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  ===Filming===
  "Beyond the Wall" was directed by Alan Taylor. This was Taylor's seventh episode as a director for the series, but it was his first episode since the second season, where he directed that season's finale episode, "Valar Morghulis". He was also a director for two episodes in the first season, "Baelor" and "Fire and Blood", as well as four other episodes in the second season. Since his hiatus from the series, Taylor was a director for several big budget Hollywood films, including ''Thor: The Dark World'' and ''Terminator Genisys''. In an interview with ''Entertainment Weekly'', Taylor spoke about the differences between his earlier stint with the series, and his return for the show's seventh season, saying he was previously told to avoid using green screen, and thus special effects, due to the budgetary constraints that the series had in its earlier seasons. However, with "Beyond the Wall", he was able to fully utilize visual effects to create the large environment, dragons and armies due to the increased budget. He also described the experience as "going full circle," having witnessed the evolution of characters such as Sophie Turner as Sansa and Maisie Williams as Arya Stark, who he directed when they were children, and that they have since grown up.
  Alan Taylor returned to the series after a hiatus, last directing "Valar Morghulis" in the series' second season.
  Many of the scenes leading up to the battle with the White Walker army were filmed in Iceland, but the majority of the episode's battle sequence was filmed in a quarry in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Taylor had expected to film the sequence entirely in Iceland, but quickly realized that it was not feasible due to the amount of production that was required. In filming the wight polar bear attack, Taylor noted that the bear was designed by the New Zealand-based Weta Digital, which previously worked on ''The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy. Richard Dormer, who portrays Beric Dondarrion, described filming the scene in a separate interview, saying "It was very cold, wet and physical. Hot as well, running around imagining a 12-foot flaming polar bear. It’s pretty weird, but it was fun." Dormer also noted the difficulty of filming a flaming sword, revealing that the sword could only burn for two minutes at a time, and could not be swung too quickly, requiring Dormer to slow down his movement. He also said that the sword he was using weighed approximately three times more than a normal sword. Though the actors were dressed warmly for the scenes beyond the Wall, their suits contained a "tube system through which cold water can be circulated between shots using a portable pump to keep them from getting overheated," due to the actual warmth of filming on a fake set in Northern Ireland. This was also essential due to the possibility of Rory McCann's, who portrays Sandor "The Hound" Clegane, prosthetic makeup melting off his face.
  In another interview with ''The Hollywood Reporter'', Taylor also spoke about the process of interacting with the lake and water, saying "every moment of interaction with water had to be a multiple stage process where we filmed the action on our 360 degree set and landscape, and then restage it against green screen with elements we shot in a dunk tank rig, and all of those elements get married together to form something as simple as a guy falling into the ice and plopping into the water." Four to five different shots were needed in order to accomplish this portion of the battle. Taylor described working with Vladimir Furdik, who portrays the Night King, noting that Furdik is completely covered in prosthetics, and saying "He's just delightful. There's nothing he can't do. He's a full-on actor in that role, aside from being able to do all of the action and all of the horse work. He has a beautiful face — although you lose some of that behind the Night King prosthetics." Taylor revealed that he had worked with Furdik previously, as Furdik was also a stunt performer on ''Thor: The Dark World''.
  To film the death of the dragon, Viserion, Taylor said that he "provided the shots where we knew the dragon was going to be impaled and crash," for special effects supervisor Joe Bauer to use later. But Taylor also filmed reaction shots "all along the way" while the dragon fell to its death, utilizing a tennis ball on a stick in order for the actors to understand where the dragon was in the scene, as well as a "pre-viz" and storyboards for them to understand what the final product would look like. Taylor praised Emilia Clarke's performance as Daenerys Targaryen in the scene, and he was also grateful that he was chosen to direct the dragon's death, due to his self-proclaimed past with directing pivotal death scenes in several series, including the death of Ned Stark in season one, as well as major deaths in ''Rome'', ''Deadwood'' and ''The Sopranos''.
  Taylor also spoke about the amount of time that was intended to pass between the approach of the White Walker army, and Daenerys's arrival, saying that they were being intentionally vague, "We did a few things, like getting deliberately hazy about how much time is passing, because it's so dark in the frozen lake and you don't know how many days or nights you may have witnessed. We tried to make it a little ambiguous and give it some wiggle room on that end. We were aware that we were asking for people's suspended disbelief — plausible impossibilities is what you're aiming for."