The production of House of the Dragon faced a major problem while filming in the streets of Cáceres: sets that were too clean!
When shooting on location, the biggest challenge for a production is not necessarily finding the perfect location, contrary to what you think, but adapting it to the needs of the production. This is a concern that the HBO team faced while filming the first season of House of the Dragon in Spain.
As with Game of Thrones, the production filmed part of the sets for this prequel in the Iberian Peninsula, highlighting cities such as Calahorra, Trujillo, Lloret de Mar or by far the favorite of Jim Clay, the production designer, Caceres.
The city of Extremadura, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was chosen as the setting in particular to represent the poor district of Port-Réal, called Culpucier. A place that represented a real challenge because it was too clean for production needs, according to the wall street journal.
No waste
To make matters worse, there was a restriction on the amount of fake dirt the production could spread on the walls and cobblestones of city streets. A restriction that made Jim Clay fear that rendering might “look a little Disneyfied and clean“. One of the first steps was to adapt the floor:
“Obviously we can’t change the masonry, but the authorities cooperated as much as they could and we were able to put flooring in all the streets. This is partly for aesthetics, and partly so horses can maneuver on wet cobblestones without slipping.“.
The team therefore worked with the relevant authorities to achieve the desired look so that this version of Cáceres would be closer to the universe of the Targaryens. The task was tricky because, according to Clay, no matter how many layers of dirt you put on, on camera it always looked a little cleaner than they intended.
While the production of season 2 of House of the Dragon is also currently filmed in Cáceres, Jim Clay and his team have a plan B to present Culpucier in all its glory: a setting with layers of mud and streets full of waste water!