THE BACKLOT
Special Feature
In collaboration with Click Communications and
Disney/Pixar, From Script To DVD is proud to present an interview with
sound designer, Ben Burtt. There isn't much more to say to say about
Burtt than what movie fans already know. Burtt is the man behind the
scenes who created the sound effects and sound design for the "Star
Wars" and "Indiana Jones" films. His sounds are famous. The whir of a
light saber, or the explosive crack from Indy's whip are embedded in our
minds.
Burtt is also the talented voice behind some of R2-D2's beeps. He came
back to the world of fantasy robots to provide the voice for "Wall-E,"
Pixar's latest animated feature.
In time for the November 18th DVD and Blu-ray release, Burtt sat down to
discuss his work on "Wall-E."
QUESTION: You had just finished a stint on "Star Wars"
("Revenge of the Sith" in 2005) when you were offered Wall-E and I
imagine the last thing you wanted to work on was robots?
BEN BURTT: That is absolutely true. Creating the
illusion of voices is the hardest task. It is hard to fool voices. When
Andrew pitched this idea and I realized it was all robot voices. At
first I thought I wasn't sure I had anything left in me. Have I got a
new idea? Fortunately it was a very different set of characters. The
idea always is to create the sense of a soul with the character with
sound. You are given sounds or a few words and the aim is to create the
feeling that these are talking machines. You could have imposed a human
voice on to the robots and audiences would have accepted that. But with
Wall-E it was important to give the sound an aspect of being a machine.
So I went about that task.
My assignment was to create voices for the characters and audition
them to Andrew (Stanton, director). He had about 10 minutes of the
opening of the movie with sketches and storyboards and said it was a
little peek of what he was trying to get. I was there from the
beginning, which is the best thing. I am sure that when I started that
they did not know that they were going to make his film. They were still
having trials and one of the hurdles to jump was to get the voices.
QUESTION: What was your working process like on
"Wall-E?"
BEN BURTT: A typical day, I work alone. I would be in a
sound room with my recording gear and mixing consoles, speakers and a
screen so that I can project images if I want to. And I really just
start improvising. I work two different ways; one is that I have a
keyboard and I can put sound effects on that and I can play things. This
is how I experiment. I discover a combination and that gives me
something to work on. If I need human input, then I can record myself or
I can bring in a Pixar employee because they are readily available and
free (smiles) for scratch voices. That is kind of what happened with
"Wall-E." I was just using my own voice as a trial. I was not supposed
to be the voice. Once we got a voice that we liked, Andrew realized that
it would be pretty hard to go back and start over with a different human
voice. So we stuck with it.
I auditioned for Andrew many concepts for "Wall-E." Some were sound
effects because initially we did not know whether he would talk or he
might just whistle like R2-D2. I think the first version of Wall-E that
I did was pretty much like an R2-D2 type of character. It was almost
with electronic tones. Every time I pitched Andrew an audition, he would
pick two or three things out that he liked. So I began to make a little
list. And then I built up a sort of favorites list. When Andrew first
showed me the maybe 10 minutes or so of the storyboards cut together,
and the opening of the movie, it had some music and some sound effects
in it. That was kind of a way of enticing me into understanding the
project. The vocal in that (opening) song appealed to me in a way that I
sort of connected with the Wall-E character. There’s a feeling about
that, so to some extent maybe the pitch of the voice started out that
way with that kind of innocent feeling.
As I’ve said, we went through lots of experiments trying Wall-E just as
motor sounds only. Some were beeps and whistles, a little bit more in
the R2 realm. Although we extracted bits from all of those experiments,
when it came down to some of the more expressive vocals it was a little
bit in that tone from that singing voice. I’m not sure why. There was
obviously something very charming and appealing about that song. I
couldn’t quite pin it down.
I have always felt that the best way to get a robot voice is to have a
human element & an electronic element and blend the two. So I worked out
a circuit where I started with my voice and broke that down in the
computer and then re-synthesized it. And the voice of EVE was done in a
similar way. We used a woman at Pixar who was named Elissa Knight. We
started using her as a scratch track and once again, just like with me,
once I ran it through the laborious computer process, we got results
that we liked and we felt we should keep it. For one sound I had heard a
generator in a John Wayne movie called "Island In The Sky." It was a
generator they cranked and I thought I had to get one of those. I got
one on e-Bay that had not been unpacked since 1950. There are the
sophisticated electronic things I do, and like the generator, there are
things like the old days of radio when you used props.
QUESTION: What has been the most unusual prop you used?
BEN BURTT: Apart from the generator you could name
something that is a household item and it is probably in the film. There
is an electronic toothbrush in there.
QUESTION: Legend has it that you use everything that
comes into your life as part of the sounds you create, even your wife’s
pregnancy. Is this true?
BEN BURTT: I’ve always found, when you’re trying to
create illusions with sound, especially in a science fiction or fantasy
movie, that pulling sounds from the world around us is a great way to
cement that illusion. You can go out and record an elevator in George
Lucas’s house or something, and it will have that motor sound. It will
be an elevator and you might associate it with that, but if you use it
in a movie people will believe it’s a force field or maybe it’s the
sound of a spaceship door opening.
The story about my wife was on "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" (1978).
We went to listen to a sonogram of the child. [My daughter Alice, who’s
now grown up, and has her own child.] It was this great, throbbing
sound, and at that time I was looking for the sound of an alien pod
germinating and it sounded exactly like the alien pod germinating, so
why not? But it did work, because it was a heartbeat and it was
something from the womb and it was about these alien characters coming
alive and being born. So there was probably some connection there that
worked emotionally since we all were in the womb at one time. It’s
forging those connections between familiar sound and illusionary sound
that I think that sound designers have put in these movies.
QUESTION: Were you conscious of the environmental
issues that are in "Wall-E" when you were working on the film?
BEN BURTT: Not really; only the way the story was
expressed. This came out as the film grew and took on its details. I
accepted from the start the premise of the story. Like Andrew was
saying, science fiction rarely starts with a happy village. You start
out with this lonely robot in a toxic wasteland.
I suppose my first concerns w what does a toxic wasteland sound like?
You can’t smell it. It’s not Smell-O-Vision, so we can’t do it that way.
But that agenda was not really in the forefront. I accepted it as the
setting of the story. Obviously as we see this reaction to the film
coming at this time, you see it as an echo, a coincidence of good
timing. Often issues that are in films that are there for a legitimate
reason come at a time when the film gets its attention. It’s one of
those fortuitous moments now. That element gives you a point of
discussion and gives you that much more value, which to us as
entertainers, that’s fantastic. It gives us an added dimension.
QUESTION: How proud are you of "Wall-E?"
BEN BURTT: I am most proud when I see that people get
it! When people come and say it’s a masterpiece, it’s hard to think
about those reactions. I’m very proud of it all. I see it as a great
opportunity. Most sound people don’t get the assignment to create worlds
of sound and get freedom to try a lot of things. Most sound work in
films is done very quickly and at the end of the schedule where it’s
just jammed together. You always wish that you had more sympathy. I’ve
been on this film for three years, so the work was being embedded right
from the beginning. Sometimes we would do some sounds and then do an
animation test to try those sounds out. Those kinds of opportunities are
great. So of course I’m very proud of that. What film gives you a chance
to do sound effects as well as key voices in the film?
Maybe the only other big assignment would be to do a movie with no music
and see where you could go. I love the music, of course. What you do as
a sound designer is something like doing music. You’re creating sounds
especially in a film like this, and you're thinking what part of the
story can those sounds play emotionally. Maybe they’re there to support
credibility and to make these things seem real. That’s important, but
it’s also great when you’re on an assignment and your director asks you
for a motor that sounds cute, or wants more pathos in that servo. Those
are not the questions you usually get when you’re rushing to get sound
effects put in the movie.
QUESTION: What is your favorite scene?
BEN BURTT: I really love the scene where they’re out in
space together with the fire extinguisher. I think it’s the lyrical
nature of that calm in the middle of the storm. That moment there’s
something about putting those two characters out there dancing in space
that really takes me back to "Peter Pan" when I was a kid. I love that
film, I think I was five years old when I saw it. I made my mother take
me two or three times in one week, which was unheard of in those days.
It’s that wonderful ability to be transported to a wonderful place where
you feel warm and completely secure. Where it occurs in the movie it
feels that way to me. It’s great.
Special thanks to Click Communications and Disney/Pixar
Photos: © 2008 Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved.
Introduction written by William Kallay