Episode 124Dolby Creator Talks

Revisiting Jurassic Park’s Groundbreaking Sound Design with Gary Rydstrom

June 2, 2022

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Legendary sound designer and re-recording mixer Gary Rydstrom joins us once again, this time to discuss his groundbreaking work on Steven Spielberg's classic film, "Jurassic Park" (1993), ahead of the upcoming premiere of the final film in the franchise — "Jurassic World: Dominion." Amazingly, even nearly 30 years later, Rydstrom's work on the original film still holds up incredibly well.

Rydstrom and his team recorded dozens of animals and layered those tracks together to create the unforgettable sounds of the dinosaurs, as showcased in the behind-the-scenes documentary: "The Making of 'Jurassic Park,'" directed by John Schultz, which we feature in today's episode:

"Jurassic World: Dominion" will be available in theaters on June 10th in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®, where available.

I have a theory that — especially in the early days of computer graphics — sound needed to be real. Even more so, like real sounds. Synthesized sounds are hard to do [and] not so interesting, usually. So I knew we needed to be real. But in this case, it has to ground visuals that you can't believe, right? So the sound had to be organic and real. So the first thing I did is record as many animals as I could.

Gary Rydstrom, Sound Designer and Re-recording Mixer, "Jurassic Park" (1993)

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