George R.R. Martin discusses the challenges of writing screenplays on a budget based on a novel he originally wrote to be too big for television:
Which episode of Game of Thrones are you writing next season?
The Battle of the Blackwater, God help me. David and Dan must hate me.
That’s the one where you have to be most conscious of budgetary decisions.
It’s very tough because we don’t have the budget to do the battle in the book. We just don’t.
Well, they have to be able to show the ships and what happens to them, right?
I hope so. We’ll see. I’m writing it. I’m cutting certain things. We’ll see once I turn it in if we can do it. When you look HBO’s Rome–
Loved Rome.
I loved it too, but what about the battles?
We see Caesar leave the tent to go to war, then he comes back and falls asleep.
Caesar leaves the tent. Pompey leaves the tent. Then we see Pompey’s banner in the mud. And Caesar comes back to the tent. The next episode, Pompey describes the battle to Pullo and Vorenus drawing it in the dirt with a stick to explain what happened. For the Battle of Actium, they open with Mark Anthony floating on a piece of wood — and Rome had a bigger budget than we do. I’ve been trying to tell the fans that. On some level they’re expecting the Battle of Pelennor Fields [from Peter Jackson's The Return of the King].
Fans don’t distinguish as much between mediums now.
They don’t. And television has set that up by being increasingly good. Back in the 1960s or ’70s, you could tell TV show from a movie in three frames just way it was shot and lit. But you can’t these days.