Ben Burtt awarded The Charles S. Swartz Award.

"Another post and yet another introduction, this time a nice little piece by Matt Marks (an audio student at The Art Institute of Austin) on Ben Burtt and an award he was recently given.
Enjoy,
- Sam"

We all know Ben Burtt as the Golden Ear who created some of the worlds most recognized movie sounds – the Star Wars Lightsaber hum, R2-D2’s voice, Indiana Jones’ Whip, WALL-E’s vocabulary, and of course Darth Vader’s deep breathing. Because of his accomplishments within the sound world, Ben Burtt has received numerous awards including Special Achievement in Sound Editing Oscars® for “Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” – and on November 12^th, 2009 his legacy was honored once again when he received The Charles S. Swartz Award from the Hollywood Post Alliance.

“Star Trek” Director JJ Abrams presented the award, following a short presentation commemorating some of the iconic movies and sounds credited to Mr. Burtt. The acceptance speech itself is inspiring and full of advice - by the man of the hour himself. For anyone interested in Skywalker Sound, its roots, or just the legend that is Ben Burtt – this video is a must see:

Indy is Back!

Since there isn’t many news lately (and I was getting bored of only posting news anyway) I decided to take a look at some previous films.
Today it is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, the latest installment on the Indy series.

Ben Burtt, who did sound design for all the previous movies, tells about the process he followed to revisit that world of Indiana Jones once again.

Enjoy it!