‘House of the Dragon’ used seals, pigs to give the beings
When creating the vocal personalities of the titular firebreathers in HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’, Sound designer Paula Fairfield starts giving a story.
Whether it is “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 beings within her fingertips and keep them straight.
That was crucial in season 2, when more dragons took heaven than ever in the universe of “Game of Thrones”, while two factions of the Targaryen -Dynasty war on each other from the back of their winged companions. But fans of author George RR Martin’s “Fire & Blood” know that the prequel is actually a history of the fall of the Targaryens and their dragon blood line.
“We know that this is the war where they all end, so it honors the legacy of these dragons to find their best, most beautiful voices, even in death,” says Fairfield.
The vocal composition of each dragon in Fairfield’s care is a mix of animal sounds that are drawn from thousands of hours of recordings, and often before they see the completed visual effects for their appearance.
“Occasionally I will use a human voice, but I really love the use of animals of our earth because their expressions are pure emotion,” she says. “There is no acting, no agenda, not trying to be something that they are not – and babies are like that.”
The aforementioned Vhagar is the recipient of those baby sounds, of which Fairfield felt they were suitable, since her descriptors are ‘tired, grumpy and IBS’.
As soon as she has selected the sounds for the vocal palette of a dragon, Fairfield starts to work to compress, expand and change. The last technology became especially important in season 2 when Meleys, the dragon driven by Rhaenys (Eve Best), is killed in the fight.
“Many of them were seals, pigs and some bird sounds,” she says. “Things that are in the higher range that can be turned and manipulated and has enough articulations that I can use.”
One of the biggest challenges that Fairfield Faces is is not only finding the right vocals, but also to ensure that she builds sufficient reach to hit the rising score of composer Ramin Djawadi, which she says it can sometimes drown out the distinctive voices of the dragons if she is not prepared.
Such a scene was ‘The Red Sowing’ of season 2, when Queen Rhaenyra (Emma d’Arcy) enlarged her ranks by finding riders for non -eclaimed dragons from a pool of her distant (aka illegal) family members. Small moments in huge set pieces such as this issue for building the personality of the dragons. For example, when Rhaenyra produces the towering Vermithor, the two share a tender moment when he corresponds to a soft hum, something he will do later if he chooses his rider, Hugh (Kieran Bew).
“That is his tell,” says Fairfield.
In the same series, Fairfield implements a Chirp sound when Vermithor diskers his fire breath to break the other contenders for his claim. When she explains her reasoning, she laughs for this sound, which she calls the ‘Vuursfincter’.
Whether it is a Tjilp or a penetrating roar, the work of Fairfield cannot be denied, and sometimes it is the only thing that a scene needs to tell the story of a dragon. After the fiery debut of Vermithor, the quieter, more chic silverwing her rider, Ulf (Tom Bennett) chooses. This moment was originally accompanied by a piece of score by Djawadi, but it was demolished to let the work of Fairfield really sing.
“I was very proud because this only happened a few times in my career,” she says. “They got it out because the story of her discovered him and hit him and realized that this is my husband, was told by her voice.”
