Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/987065
MEET THE WINNERS 40 S P R I N G 2 0 1 8 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Andrew McNeill, Ronan Hill CAS, driver/helper Davíð Logi Gunnarsson. Photo by Helen Sloan SMPSP Game of Thrones "Beyond the Wall" by Thomas Rush Game of Thrones "Beyond theWall" is a fan episode with many story lines starting with Arya and Sansa and continuing with Daenerys and Tyrion talking in Dragonstone. However, the bulk of the episode follows Jon and his team going traveling beyond the wall to capture a Wight to bring back for Cersei to realize that the threat is real. While traveling beyond the wall, the group encounters and are attacked by a massive bear. An undead bear, actually. They fend off the bear and are attacked by the massive Wight army and the show climaxes with the Night King killing one of the dragons and then taking it as his own. Following is a conversation with this year's Television Series – One Hour CAS Award winners: re-recording mixers Onnalee Blank CAS and Mathew Waters CAS; production sound mixers Ronan Hill CAS and Richard Dyer CAS; and Foley mixer Brett Voss CAS. After seven seasons of the show, how do you keep it fresh? Ronan Hill: Game of Thrones is an amazing show which has been a joy to return to year after year. This is down to the quality of the scripts and also due to the talented cast, crew, and production team who collaborate to make drama of the highest caliber. Onnalee Blank and Mathew Waters both agreed that the show never gets old. It is so well written and everyone does such a great job all of the way around. Mathew Waters says that "We do try to keep improving our sound every season while staying within the show's sound language that we have previously created." Onnalee added that "We try to be stylistic without being repetitive. This is a great show that allows us to grow in our craft because the show continues to grow. Also, what helps keep it fresh is working with a great team. We all get along and truly love working with one another. Our sound editorial team is led by sound supervisor Tim Kimmel, [who] does a great job of getting us great sounds to work with and [sound designer] Paula Fairfield continues to build and grow the dragon language." Brett Voss: Season 7 was the first season in our newly built Foley stage out in Westlake Village. Seasons 2 and 3 were shot in West Hollywood at The Lot, and 4-6 at the Dubbing Brothers' Foley stage, next to The Dub Stage, Marti Humphrey's dub stage in Burbank. Because we knew we were going to be under such a large, sonic microscope, [Foley artists] Jeff [Wilhoit], Dylan [Toumy- Wilhoit], and I spent more than a week trying to recreate and match the key sounds we had recorded in the other rooms for the previous seasons. Are you using different plugins or gear that you would like to share? Hill: Episode 6 "Beyond the Wall" was primarily shot in a mountaintop quarry outside Belfast, which was the set for the Ice Lake. The location was accessible and I was able to use the normal rig on my sound cart. However, some of the episode was shot in Iceland and this was our biggest challenge on Season 7. We traveled to Iceland in January, mid-winter. I don't know if I should mention the weather or locations first! Most of the locations were remote, traveling in by four-wheel drive and then walking and pushing the rest. The weather was hostile with snow, rain, hail, high winds, and temperatures well below freezing. The first day, we had gale force winds gusting in excess of 60 mph and a wind chill below -30C. I had been to Iceland once before with the show and you soon realize that most locations are not suitable for a cart-based system. I had a Polar Bag made for the 788T by KT Systems in the UK. The bag was thermally lined and had arm holes and a clear cover to allow mixing in any conditions. It also had space for Production sound mixer Ronan Hill overlooking the action from a mountainside. Photo by Helen Sloan SMPSP