content: 
  ===Filming===
  Miguel Sapochnik served as director for the episode, his fourth episode for the series.
  Cathedral of Saint Mary in Girona, Spain stood in for the exterior shots of the Great Sept, with special effects altering parts of the building.
  "The Winds of Winter" was directed by Miguel Sapochnik. He previously directed the fifth season episodes "The Gift" and "Hardhome", and the sixth season episode "Battle of the Bastards". In an interview, Sapochnik spoke about the scenes at the beginning of the episode, which mostly lacked any dialogue, saying "Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of smart and witty dialogue. This is something that ''Game of Thrones'' is probably quite famous for and rightly so, but I love non-verbal film making more than anything probably." He continued by drawing a comparison to the film ''Heat'' starring Robert DeNiro, noting "To me, this is truly wonderful filmmaking. And so any opportunity I can get to try my hand at that I welcome. From that perspective, I really hit the jackpot this year and I'm very grateful."
  In another interview, Sapochnik revealed that the wildfire explosion at the Sept of Baelor was originally going to only be seen from the outside, but after storyboarding the sequence with shots of the High Sparrow also being engulfed, Sapochnik was able to convince Benioff and Weiss to make the change for the sequence. Sapochnik also stated about the sequence, "The main chunk of the sequence was essentially a courtroom drama and then lots of little scenes surrounding it shot in many different sets and locations and even countries so it took a long time to get all the pieces into the editing system and start actually editing." He also said that the main goal of the scene was to "bring all these intersecting storylines surrounding King's Landing together and end them," and that the music in the scene played an important role in reflecting how the scenes played out on screen tonally, praising Ramin Djawadi's opening score. The Girona Cathedral in Girona, Spain stood in for the exterior shots of the Sept of Baelor.
  Dean-Charles Chapman, who portrayed King Tommen Baratheon, spoke about filming his death scene, saying "I was jumping onto a crash mat. Height-wise, I think if I was standing on the floor, it was up to my chest. But the crash mat was pretty thick. I must have done that about 50 times. My face was pretty bruised up. My face took it a little bit." Eugene Simon, who portrayed Lancel Lannister, also spoke about his death scene revealing about his discussions with Sapochnik, "the note was when Lancel was dragging his body, there was a sense of someone who is trying to put aside their pain of being stabbed and being paralyzed as much as possible in order to try to defend what little hope there is left of trying to save the sept and also to save their life. It really only comes down to the very last few nanoseconds of footage that you realize the cause is lost." Simon also stated about the filming of Jonathan Pryce's, who portrays the High Sparrow, final scene, "we had a very big nice round of applause when that took place. I remember that scene very well; we had 200 or so supporting actors in there, all of whom were so committed. They stayed there all day and did wonderful reactions to all the really intense bits. When the first part of the bomb goes off, all of them really, really performed that there was a full-on nuclear explosion going on underneath them." He continued, "We had a big round of applause and celebration after that scene was done because I think we all knew it was going to be pretty monumentous. We said goodbye to countless Tyrells, Kevan Lannister my father, the High Sparrow and dozens of other. It was a pretty extraordinary day." In regards to the non-verbal exchange between Jaime and Cersei Lannister when she is sitting on the Iron Throne, Sapochnik stated "I thought that non-verbal exchange was a very interesting moment but it wasn't clear from the script what exactly Benioff and Weiss wanted. So we just tried a few things, following our noses, drawing from what we knew about these characters and what you see was one of the versions we shot. Interestingly in the edit I still couldn't find a version I felt worked so I actually dropped the moment entirely out of my cut but David and Dan reinstated and to great effect. In fact, I can't really remember the sequence without it anymore. I think he's saying 'don't' and she's saying 'too late.'" He continued "The wonderful thing about filmmaking is you make and remake your film or episode a number of times over the duration of its existence. Firstly in the script stage, second is in prep when you plan how you're going to execute it. Third is in production when you actually get there and have to change everything and finally, in the edit, when you realize what you thought something meant means something totally different when put before or after another juxtaposing or complimentary image."
  In the same interview, Sapochnik was also asked about how he went about creating a sense of emotion in the 'King in the North' scene, saying "It wasn't hard. I think as fans we'd been waiting for it for so long. That said, it was a very difficult scene to shoot. Mainly because it was unusually hot over the two days we shot it, everyone was wearing heavy furs and armor, Kit was actually pretty ill and everyone was crammed into this space full of plates of sheep's tongues and chicken carcasses so it got quite smelly and sticky. It's also quite a long scene and yet Bella did it probably more than a hundred times, only forgetting a line once in the entire time. When we finished the scene she got a standing ovation from all the cast and crew."
  Sapochnik was asked in an interview what the most difficult shot was to direct, responding "The final sequence of seeing the armada on its way to Westeros was complicated because it involved so many different ships, and we only had one that we had to redress and shoot again and again. It was also raining and freezing when we shot it, and it was meant to be a Mediterranean climate. Emilia Clarke got so cold, her jaw started shaking uncontrollably and she totally lost her thread as far as what she was meant to be thinking in that moment, the cold will do that. She asked me to help, so I suggested that she just hum the theme to ''Game of Thrones'' in her head while we were rolling the cameras, and apparently that worked because it's the take we used in the final cut!"