As it has done many times now, Game of Thrones once again had us on the edge of our seats with a glorious climactic battle laced with Dragon-fire in its latest Season 7 episode The Spoils Of War. Now, HBO has released a new video that impressively details what went into filming that sequence.

With much of the show’s fights involving VFX, especially all Dragon sequences, one could be hard pressed into thinking that almost all of the battle was handled using CGI. As if to clear that point up, the lengthy 13 minute video goes behind the scenes and shows us real stuntmen at play in shooting the sequence. This is the same sequence, set reports of which had leaked last year that involved up to 500 extras during filming, more than for any sequence of such scale and scope ever aired in the show’s history. The crew also explains how they made use of Spider-cams and Flight Cam systems (as opposed to drones) to film long drawn out camera swoops to give some sense of Drogon’s viewpoints. Spider-Cams were also deployed during the shooting of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movie in filming Spidey’s flight sequences so that really tells us how far TV production has come in the last decade or so.

The episode also set some records in terms of the number of stuntmen set on fire. As many as 20 stuntmen were set ablaze in a single shot with around 73 in the entirety of the episode being burned to showcase Drogon’s wrath. Of course safety measures were taken care of with meticulous planning to ensure the stuntmen left the sets unscathed.

Check out the video above and let us know what you think of the behind the scenes wizardry that went on into making the battle. We’re currently at work on our Game of Thrones review which is taking a bit longer than expected (an amazing episode needs a review that does justice to it after all) although should be up in the next few hours. Stay Tuned.