Game of Thrones sound designer Paula Fairfield found herself explaining the basic function of her job at a Saturday morning Con of Thrones panel called “Bringing Westeros to Life.”
As part of Game of Thrones sound team — which includes the people responsible for music, dialogue, and sound effects like clanging swords and footsteps — she’s the one who does “the weird shit, all the fantastical stuff.” She invents the noises for dragons, direwolves, White Walkers, giants, and all the other strange Game of Thrones magic. Those noises come together to create languages that join the various other languages in the series.
Fairfield’s job is at its most challenging during the climactic sequences, like season 5’s battle at Hardhome, which pitted Jon Snow and the Wildlings against a White Walker army for the first time and involved every sound person on staff. For these scenes, she told an audience of about 400, “It’s hard sometimes, because there’s always a battle between sound and music. I love working with Ramin Djawadi, and it’s a fucking crime that guy has never won an Emmy or been nominated for that score. It’s delicious and spectacular, but it’s a pain-in-the-butt with me because I have to do every little detail, and then its decided afterward which will better sculpt the story.”
As the panel was focused on elements of world building that might not immediately grab audiences’ attention, Fairfield shared the stage with Game of Thrones language creator David J. Peterson. (The pair were also the only Con speakers who currently work on the show.) Peterson crafted the entire Dothraki language from scratch in just six weeks before he even got the job.