Game of Thrones: The Watchers On The Wall, Biggest Battle Of The Series Yet.

HBO's Game of Thrones is set to air episode ten of it's fourth season, which only means that we are that much closer to the season finale, and the show wants to go out with a bang. Episode nine, titled, 'The Watchers of the Wall' will be entirely focused on the Battle of Castle Black, and showrunners David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss,  are describing it as the biggest battle yet.

Entertainment Weekly just released an an article consisting of a two-part interview to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (the answers/questions consist of "two interviews conducted last week via e-mail where the producers replied with joint statements, and the second by phone shortly after episode 9, 'The Watchers on The Wall' finished filming" .

EW: So for episode 9, what's uniquely challenging about this battle compared to the previous ones you've staged?

Benioff: Well it's at The Wall. Which is tricky. Because there is no wall.

It's a very intense episode, more intense than Blackwater. We're seeing it now, even before visual effects have gone in, and it's still magnificent.

Weiss: ...With this, even Neil's first director's cut that we saw without a single frame of visual effects finished, just something about it really grabbed us by the neck that's very rare even with the great directors we're fortunate to work with. 

Benioff: In terms of the sets, our new production designer Deborah Riley did this magnificent top-of-The Wall set, far bigger than what we had before, so you can do walk-and-talks, you can have massive action sequences. It's completely surrounded by green screen, which is apperantly the biggest green screen in Europe.

EW: What was the biggest challenge to shooting the episode?

Benioff: I wouldn't say it's wall-to-wall action -- because it doens't start right away -- but once it gets going about 15 minutes into the episode it doesn't stop. And we're still on a TV budget.

EW: [Last Sunday's episode was] your first arena fight, a trope of the genre from Gladiator to Spartacus. Was there a sense of challenge to make this scene stand out vs the ones we've seen in the past?

Benioff & Weiss: Yes, we've had a few other trials-by-combat, but this is the first time it's been in a proper arena setting. A lot of what sets this apart is the specific situation that led to it, one that ties the fates of the fighters and spectators together so inextricably...
...The real trick was finding actors capable of embodying these characters in physical performance. We got very lucky on that score -- Pedro [Pascal] and Hafthor [Bjornsson] are both gifted fighters, and they both worked their asses off.