VIDEO See the evolution of Game of Thrones effects from season one to five

Game of Thrones is a groundbreaking show for a lot of reasons but one major one is that it manages to take the production quality of a major movie and bring it to the small screen for 13 jaw dropping hours a season.

HBO has a history of creating shows which are bigger than your average TV series but they really went all out for Game of Thrones and a lot of that has to do with the visual effects. The quality and complexity is far above what we're used to seeing and you'd be surprised by how many moments are tweaked extensively in post production.

The team at io9 had the chance to sit with the shows VFX supervisor Joe Bauer for a chat about the effects in the show so far - from the evolution of the dragons to some of the biggest scenes like the massacre at Hardhome. Check it out.

While we wouldn't necessarily be saying that dragon-flying sequence was a great example of digital effects work its interesting to see how they've managed to slowly increase the quality of the VFX, especially when it comes to giving the dragons more to do. And the main action event of each season, usually taking place in the last couple of episodes, has also been upped in scale and complexity.

We're still big fans of the Battle of the Blackwater scene from season two but Hardhome set a new standard for scale on the show. Bauer is already getting to work on season 6, giving you an idea of the kind of lead time needed for these effects, and he's busy at it in Belfast - not Dublin as the video says.

Game of Thrones season 6 will air in April 2016.