Sound design

David Kalat

Fukabe also created the sound of Godzilla's roar among many sound effects that he tackled as extensions of the musical score. Concerned that the roar should be organic and natural without sounding like any living animal, he created the sound by taking a contrabass, one of the lowest pitched musical instruments, loosening its strings to drop the pitch even more, rubbing the strings with a leather glove to get the basic sound, and applying an echo to that recording played back at a slower speed.

1:20:16 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

When Ifukube requested access to the instrument for use in creating the monster roar, he had not previously had any opportunity to practice the sound effect. His finely tuned sensitivity to the sounds of objects and instruments allowed him to deduce in advance what lesser musicians could only learn by trial and error. Apparently, the filmmakers began to realize what an asset they had in Ifukube, and this sequence was amended during production to take advantage of that.

1:20:45 · jump to transcript →

David Kalat

He complained that he had to make do with a smaller orchestra than he was used to in his classical works. And to show how chintzy the whole thing was, he directed the musicians while the Foley artists recorded the film's sound effects simultaneously on the same track. The movie studios pinched pennies like nobody's business, even on a project as unprecedentedly expensive as this. The final budget is said to have been 62 million yen.

1:22:13 · jump to transcript →

Note that we will hear only the crickets and Antoine's footfalls during his run, so we can deduce that they have been added to the soundtrack by Foley artists in post-production. Live sound would give us the engine noise of the truck on which the camera is mounted, so Truffaut is using his art to conceal itself here. The upcoming continuous shot of Antoine running lasts one minute and 21 seconds, making it the longest single shot in the film.

1:36:03 · jump to transcript →