Gary Rydstrom

Gary Rydstrom is a seven-time Gary RydstromAcademy Award winning sound designer. Rydstrom was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959. In 1981, he graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Two years later, he was hired at Skywalker Sound where he worked with Ben Burtt, the sound designer for both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. For his first project, Rydstrom was a sound technician for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In 1991, Rydstrom won an Academy Award for his original sound effects for the film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In 1993, Rydstrom was tasked to create sounds for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. He and his team recorded numerous types of animals and mixed the sounds together in order to create realistic sounds for the dinosaurs in the film. He has since worked on numerous film projects. In 2006, Rydstrom directed his first film. It was a Pixar animated short called Lifted. For this, he was nominated for his fourteenth Academy Award. Currently, he is also the English language director for the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli. Rydstrom has won a Motion Picture Sound Editors lifetime achievement award for his work.

Selected Filmography

  • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
  • Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985)
  • Spaceballs (1987)
  • Willow (1988)
  • Ghostbusters II (1989)
  • Backdraft (1991)
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
  • Jurassic Park (1993)
  • Toy Story (1995)
  • Mission Impossible (1996)
  • The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
  • Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  • X-Men (2000)
  • Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones (2002)
  • Lifted (2006)
  • Super 8 (2011)
  • The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
  • Lincoln (2012)