Sound Man

Ben Burtt (born July 12, 1948) earned a college degree in Physics from Allegheny College.

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 has pioneered modern sound design, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Before his work, 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 he designed for the Star Wars movies, for instance, was derived from a film projector idling, combined with feedback from a broken television set, and the blaster effect (also from Star Wars), started with the sound acquired from hitting a guy wire on a radio tower with a wrench.

Burtt's memorable work has also included creating the "voice" of robot R2-D2, the heavy breathing sound of Darth Vader (by recording his own breathing in an old scuba regulator), and the speederbike chase sounds from Return of the Jedi. He has also worked on the sound effects for many other movies, including the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as well as all of the Indiana Jones films, including the most recent: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Burtt has also created the sound effects, and most of the robot "voices" (including that of the title character), for the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E.

Burtt has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed "The Wilhelm scream" into many of the movies that 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 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, when a Nazi soldier falls from a moving car.