The Vancouver Sun
BY ALEX STRACHAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS
Robert McLachlan well remembers the night he first saw Game of Thrones and thought to himself, “This is not the CW network.”
McLachlan was the director of photography for The Secret Circle at the time, a supernatural teen drama filmed in Vancouver and based on the books by The Vampire Diaries author L.J. Stine. He happened across Game of Thrones almost by accident.
“I thought, ‘Wow, here’s full frontal nudity, heads being chopped off and what have you.’ ” McLachlan was struck, too, by Game of Thrones’ gravitas – one of the few fantasy-genre series comparable to the likes of Mad Men and Breaking Bad – and its visual flair and vivid characterizations.
McLachlan had no way of knowing it then, but a year later he would be jumping on a plane to Belfast, Northern Ire-land, and then Morocco – to supervise the cinematography for Game of Thrones’ final two episodes of the coming season, for director David Nutter.
Game of Thrones is fresh off 11 Emmy nominations – the awards will be handed out Sept. 23 – and, though the new season won’t air on HBO until April 2013, the eye-filling epic is one of TV’s most talked-about cause célèbres.
McLachlan filmed a scene in Northern Ireland earlier this summer, a single day’s shooting under a veil of secrecy.
Game of Thrones is filmed under a veil of constant secrecy, so as not to spoil any surprises and to keep the fanboys at bay. McLachlan was floored by the sheer size and scale of its production values, from the massive, eye-filling standing sets to the exquisite detail and elegance of the costumes, props and set design.
In McLachlan’s 40-year career in Vancouver’s film and television industry, he had never seen anything like it. Along with HBO’s still-lamented Rome and soon-to-return Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones is the premium cable channel’s most lavish, expensive production.
The job was open, in part, because Game of Thrones rotates five separate cinematographers in and out of a 10-episode season. McLachlan’s good fortune was not only to have landed a gig on Game of Thrones, but to have landed the season’s final two episodes.
“The hell of it is that my episodes won’t air for almost a year,” McLachlan said.
Northern Ireland and Morocco are a long way from North Vancouver, where McLachlan grew up and first started working on medium and big-budget TV and film productions, many of them based at what is now Lionsgate Studios.
McLachlan’s list of credits reads like a recent history of Vancouver’s film-and-television production industry, beginning with The Beachcombers, The Commish, Strange Luck and all three seasons of Millennium – Chris Carter’s companion series to the X-Files.
More recently, he’s worked on Human Target and The Secret Circle.
Vancouver is firmly established as one of North America’s go-to production destinations, but the days when the city could call its own shots are long gone, McLachlan believes.
“A lot of the work that would normally be coming here is in Toronto right now,” he said, “and a lot is in Atlanta and Louisiana. We really need to get the tax deal worked out again.
As a lead cameraman, McLachlan has earned a reputation for working fast, while delivering a quality look. It’s high-pressure work, and stress is a constant. The trick, he said, is to not let it show.
McLachlan attributes much of his success to good timing and starting young. He was calling his own shots on low-budget TV and indie film productions by the time he was 20.
McLachlan landed the Game of Thrones gig in part because of his working relationship with director Nutter.
“There aren’t a lot of cameramen who can crank out good-looking TV at an episodic pace, but also work on really, really good movies where you have to put quality above everything else,” McLachlan said.
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