To celebrate the start of season 6 for Game of Thrones I attempt to build a miniature Ice Wall using styrofoam.

The most important tool was the hot wire foam cutter which gave me a lot of control when cutting into the huge block of styrofoam.

Light the wall from the bottom so you can create shadows on your wall.  That will help sell the scale.

The 8 foot piece of stryofoam was purchased at hardware store for $25.  Hot Wire cutter is by "Hot Wire Foam Factory" for $30.
Dungeon Corridor mirror was purchased on Amazon for $25.


You may notice some snow composited into these shots.  That is just dust particles I captured for a previous episode.  Thought the dust worked quite nicely with the miniatures to create realistic snow elements.

For the finale I wanted to make the wall fall, and that was achieved by projecting a video of a glacier calving onto my styrofoam Ice Wall.

I attempted using nail polish remover  to make the wall dissolve but just didn't cooperate the way I wanted it to.   

Many of the stills used in this episode were taken with the Lytro Ilum "Light Field" camera.  Which allows you to capture stills with depth map info.  So in post you decide what you want to be in focus and what you want to be out of focus.  For most of the images I kept everything in focus, but there are definitely some fun possibilities to explore with this camera.  
Lytro.com for more info.


Music by: Big Fok

In association with: PBS Digital Studios