The most people to be beheaded? No. The most people to be poisoned? Nope. The most people to freeze to death? Close, but no cigar. The most people to be killed by Bran? Wait, what?
The most people to be set on fire? BINGO!
After the amazing scene from the season finale last year, it seems like it would be hard to set more people on fire…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NdNbplEoZY
But according to Entertainment Weekly, the Game of Thrones crew has set the record most people set on fire:
“In one battle scene we set more stuntmen on fire than have ever been simultaneously set on fire,” showrunner David Benioff told EW. “Our stunt coordinator really wanted to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for this.”
Ah, okay, so the fire record is a little different here. While more characters may not be burned alive in season 7 than in seasons past, more stuntmen were set on fire than ever before. That’s still really freaking cool and even more impressive.
Guinness doesn’t record movie and TV production crews setting stuntmen on fire as an official record, a Guinness spokesperson told EW. However, that didn’t stop Game of Thrones stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam from practically claiming the record himself:
“One sequence has 73 fire burns and that itself is a record,” Irlam said. “No film or TV show has ever done that in a whole show, let alone in one sequence. We also set 20 people on fire at one time, which is also a record. I think in Saving Private Ryan they had 13 on a beach, and on Braveheart they had 18 partial burns. Because of the nature of our attacking animals, we had the liberty to expand on that.”
73… in one sequence. My god. The wildfire mass killing will look tiny compared to whatever scene that is.
Of course when dragons are involved (assuming those are the animals Irlam is referring to), anything is possible. Even burning 73 stuntmen at once.
It’s also even more impressive when considering how dangerous it is to burn a stuntman, and how much consideration and care goes into their health and safety.
“It’s totally different from going underwater in your bathtub and counting the seconds in your head… If somebody bumps you and you breathe in by accident you will breathe in flame,” Irlam said. “The most dangerous thing is re-ignition… There’s a good minute of everybody staying down afterward as you’re still very flammable at this point.”
EW reported that through all the record-setting that the burning stuntmen did, and how complicated the whole process was, only one stuntman burned a hand. That’s not bad considering how many people were set aflame at the same time.
“We try to think about what this would actually feel like to make it real for the viewers,” Irlam told EW. “We do different performances so hopefully you look through the fire and see a human being in the final throes of life. We try very hard to make it really feel like a casualty of war.”
Is it July 16th yet?
