HBO’s Game of Thrones received two MPSE award nominations this year for Season 5, Episode 8: “Hardhome.” Supervising sound editor Tim Kimmel was recognized for both the dialogue/ADR editing and the sound effects and Foley editing on the episode. Kimmel took time out from working on Season 6 to chat with us about sound details on the series.

Game of Thrones has been through five seasons now. From a sound standpoint, how has the show evolved?

I came on at Season 3 and there has been a lot of evolving since then—new locations to explore, the dragons getting larger, giants, and an army of White Walkers. There are a lot of opportunities for things to grow.

From the frozen North and Castle Black to the arid desert of Meereen, there are a wide variety of environments on this show. Do you have a library of sounds established for each location?

We do. Once we have something we like, and the producers like, we don’t go changing it. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. I think we’ve done a good job of keeping these locations and these areas as different sounding as we can. From the deserts of Meereen to the harbor town of King’s Landing, and Castle Black up North, and even beyond the wall, these are locations that we have established and now have a good library of sounds to make them work.

For the MPSE awards, you’re nominated for both dialogue/ADR editing, and sound effects and Foley editing. That’s a lot of editing per show. Can you walk us through your typical workflow for an episode?

We usually start working on the show early on, with unlocked picture. I meet with the producers and we spot the show. We start figuring out what it is they’re looking for, especially with new locations and new sound design elements.

The episode we were nominated for, “Hardhome,” had probably over 300 ADR lines, and tons of loop group to be shot. Plus, there was a lot of production audio that we were trying to save. So on the dialogue and ADR side, there was a lot of work between the dialogue editor, the ADR editor, and our loop group crew. Everyone was working together to try and create a clean soundtrack without going with all ADR, but we still had to do a lot because there were snow machines, wind machines, extras yelling, and a lot of noise on set. A lot of scenes shot in the North had to be redone on the ADR stage.

From the sound effects side, we start creating pretty early. With our already established locations, we can put those together quickly and then start focusing on the new locations. “Hardhome” was a new location. It was cold, windy, and had lots of people around, so we had to create that environment. It was also by the water, so we had to add that element. Of course, once the White Walkers come in, we really had to feel it going from cold to everything freezing over. The water is getting rough, and there is chaos with all of the people. I work with the sound effects editor and the sound designer and we start figuring out how we want to attack the scenes. We keep chipping away at it bit by bit.

Can you tell us about the design of the White Walkers?

The White Walkers came in at the very end of Season 2 with just a war cry. We had to do more vocalizations and the sound of them shattering into pieces of ice when killed. Sound designer Paula Fairfield, who really designed those unique sounds, and I get together and start talking about what it is we are looking for in the sounds. She starts putting together some really cool elements and then she sends them to me to listen to. We work together to find that perfect balance for what works on screen, from their vocals to their movements and actions. We do a lot with ice crackling but we also put in other subtle elements to give them a more interesting quality.

What other subtle elements go into the White Walker sounds?

In addition to the ice crackling, we also use leather creaking so you can really feel their movement. These guys have the ability to freeze anything they touch so we like to play with that. They are freezing the air around them just by standing there. On the Foley side, the crew uses a suit of metal and leather armor, like the White Walkers wear, and we add that element to it when they are moving. In “Hardhome,” when the White Walker walks up to the fire, the fire moves away from him. So we have these low, hollow wind elements that we used to create the feeling that the air is being pulled apart by these guys as they move through.

Can you tell me about the Foley on the show?

The Foley crew is Happy Feet Foley, and they’ve been on the show since Season 2. They are fantastic and I love working with them. They have such a great arsenal of props, like armor, swords, and shields. They just have all of those sounds down so well, and it gives such a real feel to the show. Sometimes Foley that comes out of a quiet studio can sound too clean and be hard to match into what we’re mixing. But these guys just have this cool grittiness to what they do. Their Foley just drops in and really fits with what we’re going for.

Are you there for the Foley sessions, or do you just leave the guys alone?

They are off on their own, and I give them specific notes for everything that I need. We’ve worked together long enough now that they know what I’m looking for. I tend to only see them at the beginning of the first episode. I’ll visit them and give them notes and talk about the direction for the season. Then, I just let them do their thing. They know the show so well and they are so damn good at what they do that I don’t want to bother them. I just let them do their thing because what they always send me is great.

Do you have a favorite episode in Season 5?

I would have to say “Hardhome.” It was such a fun challenge of trying to create this horde of hundreds of thousands of White Walkers rushing in to attack tens of thousands of Wildlings. We were trying to capture it and feel the mass of it but also feel the fine detail of it. It was a fun challenge, although I think it took a couple of years off of our lives.

Can you share some details on that White Walker attack in “Hardhome”?

There was so much fine detail. One interesting thing I enjoyed working on happens at the end of the battle when you think that it is finally over and you start to relax, even though things aren’t going well. You see thousands of white-walkers jumping off of a cliff down to the ground and you get a little moment of silence before they wake up. That was an interesting thing to try and capture because there are hundreds upon hundreds of bodies just being thrown off a cliff and they are piling up on the ground. We wanted to capture the detail of feeling them coming down, hearing them hit, and have that little moment of silence before they wake up and start charging again.

Do you do any field recordings for Game of Thrones?

We don’t get to do as many as we would like, but luckily we have a pretty good library of Game of Thrones sounds. There are certain little things that we will go out and record. I carry my recorder with me at all times just in case I hear something interesting or realize that we need to record some sound. For the White Walker vocals, some of those were recorded in loop group, some are coming out of the effects library, and sometimes we just open up a mic and start recording vocals ourselves. Then we tweak and cut those. I always have an ear open for interesting sounds. For example, we were doing some construction on my house at the beginning of Season 5, and they were demolishing some concrete. I recorded the sound of that from inside the house because you couldn’t hear the machines. You could just feel the pounding of this concrete. I managed to sneak it in there for Season 5. I actually used it as part of an element for the elevator at Castle Black. There is this ratcheting sound as they are going by certain little poles and I used it as part of one of those elements.

There is so much to talk about on Game of Thrones. Any final thoughts on Season 5?

We are very proud of the work we did, not only on “Hardhome” but the entire season.

This show gets bigger as each season goes and it always has interesting challenges and hurdles for us to get over.

As a crew, we love to meet those challenges head-on and just go for it. We’ve started working on Season 6 and so we are back at it again.

Photos courtesy of HBO