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When creating the vocal personalities of the titular fire breathers in HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” sound designer Paula Fairfield starts by giving them a story.
Whether it’s “old lady” Vhagar, or “white boy who thinks he can rap” Caraxes, or the “fidgety” 13-year-old Taylor Swift fan in Syrax, this is how Fairfield gets to know the creatures at her fingertips — and keep them straight.
That was crucial in Season 2, when more dragons took to the skies than ever before in the “Game of Thrones” universe as two factions of the Targaryen dynasty unleashed war on each other from the backs of their winged companions. But fans of author George R. R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood” know the prequel is actually a history of the downfall of the Targaryens and their dragon bloodline.
“We know this is the war where they all end, so it’s honoring the legacy of these dragons to find their best, most beautiful voices even in death,” Fairfield says.
The vocal makeup of any dragon in Fairfield’s care is a blend of animal sounds pulled from thousands of hours of recordings, and often before she sees the finished visual effects for their look.
“Occasionally, I will use a human voice, but I really love using animals from our Earth because their expressions are pure emotion,” she says. “There’s no acting, no agenda, no trying to be something they aren’t — and babies are like that too.”
The aforementioned Vhagar is the recipient of those infant sounds, which Fairfield felt were appropriate given her descriptors are “tired, cranky and IBS.”
Once she has selected the sounds for a dragon’s vocal palette, Fairfield gets to work compressing, expanding and pitch shifting. The latter technique became especially important in Season 2 when Meleys, the dragon ridden by Rhaenys (Eve Best), is killed in battle.
“A lot of it was seals, pigs and some bird sounds,” she says. “Stuff that’s in the higher range that can be twisted and manipulated and has enough articulations that I can use.”
One of the biggest challenges Fairfield faces is not only finding the right vocals, but also making sure she builds enough range to punch through composer Ramin Djawadi’s soaring score, which she says can sometimes drown out the dragons’ distinctive voices if she’s not prepared.
One such scene was Season 2’s “The Red Sowing,” when Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) bolsters her ranks by finding riders for unclaimed dragons from a pool of her distant (aka illegitimate) relatives. Little moments in massive set pieces like this matter for building the personality of the dragons. For example, when Rhaenyra brings forth the towering Vermithor, the two share a tender moment that he matches with a soft hum, something he will later do when he chooses his rider, Hugh (Kieran Bew).
“That’s his tell,” Fairfield says.
In that same sequence, Fairfield deploys a chirp sound when Vermithor unleashes his fire breath to incinerate the other contenders for his claim. She laughs when explaining her reasoning for this sound, which she calls the “fire sphincter.”
Whether it’s a chirp or a piercing roar, Fairfield’s work is undeniable, and sometimes it’s the only thing a scene needs to tell a dragon’s story. Following Vermithor’s fiery debut, the quieter, more posh Silverwing chooses her rider, Ulf (Tom Bennett). This moment was originally accompanied by a piece of Djawadi’s score, but it was scrapped to let Fairfield’s work really sing.
“I was very proud because this has only happened a couple of times in my career,” she says. “They took it out because the story of her discovering him and sniffing him out and realizing this is my guy was told through her voice.”
English (US) ·