Percy Jackson And The Olympians’ cast and crew had a blast filming that iconic capture the flag scene

For a generation of kids raised on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, there was one dream—at least for this writer—that stood out above the rest: participating in Camp Half-Blood’s annual capture the flag tournament. For the uninitiated, capture the flag is no mere playground game among demigods. There are medieval swords, armor, gifts from the gods, and only two real rules: no killing or maiming. (The penalty for each being one week’s loss of dessert privileges.) The whole thing sounds scary, stressful, and fun as hell.

While filming Disney+’s Percy Jackson And The Olympians series, a new generation of young actors (and crew members) got to live this dream, and—no surprises here—it sounds like it was just as cool behind the scenes as it is on camera. “It was such fun,” said James Bobin, who directed the first two episodes of the series, at a premiere event attended by The A.V. Club last week. “It’s such an important sequence because it’s when [Percy] works out who he is and what he can do in terms of swordsmanship. He turns up and he’s got no idea what he’s doing, the armor doesn’t really fit him very well, and he can barely hold a sword, but by the end he’s actually pretty good at fighting.”

“That was a real challenge, but I loved that about it because it meant Walker [Scobell, who plays Percy], who learnt those skills as he went along, kind of progressed in the same way the character did, which is really fun,” Bobin continued.

Visually, the sequence was also a treat to put together for the director, who identifies as a history buff. While he said the campers’ armor was modeled after Greek hoplite soldiers from the 2nd century A.D., the team also tried to keep the show “slightly timeless,” so that it never ends up looking too dated in any way in the future. (There are a few fun modern references in there to keep an eye out for, though.)

The crew, of course, weren’t the only ones having fun swinging ancient weapons around on set. Charlie Bushnell, who plays a demigod named Luke in the series, said it was “one of my favorite scenes to film, if not my favorite.” “It was just so much fun getting to be in the battle armor, and the training leading up to that was so much fun,” he said. “It’s such an iconic scene in the book, so bringing that to life was incredible.”

To be fair, it sounds like every day on set was incredible for Bushnell, who is also a huge fan of the books. “Camp Half-Blood is so complex. It’s a magical world, and you’d think they might do it on a green screen or something, but no. They fully built all those cabins in the middle of the woods in Vancouver, and they had this huge pond in the middle, and it was so green and beautiful,” he said. “It truly was surreal stepping onto set every day.”

Percy Jackson And The Olympians premieres December 20 on Disney+.