Benjamin "Ben" Burtt, Jr.
(born July 12, 1948) is a four-time Academy Award-winning American
sound designer for
many famous and noteworthy films, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and WALL-E, as well as a film director, screenwriter, editor
and voice actor. He is most
notable for creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the
Star Wars films, including the
"voice" of
R2-D2, the
lightsaber hum, and the heavy-breathing sound of
Darth Vader.
Career
Early
Burtt
earned a college degree in Physics from
Allegheny
College
. In 1970, he won the National Student Film
Festival with a war movie called
Yankee Squadron, reputedly
after following exposure to classic aviation drama through making
an amateur film at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome
, under guidance from its founder, Cole Palen. For his work on the
special effects film Genesis he won a scholarship to the
University of
Southern California
, where he earned a Master's Degree in Film Production.
Sound Design
Burtt pioneered modern sound design, especially in the science
fiction and fantasy genres. Before his work in
Star Wars Episode IV: A New
Hope, science fiction movies tended to use
electronic-sounding effects for futuristic devices. Burtt sought a
more natural sound, blending in "found sounds" to create the
effects. The lightsaber hum, for instance, was derived from a film
projector idling combined with feedback from a broken television
set, and the blaster effect started with the sound acquired from
hitting a guide wire on a radio tower with a wrench.
He is personally responsible for some of the sounds heard in the
movies. In the
Star Wars series,
part of
R2-D2's beeps and whistles are Burtt's
vocalizations, also made using an ARP 2600 synthesizer, as are some
of the squawks made by the tiny
holographic
monsters on the
Millennium Falcon,
and in
Star Wars Episode
III: Revenge of the Sith he provides the voice for
Invisible Hand captain
Lushros
Dofine. The heavy-breathing of
Darth
Vader was created by recording his own breathing in an old
Dacor scuba
regulator. Burtt has also used a recording of his wife, who at
the time was suffering from a minor cold and was sleeping in bed,
for the film
E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial. In 2008, Burtt created the "voice" of
the title character and many other robots in
Pixar's film
WALL-E,
about a lonely garbage compacting robot. Additionally, he is
responsible for the sound effects in
Indiana Jones
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and recently
completed work on
Star
Trek.
Burtt has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed "the
Wilhelm scream" in many of the movies
he's worked on. Taken from a character named "Wilhelm" in the film
The Charge at Feather
River, the sound can be heard in countless films: for
instance, in
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when a
stormtrooper falls into a
chasm and in
Raiders of the Lost Ark when a
Nazi soldier falls off the back of a moving
car.
One of Burtt's more subtle, but highly effective sound effects is
the "audio black hole." In Attack of the Clones, Burtt's use of the
audio black hole involved the insertion of a short interval of
absolute silence in the audio track, just prior to the detonation
of "seismic charges" fired at the escaping Jedi spaceship. The
effect of this second or less of silence is to accentuate the
resulting explosion in the mind of the listener. Burtt recalled the
source of this idea as follows: "I think back to where that idea
might have come to me...I remember in filmschool a talk I had with
an old retired sound editor who said they used to leave a few
frames of silence in the track just before a big explosion. In
those days they would 'paint' out the optical sound with ink. Then
I thought of the airlock entry sequence in 2001. I guess the seeds
were there for me to nourish when it came to the seismic
charges."
Burtt was among the
golden ears that
critically reviewed the various
audio
compression systems that were proposed for the
ATSC digital
television system.
A tongue-in-cheek homage to Ben Burtt appears in the 1997
Activision PC game
Zork: Grand Inquisitor - the
spell 'Beburtt', which 'creates
the illusion of inclement weather', plays dramatic thunderclap and
rainfall sounds when cast.
Director, Writer & Editor
Burtt directed several
IMAX documentary films, including
Blue Planet,
Destiny in Space, and the
Oscar-nominated
Special Effects: Anything
Can Happen. He edited the entire
Star Wars
prequel trilogy, and
several episodes of "
The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles". Burtt is also credited as the writer of
several episodes of the 1980s
Star Wars-based cartoon,
"
Droids".
He makes a cameo appearance in two of the
Star Wars films as an extra. He appeared as
Colonel Dyer in
Star Wars Episode VI:
Return of the Jedi (the Imperial officer who yells
"Freeze" before
Han Solo knocks him off a
balcony) and in
Star Wars Episode I: The
Phantom Menace as
Ebenn Q3 Baobab (appears in the
background near the end when
Padmé
Amidala congratulates
Palpatine).
Awards
- * Sound and Sound
Effects Editing in 1983 for Star Wars Episode VI:
Return of the Jedi
- * Sound Effects Editing in 1988 for Willow
- * Sound in 1989 for Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade
- * Documentary Short
Subject in 1996 for directing Special Effects: Anything
Can Happen
- * Sound Effects Editing in 1999 for Star Wars Episode I: The
Phantom Menace
- * Sound and Sound Effects Editing in 2008 for WALL-E
Honorary Awards
Burtt was
awarded the Doctor of Arts, honoris causa, by Allegheny College on May 9, 2004.
References
-
http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/old-rhinebeck-aerodrome/13739-rhinebeck-museum-trouble-354.html#post399478
-
http://trekmovie.com/2009/01/05/star-trek-post-production-complete-oscar-winner-ben-burtt-provided-sound-design/
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