Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/832212
43 Q2 2017 / CINEMONTAGE I need to understand the music score — do we need a sound effect here?" As sound effects mixer, Waters receives mono and stereo elements from Katona, plus LCR, 5.0 and 5.1 stems from Fairfield. "The dragon tracks arrive as 5.1-channel mixes, which I just need to adjust against the music," Waters explains. "Foley is normally 24 or more tracks, although for the 'Battle of the Bastards' episode, we also received 180 tracks of horses and 180 tracks of weapons. Often, we do not have time or the storage capacity to pre-dub the effects tracks; we run all sound effects tracks off a single Pro Tools session. So if we know the episode is getting very complex, I'll ask for pre- mixed stems from editorial. One exception was the penultimate episode for Season Six — 'Battle of the Bastards' — which was so busy that we secured additional time on the stage to pre-dub the sound effects." The dub team mixes in 7.1-channel and then folds down that master mix to 5.1-channel for broadcast by thinning out the music and backgrounds. "The 7.1 format's side channels are useful for effects and music," offers Waters. "We will also listen to the Dolby Stereo Left-Right fold-down on near-fields speakers," Blank explains. "And, since that is the mix most viewers will hear, we'll make adjustments to the 7.1-channel to ensure full compatibility. We also check the loudness of our theatrical-style mixes. For the 'Battle of the Bastards' episode, we had 45 minutes of loud drama. To make our target loudness, we monitored at 81 dB SPL rather than our normal 85 dB." "Our biggest challenge on a show like Game of Thrones is to create tension without losing the sense of mystery," concludes Waters. "The illusion is convincing because we use organic sounds to develop a realistic-sounding yet fictitious world. We have CGI dragons that we think are real. Everything in the show should be as real as real can be." f Onnalee Blank. Brad Katona, left, and Paul Bercovitch.