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It’s been just over two years since “Godzilla Minus One” collected the Oscar in visual effects. Writer, director and VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki became the first helmer to receive a VFX trophy since Stanley Kubrick
for 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Reflecting on that historic night, Yamazaki, speaking through a translator, said, “It was just such a shock to us. I never thought that would happen in a million years because here we are on the other side of the planet making movies for our domestic market.” He continued, “That people in Hollywood even saw the movie, let alone give it a nomination and responded to that, shows how open-minded the Academy is to different types of films.” He said the win opened up “doors, options and possibilities for my career.”
One of those doors opening is “Godzilla Minus Zero.” Now in theaters, the sequel picks up in 1949, two years after the tumultuous events of “Godzilla Minus One,” and continues the story of the Shikishima family as they face “an all-new calamity.”
It is the 38th film in the Godzilla franchise and the 34th produced by Toho, the Japanese entertainment company that originally created the franchise. Yamazaki returns to both the director’s chair and as VFX supervisor. The sequel stars Kamiki Ryunosuke and Hamabe Minami and marks the first time a Japanese feature has been shot for Imax screens.
Yamazaki discussed the film and why bringing one of his favorite kaiju, King Ghidorah, to the big screen in this installment fulfills a childhood dream.
How did you balance telling this story with the biggest, loudest action sequences, but at the core, keep it deeply emotional?
I wanted to make sure that what’s happening on the human layer and what was happening on the kaiju and Godzilla layer were not separate from each other. It was important that the actions taken by humans affect the actions that the kaiju take, and vice versa. How the kaiju responds then causes the humans to act in a certain way. So the two are intertwined. It was important for the engagement and the immersion that all aspects of the story are affecting each other.
How did you come up with the title ‘Godzilla Minus Zero,’ and what does “zero” mean in the context of this film?
Zero represents this idea of neutrality. Our characters have an ordinary life, which, given the period and what’s happening in the film, is hard to attain. After “Godzilla Minus One,” I felt that this family attained that only to be faced with a new tragedy that’s pulling all of these humans apart from each other.
In certain disciplines of math, there is a difference between putting the negative sign in front of zero and what it represents is this idea of approaching zero. That’s exactly what the characters in this film are doing. They’re trying to claw their way back to what feels neutral — an ordinary life — after being thrown into this massive tragedy.
There are so many great sequences in the film. One key moment is when Godzilla emerges for the first time and rises out of the water as the seaplane is taking off. I read that it took 2 billion water particle visual effects shots. Can you discuss what it took from page to screen to pull that off?
The screenplay says something along the lines of “Godzilla emerges from the ocean and chases the seaplane.” But I also do the storyboarding for the film myself. When I was trying to compose the shot, I opted for a long-lens type of visual effect shot because Godzilla in this film is 50.1 meters tall (164 feet). If you line up the different Godzilla movies, Godzilla is on the smaller side. By compressing the depth of field with a long lens, we could create the illusion of Godzilla’s size.
The seaplane is trying to take off, headed toward the camera. So there’s a lot of forward movement. We get to see the waves behind the seaplane, and the waves are Godzilla emerging from the ocean, trying to mount the plane. If it does, it’s over for everyone. The long lens certainly helped create and amplify that drama.
The shot turned out even better than I had imagined thanks to the wonderful team that we have doing VFX. This particular scene was important to me because it’s the first time we see a full frontal view of Godzilla emerging from the ocean. It took a lot of time to render all those particles. It was important that we spent a lot of our resources, time, and rendering power on this shot because of how crucial it is for the audience to feel that threat.
King Ghidorah is a big part of the Godzilla lore, and it was fantastic seeing your vision of this character. What was it like for you to bring this character to life in your film?
When Ghidorah made its silver screen debut in “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster,” it was the first kaiju to appear in Matsumoto City, the same city where I was born and raised. I was very excited to go to the movie theater and see Ghidorah smash up my hometown. But when I got to the theater and saw the film, Ghidorah flies over Matsumoto Castle, and that was it. So I was disappointed.
With “Godzilla Minus One,” I was able to make the movie I wanted to see as a child. King Ghidorah appears in Matsumoto City, which is the same city where I set that scene, and it smashes it up. It’s really a dream come true for me. At the same time, I really love King Ghidorah as a kaiju because the design is amazing.
There’s an emotional sequence with the young child Akiko crying that involves her parents. What was it like shooting that and getting the actress to cry for so long in the way that she did?
We shot “Godzilla Minus One,” and Akiko (Sae Nagatani) was 2 years old. Every time she was about to cry and get cranky, that’s when we would run in with the cameras and the actors and begin shooting. She’s 5 years old now, and if we explain scenes, she has a very good understanding of what we are trying to do and gives us the type of reactions we’re looking for. Without too much explanation on my part, she was able to give us the performance. It felt very authentic.
Given you did all the storyboards, what was the most satisfying scene or sequence for you to pull off?
You see it in the trailer: there’s a mother and a baby in the house, and they’ve been levitated by Ghidorah’s gravity beam, and then they fall. This shot came out brilliantly. At first, I was struggling, trying to figure out how we would shoot this. We built the set, and this piece had a little bit of a tilt to it. We used drones to shoot around it, so we had our visuals, which we fleshed out with VFX. It’s a very scary and violent scene, and it tells us a lot about King Ghidorah’s power. It also serves as an indirect expression of how much terror and fear it can incite within people.
Do you have another Godzilla movie in you?
Let’s all stay excited for the third installment of this franchise …
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
