Sound Designer Paula Fairfield talks season 8, battle scenes, and the dragons

Sound designer Paula Fairfield has been working on Game of Thrones since its third season, responsible for bringing us everything from the roars of the dragons to the cacophony of battle. Fairfield, who won an Emmy Award for her work on season 5, and is once again nominated for season 7. She discussed her nomination, along with a great many other things, with Awards Daily, starting with how she feels about the show’s imminent ending.

"It’s bittersweet, that is for sure. I think we all feel great pride marching into this final season. I know on set everybody gave it everything and we’ll be doing so in post(production) as well. I’m excited for the season and of course, sad that it’s ending. You don’t want to overstay your welcome. We’ve seen shows that do that and it’s always a shame. I think going out on a high note and saying all there is to be said, for now, is very smart of them. But it’s with great sadness, for sure. Even the break was weird. Because we got a taste of what life would be like without Game of Thrones. This past winter, normally we’d be working on the season and it was bizarre not to be."

The long break was weird for us too. Still is, really.

Before Game of Thrones, Fairfield worked on another iconic show: Lost. Does she have a knack for picking the big thing of the moment? What’s the next big thing to hit us after Thrones? “There will be more. God knows they’re trying,” she said. “Something will come that will startle us all and make us look at the world in a different way.”

With any luck, that thing will be HBO’s own Game of Thrones prequel series, set thousands of years before Jon, Tyrion and Cersei were born. That show is set to start filming in early 2019, but as far as Fairfield knows, she isn’t involved.

"They just announced the theme of what one of them could be. They are still looking and exploring (the idea). I’m open to whatever. I love working on challenging things, with fabulous people, telling great stories. If it’s on the prequels, great. If it’s something else, then that’s great too."

But that’s down the road. For now, Fairfield is still working on season 8, which will surely feature a lot of Daenerys’ dragons. As the dragons grew, Fairfield had to come up with new sounds to match them, from “little chitters” in the beginning to full-on roars as they grew in size. “Every year you have to re-engineer the sound of the body. This last year was crazy because they were so damn big. They fly over, they shake the ground. I had to blend different sounds to make the noise of the wings.”

"The most difficult scenes are the quiet scenes. Because there’s nothing to hide behind. The tender moments (with the dragons) are the hardest, but also the most fun. You want to make it feel like you could reach out and touch them. I don’t think there’s any other show where that has been a set of creatures who had to grow up over the course of 6-7 years."

Fairfield also incorporates her own experience into her work in sometimes surprising and tender ways. “I had a dog, who has passed since, who was fierce as hell, but every once in a while, she would come up to me and she would slightly whimper or cry in my ear,” she explained. “It was almost imperceptible, and it melted me every time. She could also bite my face off. One of my favorite scenes is when Drogon’s been away burning sheep and babies and comes back to see Dany on the roof, and the other two are locked up. If you listen when he comes down, you will hear these little nasal whistles, and those are my dogs nasal whistles.”

We love how passionate and personal Fairfield gets about her work. She considers herself a storyteller, with sound as her medium. “[Drogon is] this beast, but when he’s with [Daenerys], he’s so happy to see her. So, I wanted a sound that made him vulnerable. And I got to put my dog in the show (laughs).”

She plays around, too, and took to calling the other two dragons — Rhaegal and Viserion — “Beavis and Butthead…If you look at them, as heartbreaking as it is when they get locked up in the dungeon and they are playing, and they are goofy.Or when they are ripping the goat apart. Those things are all funny to me. And that’s where storytelling comes into play.” Still, Viserion’s death in season 7 hit her pretty hard.

"I don’t like to see the scripts. I’ll look if I need to or ask questions. But the only time I’m going to see it remotely like a viewer is the first time I see it. I’m a fan. I like to binge the whole season. Remember when they were shooting Drogon? I thought I was going to have a heart attack. And when Viserion…I couldn’t speak for I don’t know how long, and all I thought was oh my god, I have to do that (create the sounds)? I love these creatures like they are real. It was incredibly emotional."

As for season 8, Fairfield was predictably coy. “There are some long battle scenes this year, but there’s a story being told within them,” she said. “The sound work doesn’t start until the end of October. They are still working on the visual FX, which are quite huge. I’ve only seen a little tiny bit, but it was amazing.”

"I’m so thrilled that people love it so much and you don’t want to disappoint them. For me, I do a lot of research and think a lot about the choices I make. I know in talking to the other artists on the show, they do the same. And it really shows on the screen. Everything there is to move this gigantic story forward."

We’ll find out if Fairfield wins her Emmy in early September at the Creative Arts Emmys. And we’ll see the fruits of her labors on season 8…soon enough.

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