASC, ISC breaks down an epic sequence

Words Nicola Foley

HBO’s House of the Dragon opened its third season with the Battle of the Gullet: one of the grandest and most technically demanding sequences ever attempted in an already colossal franchise. A key pillar in Game of Thrones lore, the battle is described in George RR Martin’s Fire and Blood as the bloodiest sea battle in Westerosi history, beginning with an attack on the Velaryon blockade by Sharako Lohar’s Triarchy fleet, escalating into a sprawling confrontation where warships collide with dragon fire, and ending in a devastating death toll.

“It’s pivotal because of the scale  of the consequences,” begins lead cinematographer PJ Dillon, ASC, ISC (Wednesday, Game of Thrones). “The world suddenly feels much larger, but more fragile. You realise the machinery of war has grown beyond the control of any one individual, and that sense of inevitability drives the entire sequence.”

In a franchise that has never shied away from ambitious spectacle, this battle – combining ships on hydraulic gimbals, stunts, water, fire, visual effects and dense plot – was a whole new challenge for the creative team, but they were determined to prove they could still wow their audience.

“Scale alone isn’t enough. If the audience loses the story, the sequence simply becomes noise,” asserts Dillon. “So our approach was always about clarity. We wanted the audience to understand the geography of the battle, feel the escalation and stay emotionally connected to the characters throughout. Our job was to give chaos a shape.”

Grounded in that philosophy, the focus became about kindling an emotion, as opposed to just chronicling the events as they unfolded. The English romantic painter JMW Turner – known for his turbulent maritime watercolours – was a key reference point, says Dillon.

“In works like The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory, what appealed to us wasn’t simply the spectacle but the feeling of being inside it; bodies, rigging, smoke, sails and wreckage all layered together. We weren’t trying to recreate those paintings,” he shares, “but to capture that same sense of elemental violence and human vulnerability.”

The sequence was photographed on an ARRI ALEXA 35 and DJI Ronin 4D, paired with ARRI ALFA and Blazar Remus anamorphics. These lenses’ distinctive bokeh was embraced, with an emphasis on atmosphere over clarity, says Dillon. Lighting, meanwhile, was built around natural elements – fire, smoke, fog, water, sky and shifting sunlight – “so everything felt motivated by the world rather than imposed upon it.”

He and director Loni Peristere wanted audiences to experience the passing of a single day as the battle unfolded, moving from cool morning light through warmer tones and culminating in a fiery sunset as the battle reaches its conclusion. That required a lot of infrastructure, including a rig of nine 24-light Dinos for warm sunlight, 18K ArriMax units for hard light and a rig of 30 Vortex8 fixtures providing broad, soft illumination across the ships’ decks. Natural light was controlled using 20×20 fly swatters, 40×40 overhead silks suspended from construction cranes and a wire system that allowed black silks to be flown over sections of the decks as conditions changed.

“We decided very early in prep that there would be no lighting fixtures on the decks themselves. That was partly practical, but it was also an aesthetic decision,” says Dillon. “We didn’t want the lighting to feel overly polished or sculpted, we wanted the images to have a sense of rawness, as though grabbed in the middle of the action.”

The approach to movement was to let the story guide the way. They considered capturing the warring ships handheld, but instead opted to mount on hydraulic gimbals. “We felt adding excessive handheld movement risked becoming distracting,” he explains. Plus, “the visual language of House of the Dragon is also relatively formal, so we wanted to preserve some of that control even within the chaos.”

After testing on a boat at sea, they settled on Libra stabilised heads mounted on cranes outside the hulls, and Ronin 4D cameras operating on deck. “The Ronins allowed us to retain the immediacy of handheld work while keeping the horizon stable, which was especially important in selling the ships’ movements within a largely blue screen environment.” For water-heavy sequences, they relied primarily on handheld ALEXA 35s in splash housings.

“Loni insisted there should be no impossible shots,” he adds. “Every move had to feel like something that could genuinely have been achieved photographing boats at sea, which kept the audience grounded in the action.”

Shooting the one-day battle took five months – with photography taking place over 27 shooting days in ‘virtually every weather condition imaginable’ – making continuity a big task. They were also contending with moving gimbals, practical fire, water crashing on decks, smoke and large-scale stunts, which all had to work together seamlessly.

Another factor was the visual effects. “Much of the work involved making sure the practical photography and digital elements shared the same physical logic – the same direction of light, atmosphere and behaviour,” explains Dillon. “Loni is a former VFX supervisor, so his understanding of the process meant we were always pushing the ambition of what could be achieved. We were also fortunate to work with Dadi Einarsson, who was a fantastic creative partner.

“The most important thing was giving VFX something photographic to hold onto: smoke, interactive light, atmosphere, practical fire, water, focus choices and real camera movement,” he adds. “Those elements anchor an image, even when a great deal of it is ultimately created digitally. That didn’t make their lives any easier but they embraced it and made spectacular work. The best VFX are the ones you don’t think about.”

Looking back, “I’m proud that we managed to make something this ambitious feel cohesive. It only works because so many departments are operating at an incredibly high level. The cinematography sits at the centre of those contributions and tries to bind them together into a single experience.

“If audiences remember how the battle made them feel rather than how it was achieved, then I think we’ve done our job,” Dillon concludes.

This article appears in the August/September 2026 issue of Definition