Gary Rydstrom’s Genius Sound Design For The Dinos Of Jurassic Park: Mating Tortoises And More…

You may not know the names of the guys that design sounds for the movies you watch, but you definitely know their work. Like, what did Dinosaurs sound like? Gary Rydstrom had to make the sounds of them all including the Velociraptor and T-Rex and here's how he did it: tortoises, elephants and donkeys, oh MY!

Velociraptor: The scariest dinosaurs of the movie have tortoises to thank for their freaky barking sound (turtles make sounds?) but not just any tortoises... How bout mating ones?? And in case that wasn't enough, he threw in a male dolphin in heat as well!

T-Rex: The fearsome sounds of a Tyrannosaur growling was actually the sound of Gary's little Jack Russell Terrier as it was shaking it's head 'pretending' to kill his rope toy, but slowed WAY down.

But what of the T-Rex roar? This bone-chilling sound is actually the furthest from bone-chilling in real life. Try the trumpeting of a baby elephant (no, not even a lumbering adult) slowed down.

Brachiosaur: This one is also a much less intimidating sound in real life. Your multiple stories tall Dino is actually the sound of a baying donkey... once again slowed down to give the imaginary animal more weight.

It's amazing to me that it even occurs to these guys to try slowing down one sound to get another, like did Gary wake up one morning and just go, "Hey, I'm gonna go grab me some mating turtle sounds and slow em down for my freaky Raptor barking!!" It's also crazy how quickly we buy those sounds as being real (along with the images of course) because of course they are, but I'm not gonna run for my life from a baby elephant or a tiny terrier! Bravo to these guys, and we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Ben Burtt who created all of the sounds of the Star Wars universe like lightsabers and R2's beeps, the sounds of the Indiana Jones series (especially the punches!) and the squishy sounds of E.T. Meanwhile, back to those turtles...