Filmmakers of "Godzilla Minus Zero" terrify audiences with monstrous sounds
The production team of the new film by director Takashi Yamazaki created Godzilla's roars by installing loudspeakers atop a dam in an open area. Passersby were unprepared for what they heard.
While introducing the 39th Godzilla film at the New York Comic Con panel, Green emphasized that the filmmakers behind the film "created kaiju that are physically real and, trust me, emotionally terrifying."
While much of the terror came from the work of Oscar-winning visual effects artist Tatsuji Nojima, part of it came from the screams of Godzilla and his three-headed nemesis, King Ghidorah. The roars were the work of sound designer Natsuko Inoue and her team, who turned the speakers to the top of an outdoor barrier to create extremely loud monster noises that terrified people nearby.
Hisofumi Takeuchi, who also worked on the film's soundtrack, said during the panel, “There were people having picnics, maybe people just walking. "However, the person walking his dog had the worst time because the dog was getting angry and barking at us."
Since these creatures are fictional, making their screams realistic is essential to make them look believable and truly terrifying on screen. At first, Inoue wasn't sure if the idea of recording at the dam would work. These fears quickly subsided.
"The first time we sent that roar over the speakers, I could see the relief and confidence in everyone's eyes," Inoue said. By using speakers and projecting it into the real world, capturing reverb, echoes, reflections of sound with a microphone, it shows it in our world.
For the rest of Kaiju's sound effects, Inoue's team took a Foley analog approach. For example, to simulate the wings of a dragon like Ghidorah, they flapped a rubber fisherman's suit and mixed that sound with the sound of an accordion-like air duct.
Making two of Toho's most famous monsters was a big deal, especially after the success of Zero's predecessor, Godzilla Minus One, which brought in $114 million worldwide at the box office. It's going to be tough after that 2023 film's gruesome mix of post-WWII malaise and kaiju destruction, but a new trailer shown at the film panel in New York promised a sequel full of aerial dogfights and a punch-up to the Godzilla-Ghidorah era.
Like its predecessor, Godzilla Minus Zero is directed by Takashi Yamazaki and features visual effects by Tatsuji Nojima, whom Green called "Gen Z's first Oscar winner" for his work on One.
Nojima started doing visual effects as a hobby as a teenager before joining Shirogumi animation house as a composer. After Yamazaki noticed a crude animation of waves that Nojima was working on, the director tasked the budding animator with developing the idea. Nojima flipped a fully rendered image of ocean water over rocks that was indistinguishable from reality. After that, Nojima recalled, Yamazaki said, "Okay, I think you're ready to do the animation and VFX for Godzilla now."
During the panel, Nojima broke down how he created a shot from the trailer that shows Godzilla exploding. "I simulated 200 million particles to create the white water effect in Godzilla Minus One," he said while chasing a seaplane. With this shot in Godzilla Minus Zero, the scale is completely different to the new Imax aspect ratio, plus there were no live-action screens, so we're dealing with a lot of CG on screen. "We needed 2 billion particles."
Godzilla Minus Zero is set to open in US theaters on November 6th and in Japanese theaters on November 3rd, which marks Godzilla's birthday since the 1954 Japanese release of Ishiro Honda's original film.