Sound Design for Japanese Monster Movie "Gamera vs. Guiron" On The Road
The Challenge for this show was that it was still accounting for all the sound effects for a full length movie, over 450 sound effects, but we had to economize space for travel to take it “on the road” down to Eugene and possibly other future venues. Here, the design had to be done in reverse from when I usually consider sounds: normally if there would be a choice between verbally doing a sound effect or manipulating something for the same sound, I would choose manipulating something as it is more visually interesting, and (most of the time) you get a truer sound.
This time, however, we wanted to keep the number of props to a minimum, so for example instead of carting down a very large wind machine to create the wind sounds, it was replaced with a verbal wind. Doing this replaced a great number of props which would have taken up a lot of table space and cartage for the trip. Another bonus was that we eliminated need for grips to issue and manage props that were needed for the “big stage” version of "Gamera" back in November. We needed two grips to manage the full load for the bigger show, for this design we were able to eliminate the need for both.
In the end we were able to pare down the cartage of props to a couple of plastic totes and some odds and ends, which is pretty remarkable to cover over 400 sound effects for a full length movie! Normally it would take a couple of carloads. Choosing small props to use was also helpful to minimize the cartage.
Here’s the list of props used and the sounds they supplied; I’m not going to list the verbal sounds as it is not as entertaining to peruse. I find it interesting in looking over the list how few items are used for their literal counterpart, that is, shoes making the sound of shoes, or the dart gun for dart gun loading, cocking and firing. That is also probably due to the Sci-Fi nature of the show which calls for some alien things (couldn’t find a REAL space ship to make “space ship sounds, or a REAL laser pistol, darn it…)
FOLEY PROPS for GAMERA VS. GUIRON (Road Show)
Measuring cup + Straw + Water (Underwater bubbles)
