Video from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

One of the most recent works of Ben Burtt: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a 2008 adventure film, fourth in the Indiana Jones franchise, created by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg.

“It started for me back in September [2007], when I went to L.A. and read the script in a secret room with a guard at the door,” he says with a chuckle during a break from mixing this summer’s Disney-Pixar spectacle, WALL-E. “They were still shooting at the time, and I hadn’t had a conversation with Steven yet. But I went through it, as I always would, making lists and noting questions and sort of deciding what are all the sounds I might need to make this movie? From the script, you can see there are going to be certain vehicles and certain weapons and locations, and you figure that for the Crystal Skulls themselves, you’ll need a lot of supernatural sounds like we did for the Ark or other things in the past. Then Richard [Hymns] and I were able to go down on four or five occasions and sit with Steven at the KEM flatbed in a traditional film editing room — as we would have done back on the earlier Indiana Jones films — go through the film and look at each scene and discuss what sounds were needed in greater detail, and get Steven’s ideas. Each time, I’d come back up here [to Skywalker Sound] armed with more specific marching orders as to what to do.”

“I knew from the beginning that we’d want to refer back again to some of the sounds we’d established in the earliest films because Indy still has a whip, he still has a gun, there are going to be fights and chases — though, of course, we wanted to do new things with those sounds, too. I always try to create a world of sound for each movie I work on. With this one, I knew we wanted to start by having the original library of sounds brought up to date because they really only existed on old quarter-inch tapes. Portions of them had been copied and digitized in a different manner over the years — some had gone to PCM and Betamax, or whatever we were using in the ’80s. But I didn’t trust those earlier generations, so I said, ‘Let’s go back and restore the whole collection.’” Burtt’s frequent sonic collaborator, Matt Wood, set up a work environment for Burtt’s 24-year-old son, Benny, to transfer the analog tapes to Pro Tools via a mint-condition Otari MX5050 and Apogee A/D converters. Everything was classified in a Sound Miner database so that the editors could easily get to any sound.

“My job was to design the sounds for Indy, and for all the work they did up here at Skywalker, I was able to follow through and give the editors all the spotting sheets and lay out the structure for the whole film — kind of like an architect would lay out the plans — and then I was able to sit with each editor in each premix and get what I wanted out of it. Then it was sent to L.A. for final mixing, so at that point my main contact was I had the ability to sit in on the mix over the Skylink box so I could go into a room and see and hear in real time what they were doing, and also had a video iChat link so I could talk to the editors on the stage, or with the mixers, or with Steven, and that worked really well. Obviously, it’s not quite as good as being there in person, but sometimes I’d go down to the mix on weekends, so in the end it was fine.”

You can coninue reading the full article about the movie at Mix Online; with notes of supervising sound editor Richard Hymns, and re-recording mixer / sound designer Chris Scarabosio.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at IMDB

Indiana Jones Official Website

I was waiting for this… For September I’m gonna make an special of Ben Burtt, one of the most renowed sound designers, and known to many as  “the father of the modern sound design”.

Bio (wiki)

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.

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.[1] 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.

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.

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 film school 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.”

Some Awards & Nominations

• Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Special Achievement Award (Academy) for Sound Editing – Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Special Achievement Award (Academy) for sound editing – Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound and Sound Effects Editing - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
• Academy Award Nomination for Sound Effects Editing – Willow
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary, Short Subjects - Special Effects: Anything Can Happen
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing – Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound and Sound Effects Editing – WALL-E
• Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing, Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film – WALL-E
• BAFTA Film Award for Best Sound – Star Wars

Featured Work

• Star Trek (2009) – Sound designer and Sound editor
• WALL-E (2008) – Character voice designer, Sound designer, Sound re-recording mixer and Supervising sound editor
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Munich (2005) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) – Sound designer and Supervising sound editor
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – Re-recording mixer Sound designer
• Howard the Duck (1986) – Sound effects editor and Sound re-recording mixer
• The Dream Is Alive (1985) – Sound designer
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – Re-recording mixer and Sound designer
• The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984) – Sound designer
• Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) – Sound designer and Sound re-recording mixer
• The Dark Crystal (1982) – Sound designer and Special sound effects
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – Sound designer
• Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – Sound designer and Supervising sound effects editor
• Star Wars (1977) – Sound designer, special dialogue and sound effects
• Death Race 2000 (1975) – Sound designer (uncredited)

Ben Burtt at IMDB
Ben Burtt at Wikipedia

AUDIO MEDIA MAGAZINE

• Interview with Sound Designer Ben Burtt about his work on “Indiana Jones’s” current outing, HERE.

MIX MAGAZINE

• Sound Supervisor Richard King talks up his work on “TDK”, HERE.
• Production Sound Mixer Mac Ruth breaks down a day in the life on the set of “HellBoy II, HERE.

CHUD.COM

• Not too in depth but still exciting to see a non-sound related film site describe their trip to the dub stage for next month’s, “Mummy 3″, HERE.

LONG OVER-DO UPDATE: Finally got around to rehosting my phone interview thanks to Matteo from USOproject.com for the reminder.

FSD.COM AUDIO INTERVIEW: BEN BURTT

UPDATE: If you like your interview’s visual and I know you do, Mix Magazine did the one below just for you.

Searching around for video about Ben’s work I came across this one that seemed appropriate.