Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt, Legendary foley FX and sound designer for Lucas Film. For Star Wars fans, he is the one that brought the movies to life with his sound design.
Foley FX artists are a completely under appreciated part of film-making. Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt is one of the many types of individuals who toil away on film projects with never any type of recognition for the tremendous dedication, creativity and craft that they bring to film-making. Ben Burtt is one such a person. Always the most talented people are often the most humble. He is no exception. We know these sounds as soon as we hear them, if it wasn’t for Ben, the world of Star Wars might never have sounded so great. This is an older interview, takes you back to Empire, but it s a good one to give you the sense of the man and his vision.
From wikipedia:
Benjamin “Ben” Burtt, Jr. (born July 12, 1948) is an American sound designer, film editor, director, screenwriter, and voice actor. He has worked as sound designer on various films, including the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), WALL-E (2008) and Star Trek (2009).
He is most notable for creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the “voice” of R2-D2, the lightsaber hum, the sound of the blaster guns, and the heavy-breathing sound of Darth Vader. Burtt is also known for “voicing” the title character, Wall-E, in the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E. He also created the robotic sound of Wall-E’s voice, along with all the other characters in WALL-E, and was the sound editor of the movie.
The winner of four Academy Awards (two of which are Special Achievement Academy Awards), he is the director of various documentary films. He is also the editor of the three films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
