The 'Godzilla' Sound Designers on Creating the Monster's Iconic Roar

Godzilla — director Gareth Edward’s smart re-imagining of the gargantuan lizard with anger-management issues — brought in equally gargantuan box-office results, with a near-record $93 million opening weekend. But just as it took a small army to vanquish the super saurian, it took an equal number of craft-persons and technicians to bring him to life.

Yahoo recently sat down with two of them: sound designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn.  Chief among their many tasks was creating a roar — a sound just as iconic as the creature’s tractor trailer-sized footprints and nasty airplane-swatting disposition — that properly conveyed the huge size of the new monster while honoring the bellicose bellows of Godzillas past.

In this episode of the Yahoo Movie Show, the pair — who began working on the movie nearly three years ago — discuss the process that went into creating the sound from scratch.  One surprise: they made a conscious decision to depart from tradition by not building on animal sounds.  Obvious choices from their library, like the trumpeting of elephants and eerie songs of whales, went out the window.

After much consultation with Edwards — a back and forth that involved more than 50 exchanges — Aadahl and Van der Ryn hit upon a wining combination of some unlikely effects. Watch as they take you into their studio and even play a couple of roars they rejected before coming to the final theater-shaking rumble.