We EQ’d a Zoo: How ‘Frankenstein’ Used Animal Effects to Create the Sound of Its Creature

If the philosophy of Guillermo del Toro‘s take on “Frankenstein” can be summed up in one line, it comes at the point in del Toro‘s film where Jacob Elordi’s creature says to his creator, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), “I’m not something, I’m someone.” Long before the line was enshrined as a tag line on Netflix billboards and posters promoting “Frankenstein,” the film’s makers looked to it as a guiding principle for their work.

That’s particularly true of the Academy Award-nominated sound team that was tasked with bringing Frankenstein’s creature — not monster in del Toro’s empathetic vision — to life. “We plotted a path dramatically through the movie, where he would go from being the something that we meet at the beginning and turn into someone at the end,” supervising sound editor Nathan Robitaille told IndieWire.

That meant blending Elordi’s voice (both from production sound and extensive ADR work) with various animal noises and other sounds in a carefully calibrated balance that shifted throughout the film to subtly chart the creature’s developing humanity. Working out of Sound Dogs in Toronto, Robitaille collaborated with Company 3 re-recording mixer Christian Cooke to create layer upon layer of tracks that used sound as a storytelling and character-building tool

When we first meet the creature, he’s presented essentially as Victor Frankenstein sees him, as an animalistic being. Appropriately, the “Frankenstein” sound team was at their most aggressive in these early moments. “In the beginning, we don’t know who this is or where it came from,” Cooke said. “That gave us more leeway to add sound effects layers to his exertions. But as we realize who he is, we dial those sounds down because we want his own persona to come through, as opposed to embellishing it.”

The creature’s journey from animal to man is more subtle than a straightforward erasure of the animal sounds, as Robitaille wanted the shift to feel natural and subliminal. “Chris had everything under a fader so he could creep the creature sounds in when he wanted to without it becoming really noticeable,” Robitaille said. “It would have been inelegant if he were just a normal man all the time and then the monster came out every time he roared.”

Indeed, even though Elordi sounds more human as the film progresses, del Toro told the sound department he wanted the actor’s voice to have a low growl in his chest for the duration of the movie. To achieve that, supervising sound editor Nelson Ferreira recorded Elordi’s ADR at a high resolution of 96K to enable Robitaille to push and distort the voice without adding artifacts. “We were hesitant to alter Jacob’s voice too much because it’s really rich and full,” Robitaille said. “He had a lot to offer before we did anything, so we wanted to stay hands-off for as much of the movie as possible.”

‘Frankenstein’©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection

Using the high-res ADR and production sound mixer Greg Chapman’s recordings of Elordi’s performance, Robitaille gave Cooke and re-recording mixer Brad Zoern two different subsonic booster tracks to utilize. “ One was just a straight octave down pitch of Jacob’s voice that was then run through a low-end plug-in, just to give it that subsonic synthesis,” Robitaille said, noting that he also created a booster track consisting of a number of animal roars tailored to Elordi’s performance. “That way Chris always had two options for where he was going to reach for those subsonic frequencies, just to add a bit of warmth where he felt like it was necessary.”

Many of the animal sounds that blended together to form the creature’s sound were chosen because of how they came across as extensions of Elordi’s natural speaking voice. “Surprisingly, horses worked really well,” Robitaille said. “There was a lot of horse vocalization in the supplementary layers. There was also a rack of animal sweeteners: snarls at the end of a rolled ‘r,’ or a whimper we’d put in under a flinch.” Although the animals were selected for their complementary qualities in relation to Elordi’s voice, the range of species utilized was broad enough to include everything from raccoons to a rhinoceros.

“We threw the whole zoo at him,” Robitaille said, reiterating that at the end of the day, preserving and showcasing Elordi’s performance was the primary goal. “Chris did a brilliant job of tapering it back and tucking the sounds in to make sure that Jacob was there more than anything else, because his performance was breathtaking. And Jacob was an absolute soldier through the whole process. He traveled the world carrying his prosthetic teeth with him for all the last-minute ADR sessions he had with Nelson. The raw ingredients they created were incredible, and we just hung a lot of embellishment on it.”