Client
HBO
Project
House of the Dragon: DracARys
Type
Mobile AR App
Credits
Lead Sound Designer: James Utting
Lead Audio Developer: Harry Boyce
Junior Audio Developer: Min Yu
Additional Sound Design Credits: Harry Boyce and Min Yu
Executive Producer: Mike Hill
Creative Director: Kevin Young (The Mill)
Our interactive audio team embarked on a fantasy driven journey to bring dragons to life in HBO's AR mobile app; ‘House of the Dragon: DracARys’. With production led by The Mill and Sound Design and Integration provided by Factory Studios the app allows fans to find and hatch a dragon egg which they can then raise at home.
Having Audio Developers as part of the team here at Factory means we can create highly immersive sound design and integrate it into real-time audio environments to ensure true authenticity in the final mix. Working closely with The Mill's creative directors, producers, artists, and developers, we seamlessly integrated into their production workflow.
To offer an exciting and non-repetitive sonic experience, the intention from the start was to have the audio as adaptable as possible. After all, no two dragon roars should sound the same! A key challenge with mobile apps however is optimisation so we didn’t want to overload the experience with thousands of audio files.
Once a sound had been designed, it was split it into its constituent elements and systems were created in the middleware software, FMOD, to randomise the clips with variable pitch and volume. This offered heaps of variety while keeping the amount of root assets under control. By using attenuation, 3D spatialisation, adaptable reverbs and parameter-based EQ effects for proximity, we were able to portray the illusion that the dragon was there with you sitting on your living room sofa!
"The whole team at Factory were a joy to work with, seamlessly integrating with our team to help deliver one of our most ambitious projects. They shared the pride we take in our work as well as our love of dragons, and we couldn't have asked for a better partner to go on this journey with." Kevin Young; Creative Director (The Mill)
“The team, at Factory, played a critical role, in bringing our dragons to life! They blended within our team, workflow, with a high level of commitment and dedication. The outcome we take pride in, wouldn’t have been the same without Factory’s creativity and expertise." Samira Abdelmalek; Senior Digital Project Manager (The Mill)
If you have an immersive project in development and would like to get us involved please email mike@factory.uk.com