Belfast Moot 2 - Oct 2010

Well I've had this blog for about a year now and it's sat empty.  So what better way to put it to use than to write up a small report on my Moot 2 experiences.

For those stumbling on this site and not knowing who I am or what the Moot is about here's a brief explanation...

I'm a fan of George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series that is currently being turned into an HBO tv series called Game of Thrones.  Last year GRRM arranged a Moot in Belfast where fans and cast could mingle and chat.  This year Moot 2 was arranged where even more fans and cast could mingle and chat!


Moot 2

Random memories of the night...

First off we were visited by the reporters who had toured the sets earlier that day.  They wanted to interview the fans regards the HBO production and the books.  Funniest thing was I'd just tweeted hours before about how shy I was and quite nervous about the Moot.  Turns out if you stick a reporter or two in front of me I can't shut up!  Hana the Swedish reporter was a fan herself and had been quite excited on set.  She said the lift at Castle Black was amazing.  Unfortunatley they couldn't use it as it would interupt the filming.  I can't even remember the questions they were asking but do remember thinking shut up Jackie! ;)

Later I had a chat to William Simpson (first cast/crew member to arrive) who is the storyboarder for the show and helped with the concept art during the Pilot.  He told us he has a little room all to himself in the Paint Hall but is often on set as it's the only time he can talk to the directors to go over details etc. He mentioned he'd done the concept art for Ice and was very happy with the finished result.


Something that may already be known by others but he also explained how the directors were rotated between Northern Ireland and Malta.  Brian Kirk shot all of his NI scenes and then moved out to Malta while the other director(s) moved in to shoot NI scenes.  Once Brian was done in Malta he returned to start his next block of shooting while those in NI moved out to Malta.

Bryan Cogman told us that there are lots of extra scenes we won't be expecting.  Some I heard about are:

• A scene between Varys and Littlefinger.  
• An additional scene between Jaime and Jory prior to their big scene, setting up the antagonism between them.
• An additional scene between Syrio and Arya that helps to show Arya's progression in training.  More Miltos yay! ;) 

 Something that's hard to convey in text is just how tall Kristian Nairn is, he's very tall and a lovely man with it.  He knew I was hoping for a photo and came to see me before he left so that I could get my picture taken with him. :)

Finn Jones is just hilarious, bubbly and giggly.  Was there a photo taken of him without a funny face? Thanks to Boulder1 for that ;)

Had to laugh at Patrick who abandoned myself, Silverjaime and SamanthaOfTarth when we swooned after meeting Kit Harrington ;) Thanks to Wyvernwood for taking some fantastic pics.

I love following @JohnBradleyWest on twitter, he's got a wicked sense of humour.  Great to meet him, I think someone eventually encouraged him to take his coat off!  Mark was great to chat to as well.  I think he was a bit stunned that people knew the part he played etc ;)  Pic of them both. Shame it was Luke McEwan's last weekend of filming :( he has a great scowl for Rast!

James Sives was charming and had also visited my home town and towns near by "Tayport on Tay, by the Tay, the Port on the Tay. Not to be confused with Newport on Tay" ;)  We had a fun argument as to here Ron Donachie was from since he was generalising it to Fundee (Dundee) and I was claiming he was a Fifer (it's a local thing but terribly important! ;).

Miltos is such a gent, he was the walking wounded as he'd just come back from training and had a dead leg.  He couldn't say enough of how good Maisie is and told the story of how Maisie had turned up for training on the first day having practiced left handed.  She corrected Buster when he tried to teach her right handed and pointed out that Arya is left handed and that it was important.

I can't think of any other stories, it's all a blur now.  I'll post more when I remember.  My over whelming impression was of a great, happy time.  It was fantastic to meet up with friends from last year and meet new friends (GetJoeOnTheShow, SilverJaime, SamanthaOfTarth anyone else I've forgotten!).  Thanks so much to George and Parris for helping to make it happen and to serMountainGoat, Silverjaime and Rimshot for getting it organised :)

For those wanting to see and hear more, I uploaded the raffle video (HD) to YouTube and more photos to Flickr.

Bring on next year! ;)