AaaAaahh Godzilla!!!

If you are thinking it, you are right.  Today I want to talk about the sound design for the iconic movie star legend Godzilla.  Now I know that over the many years Godzilla’s roar has changed.  From his vary first appearance in 1954.  To the last film he stared in recently in 2014.  Godzilla’s roar is like any movie stars signature move.  They are always looking to improve upon to old and re-create themselves.

Godzilla’s original 1954 roar was created by composer Akira Ifukube; He dragged a resin-coated leather glove along the loosened strings of a double bass. Now I have to be thinking.  What in the world would make someone think of that?  But in the long run of things as Godzilla’s fame became world known.  Anyone who has seen or even heard of Godzilla at the time could tell you they could recognize him just by his roar.

Now jumping to the year 1998.  Many years after the first roar came out.  There are new variations of the roar.  But now in 1998 we are more technologically advanced.  I wasn't even in high school when this movie came around so at the time this was pretty neat stuff.  But listening to his roars over repeatedly.  I keep coming to the feeling that all his roars come from a mixture of other animals and maybe a small hint of previous Godzilla roars.

Moving forward to the latest Godzilla Movie released in 2014. Directed by Gareth Edwards.  Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl were the new sound designers tasked with coming up with a new Godzilla roar.  It is quite funny they didn’t clue in Gareth until after the movie was released to what had gone into the making of the roar.  After searching many sites for the answers to this question.  I keep coming up short.  Until the other day, I watched the behind the scenes for the movie Godzilla.  Lets just say they didn’t give you all the dirty details but a shoe and an instrument were used.  But the Godzilla roar is being kept an industry secret for now.  So I leave you with the clip of the newest 2014 version of Godzilla’s roar.  Tell me what you think makes up the roar.

Soundtrack for the film Birdman

Hello all and welcome to my first blog post.  My name is JP and this is JPAudio by design.  Today I want to talk about a movie that I just recently watched called Birdman.  You know the one movie with Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis and Emma Stone. 

I watch a lot of movies, mostly ones released on Netflix and every great while I will go to a movie theater for a big picture.  I want to start this blog off by pointing something out in the film that has never been really done before and turned out to be pretty phenomenal and that is the drum soundtrack.

For example when Michael Keaton’s character is upset or angry you hear a wide assortment of drums playing in the scenes he is in.  This isn’t quote unquote something that the character hears.  There are two scenes in which you see a drummer just playing a jam. To me the actors don’t see the drummer yet the drummer is playing the emotions of Keaton’s character.  Usually drums are used to heighten emotions in films.  Like leading you up to something.  But in this whole movie it’s drums and percussion.  To be honest I don’t think there are any other instruments in the whole film.

So the Director Alejandro G.Inarritu, and Sound designer Martin Hernandez got together and hired on a Jazz drummer named Antonio Sanchez who is also a Grammy award winner. According to Sanchez this type of drumming for film has never been done and he was up for the challenge.  At first Sanchez had to read the script and get an idea of how the movie would play out.  This is what you call your test stages of the soundtrack.  Once the movie was recorded Sanchez could see a better picture and was able to perform some amazing works or art. 

I would recommend this film to a friend to watch.  Not just for the amazing drum and percussion works.  But for the over all film in general.  It has been a while since the soundtrack of a film has impressed me.  Normally the sound design and Foley of any film is what I normally stick to.  But I feel that this was an amazing feat and hopefully you will agree with me or see the film for yourself.