I was told, very much on the Q.T., that ["The Rains of Castamere"] was the one that the writers and creators of the show had been looking forward to from the get-go. The stakes were incredibly high, and the Red Wedding had to be nailed. I had worked on some massive movies, like The Golden Compass, nothing quite prepared me for the dedication or the commitment to excellence that everybody on the Game of Thrones crew has, or how massive and well-designed and beautifully art-directed the sets are. Fortunately, the Red Wedding was the last scene we were going to shoot before we headed to Morocco to do the Season 3 finale. It gave me a lot of time to chew on it. We had the sets to look at. They brought the actors in well ahead of time to rehearse, so I knew the blocking.

This show is dark at the best of times, and there’s always a sense that you don’t know what’s lurking in those shadows. I really wanted, as subtly as I could, to lead the audience astray about where the Red Wedding was going. I wanted everybody to think they were going to get the happy ending they were so desperate to get.

That [sequence] really consists of three chunks. Robb returns to the Twins, cap in hands, and has to apologize to Walder Frey and his daughters. I lit that scene as grimly and gloomily as the last time we saw the Twins—in Season Two, when Cat Stark is begging for help, and promises Robb will marry one of those daughters. I wanted the audience to feel, visually, that things could go either way there.

Later, we cut to the actual wedding ceremony, and introduced some candlelight. I warmed the overall light up a bit. It’s still a bit moody, but the tone is light, and you feel like maybe things could turn out okay. There are a few smiles being exchanged back and forth. And what I did with the banquet hall… I talked to the art department, and it took a little convincing, but I got them to overload the hall with three or four times as many candlesticks and candelabras and torches as we would normally have. What I wanted, basically, was the Game of Thrones equivalent of a Disney movie. The closest Game of Thrones would ever get to that. Very festive, and happy music playing, and no shadows where anything bad could be lurking—so everybody would think this would turn out great for Robb Stark.

At the same time, we didn’t want to be too gay and festive when the bad stuff starts to happen. I talked to the director and the two writers and convinced them to have all the extras pick up as many of those candlesticks as they possibly could and march out when they took the bride and groom to the bedding ceremony. That way, I could organically remove the light from the room without theatrically reducing it or making it moody for no reason. I didn’t want the audience to see us doing it, and show our hand.

I think the rest speaks for itself. Nobody saw it coming. Obviously, the cinematography wasn’t the only reason. It was incredibly, deftly crafted by David Nutter, and really well-written, and the acting didn’t give anything away. But subconsciously, I think we really nailed it with the photography. All those videos of people’s reactions… [laughs]

Gendry rows away (S3, E10: "Mhysa")

I thought I was going to get fired after I shot that scene, because we were supposed to do that very late in the day in a protected cove—with big cliffs on the sides, so I could control the light. It was supposed to be three or four o’clock in the morning. And then they threw a curve. The water in the cove was too rough, and the boat would have capsized, so we had to do it in another bay at one o’clock in the afternoon. Here I am, under the sun, shooting this scene that’s supposed to take place in the middle of the night. We had to go very old-school in how we lit and photographed it—and with a tiny bit of help from the visual effects department, it looked pretty great.