OnLocation
Game of Thrones
Production sound mixer Ronan Hill, CAS, on seven seasons
of epic battles and award-winning audio.
by Brandi Loyd
Emmy award–winning sound mixer Ronan Hill, CAS, credits his father for introducing
him to the entertainment business.
“My career in sound started when I was a
child, working on occasion with my father, Patsy
Hill, who was a freelance news cameraman,” Hill
recalls. “If there was a soft news story local to our
home in Ballycastle on the North Antrim coast,
I would hope to be involved. This is where I got
my love for film…. Little did I know that years
later, I would revisit some of these picturesque
locations as production sound mixer on Game of
Thrones.”
Since the pilot episode for HBO’s ultra-suc-
cessful and critically acclaimed Game of Thrones,
Hill has worked as the production sound mixer
for seven seasons and counting. In all that time
he has recorded hundreds of characters, but one
character in particular is special. “You might
think that with over 300 principal characters it
would be difficult to choose a favorite,” says Hill.
“But one stands out beyond the rest. His name is
Varys [played by actor Conleth Hill], and his voice
has been familiar to me all my life, as he is my
brother. It is always a pleasure to listen to him at
work!”
Behind the Game
While choosing a favored character might
be easy, after recording audio on at least 67 episodes, Hill has a harder time picking just one that
posed the biggest challenges.
“Each episode has its own way of testing
your abilities. ‘Blackwater,’ Season 2, was the
first mammoth episode. ‘The Rains of Castamere’
[a.k.a. ‘The Red Wedding’], Season 3, was dramatically charged. Then there was ‘The Watchers
