I love Godzilla. So naturally, I’m hype for the new 4K rerelease of Shin Godzilla, and my butt will be in a seat soon to watch it on the big screen.
When that wonderful, big lizard boy first stomped onto screens in 1954, audiences heard something they’d never experienced before. He had an ear-splitting roar that seemed to come from the depths of the earth.
The iconic sound didn’t emerge from an existing recording. Instead, it was born from the creative genius of composer Akira Ifukube.
This video from Firewood Media explores the origins of the iconic sound effect.
– YouTube youtube.com
Most monster movies of the era took shortcuts with sound design. King Kong’s vocalizations were actually recorded from real lions and bears, then manipulated in post. Ifukube sought a sound that had never been heard before, one that would match Godzilla’s unique place as both destroyer and symbol of nuclear anxiety.
Ifukube took a leather glove and coated it with pine tar resin. Then, working with a double bass, he slowly dragged the glove along the instrument’s strings. The result was a deep, resonant, otherworldly sound.
He took that already haunting bass sound and slowed it down further, then layered in additional effects to give it even more weight and presence.
This attention to sonic detail paid off in ways that still resonate today. Godzilla’s roar became as recognizable as any movie sound effect in history, joining the ranks of lightsaber buzzes and Tarzan cries.
For the 2014 Legendary Pictures reboot, sound designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn started with the same glove-on-a-contrabass technique Ifukube used.
“I can say it’s a completely non-living based sound,” Aadahl told The Motion Picture Association. “It’s a combination of sounds that fit together, and the goal is to fit them together seamlessly.”
The team revealed they recorded sounds beyond the human ear’s perception using a special Japanese microphone, the Sanken CO-100K, which can record sound up to 100,000 hertz.
‘Godzilla’ Credit: Toho/YouTube
“All of this sonic information is hidden beyond our range of perception,” Aadahl said. “It’s this invisible universe that we can record and slow down into the human hearing range of perception … it’s a treasure trove of this amazing universe of sound, and a lot of our recordings tapped into that.”
They then took an enormous 100,000-watt speaker array and played their recordings full-blast to capture what Godzilla would sound like echoing in an environment. (They could be heard three miles away.)
We don’t all have a Rolling Stones speaker array at our disposal, so looking back at Ifukube’s original solution is a great reminder that sometimes the most innovative solutions come from the simplest materials and the most creative minds willing to experiment with them.
If you’re ready to get creative with sound design, start exploring our resources on the site!
