Paula Fairfield

Last updated
Paula Fairfield
Born
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Occupation Sound Designer

Paula Fairfield is a Canadian American sound designer and sound artist, based in Southern California. She is best known for her work on the series Game of Thrones. She has a BAFTA Award for House of the Dragon (won 2023); and a total of thirteen Emmy nominations, one for Rings of Power, one for House of the Dragon, six for Game of Thrones (won in 2015 and 2019), [1] three for Lost , [1] one for The River , and one for the series Lovecraft Country (won 2021). In May 2021, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from her alma mater, NSCAD University. She also has 5 golden reel awards and 18 nominations for her work from the Motion Picture Sound Editors guild.

Contents

Life in Canada

Fairfield was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1961 [2] and grew up in a nearby town called Bridgewater. She attended college at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD) in the early 1980s studying art history and photography. After graduating with a BFA, [3] she moved to Montreal for two years where she worked as an artist and did a training program at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB)'s Studio D. [4] Fairfield then moved to Toronto where she co-managed Charles Street Video, a non-profit centre run by artists. Her video and film art was exhibited all over the world and resides in several collections including the National Gallery of Canada. [3]

Fairfield worked at SoundDogs, the Toronto-based post production sound company. She said, "I just wandered in one day and they had just lost their effects guy and they took a chance on me. I had a lot to learn, but I loved it." [5] This is where she learned how to edit sound and sound design for television and film. [6]

Life in the United States

Fairfield moved to Los Angeles in 1998. [6]

She established her company, Eargasm, Inc, in 2014. [3] She has a studio in her home — a sealed garage with highly insulated walls. [7] The studio is set up for Dolby Atmos and uses PMC monitors and an Avid Pro Tools S6 console. [8] She left Los Angeles for the Coachella Valley after a divorce from her wife and losing her brother, sister and father to cancer. [7] According to The Desert Sun , "the desert’s spirituality and solitude keep her centered as an artist. After an intense day of sound editing, she simply steps out of her studio and into her home space, a quiet desert sanctuary she describes as 'Bliss.'" [7]

Awards and nominations

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References

  1. 1 2 "Paula Fairfield". Television Academy. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  2. ↑ "Paula Fairfield". www.gallery.ca. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  3. 1 2 3 "Paula Fairfield, Sound Designer, Eargasm Inc". www.fmx.de. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  4. ↑ "Paula Fairfield | Sound Artist". AICAD. 2014-11-20. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  5. ↑ Lake, Michael. "The other mother of dragons". The Coast Halifax. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  6. 1 2 "Canada's Paula Fairfield talks about Emmy nod for 'Game of Thrones' | Globalnews.ca". globalnews.ca. 2014-07-11. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  7. 1 2 3 "'Game of Thrones' sound designer creates in the desert". Desert Sun. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  8. ↑ "Studio Tour : Emmy Winner Paula Fairfield's Dolby Atmos Studio". RSPE. Retrieved 2019-02-16.
  9. ↑ Who's Who in Canadian Film and Television. Toronto: Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. 1999. ISBN   978-0771576003. OCLC   671871586.

Paula Fairfield at IMDb

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