All Ears On Wall-E

One of the most important aspect of Wall-E is the sound, especially during the first half of the movie where there is hardly any dialog. The person responsible for making all of the sound for the movie is Ben Burtt, who already has a legendary history in sound production in some of the most important and memorable movies in history. This news item highlights his contribution to Wall-E and the movies.

That's just a day in the life of the pioneering sound designer, who went on similar field trips when he came up with Darth Vader's breathing in "Star Wars," the Indiana Jones whip in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and a variety of other iconic sounds now embedded in cinema history. After more than 30 years in the business and four Academy Awards, he found his largest challenge yet in "WALL-E," which features almost no dialogue in the first half of the movie. The story about a robot who finds love on an abandoned, polluted Earth used 2,500 new sound files - compared with the 700 to 1,000 for the typical "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones" movie.

I love reading articles like this. We tend to be ignorant at how untrivial many of these things are that tend to be in the background, yet became signatures for a particular movie. It is nice to be aware of how the work of some of these men and women played a big role in these movies.

Zz.