Ben Burtt

Ben Burtt is a famous American film editor, sound designer, voice actor, screen writer and film director. He was born as Benjamin Burtt Jr. on July 12, 1948 in Jamesville, New York Click to look into! >> Read More... in the United States of America. He completed his studies at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, with a major in Physics.

In the year 1970, he earned the National Student Film Festival as he did a war film entitled Yankee Squadron. He presented a timeless aviation drama by creating an amateur film in Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Red Hook, New York through the guidance of Cole Palen, the founder of the living aviation museum. He worked on the special effects of the film, Genesis and because of this, he got a scholarship at the University of Southern California in L.A. From there, he took a degree in Film Production. He is a pioneer of the modern sound design, specifically in the genre of both sci-fi and fantasy movies.

Prior to his work as a sound designer in the popular Star Wars Star Wars is a show of Mastiii, India’s most popul >> Read More... film in the year 1977, the sci-fi film tended to use electronic sounding effects for the modern devices. Ben thought of using a natural sound blended with found sounds to make effects. He is the one responsible for the sounds that we heard in a film. In Star Wars, the beeps and the whistles of R2-D2 (a robot) were Ben’s vocalizations. He is the lead editor of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in 2005 and his voice was used by Lushros Dofine. He recorded his own breathing through Dacor’s scuba regulator, for Darth Vader’s heavy-breathing scene in the film. He also recorded the sound from her wife while sleeping and having a minor cold and used it in the 1982 sci-fi film, E.T. the Extra –Terrestrial. Ben is responsible for the voice of the lead character and other robots in the computer-animated film, WALL-E and the sound effects in the sci-fi adventure film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. Ben is known for adding the Wilhelm scream sound effect in most of the films he did.

He was credited for naming it after the character named Wilhelm in the 1953 Western film, The Charge at Feather River. Since then, this sound was heard in over 300 films such as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Raiders of the Lost Ark. One of the exquisite and very effective sound effects that he did was the audio black hole, which he used in the Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He added a short interval of a complete silence in the audio track, before the explosion of the seismic charges that was fired at the fleeing Jedi spaceship. The short silence effect is to emphasize the resulting explosion in the listener’s mind. Ben was one of the golden ears that critically studied several audio compression systems suggested for the Advanced Televisions Systems Committee (ATSC 1.0) standards. He directed various IMAX documentary movies such as Blue Planet in 1990, Destiny in Space in 1994 and Special Effects: Anything Can Happen in 1996, which earned a nomination at the Oscar. He edited the complete prequel trilogy of Star Wars and some episodes of the American TV series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

He co-writes several episodes of the animated series, Star Wars: Droids. Ben also appeared in a cameo role in two Star Wars movies and played the character of Colonel Dyer in the epic soap opera, Return of the Jedi and as Ebenn Q3 Baobab in the 1999 space opera film, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He was awarded several accolades for his brilliant work in films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Best Sound Effects Editing), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Best Sound Effects Editing), Raiders of the Lost Ark (Special Achievement for Sound Effects Editing) and in Star Wars (Special Achievement for Sound Effects Editing). He also earned the Doctor of Arts, an honorary degree from the Allegheny College in 2004 and the Charles S. Swartz Award by the Hollywood Post Alliance.