Ben Burtt or Benjamin Burtt Jr. is an American film director, sound engineer, screenwriter and voice actor. As a sound engineer, he has worked on films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Alien (1982), WALL-E (2008) and Star Trek (2009).).
Biography
Burtt was born on July 12, 1948 in Jamesville, New York. Father is a professor of chemistry, mother is a child psychologist. Already in childhood he was fond of making films, but received his education at Allegheny College, Pennsylvania. In 1970 he received a master's degree in physics.
Early career
During his college years, Ben did not abandon his childhood love for making films. For one of its first war films, Yankee Squadron won first prize at the 1970 National Student Festival. In addition to military films, Bert also filmed classic aviation dramas using the Old Reinbeck Airfield and the Open Air Museum in Red Hook, New York. In this he was assisted by the founder of this museum, Cole Palen.
Subsequently, Bert won a grant and scholarship to study at the University of Southern California and received a second degree from it - a master of film production.
Creativity of a sound engineer
As a sound engineer, Ben was a pioneer in many genres of modern sound design, especially fiction and science fiction. In 1977, Bert began work on sound effects for the first Star Wars movie (now known as Episode IV A New Hope). He had to come up with electronic sound effects for many futuristic devices. Bart tried to make these sounds as natural as possible. For example, the sound of a lightsaber was derived from the sound of a movie projector idling, combined with the sound of a broken TV. The sound of a blaster shot was derived from the sound of a hammer hitting the radio tower.
Some of the sounds and whistles of the R2-D2 robot in the Star Wars series were vocalized using a sound synthesizer. We also got some screams from tiny holographic monsters on the Millennium Falcon spaceship. In Episode III. Revenge of the Sith Bert voiced the voice of Lushros Dauphin, the captain of the Invisible Cruiser. Darth Vader's panting sound was derived from a recording of Bert's own breathing being passed through an old faulty diving regulator.
One day in a photographic store, Ben met an elderly woman who had smoked heavy cigarettes all her life and, as a result, her voice became very low and hoarse. It was her voice that has been used to voice many aliens in Star Wars, robots in WALL-E and other Pixar films.
Subsequently, Bert did many sound effects for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Ben Bert is also famous for his sound effect, called "Wilhelm's cry". It can be heard in many films, starting with the picture "Charge by the River Pera". But Wilhelm's scream is best known in the Star Wars movie, when a stormtrooper falls into the abyss, and in the movie Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, when a Nazi soldier falls from a truck.
Bert's more complex sound effect is the "black hole". It was used in Attack of the Clones to include a short interval of absolute silence in the soundtrack of the movie just before the detonation of seismic charges fired at the escaping Jedi spaceship. This short (less than 1 second) pause of silence amplified the resulting explosion in the audience's mind.
In 1997, the creators of the game "Zork: The Grand Inquisitor" for personal computers, as a kind of tribute to Ben Bert, introduced the spell "Bebert", which creates a sound illusion of inclement weather: the sounds of rain and thunder rolls appear.
A career as a director, writer and editor
Bert has directed several IMAX documentaries, of which The Blue Planet, The Fate of Space, Anything Can Happen and Oscar-nominated Special Effects are the most famous. He was the editor of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
In addition, Ben Burt independently wrote and directed several episodes in The Chronicle of Young Indiana Jones, as well as several animated episodes based on the Star Wars of the 1980s.
Actor's career
Bert has several cameo roles in Star Wars. In Return of the Jedi, he plays Colonel Dyer, an Imperial officer who tries to stop Han Solo before he knocks him off a balcony. When Bert's character falls, the actor emits the famous Wilhelm scream, which he himself once invented.
In Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Bart plays a character named Boabob Eben Q3, who appears in the background towards the end when Padmé Amidala congratulates Palpatine.
Special achievements
Ben Bert has received four Academy Awards:
- For the best sound effects in the film "Alien" (1982).
- Best Sound Effects in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
- Outstanding Achievement in Sound Effects in Star Wars (1977).
- Outstanding Achievement in Sound Effects in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
Ben has also been nominated for an Academy Award six times:
- Best Sound and Sound Effects in Return of the Jedi (1983);
- Best Sound Effects in Willow (1988);
- Best Sound in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989);
- Best Documentary Short Anything Can Happen (1996);
- for the best sound effects in the film "Star Wars. Episode I - The Phantom Menace "(1999);
- for the best mixing and sound editing in the film "WALL-E" (2008).
Also in 2008, Bert received the Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting in a Feature Direction for WALL-E (2008).
In 2004, Ben Burt became an Honorary Doctor of Arts from Allegheny College, Pennsylvania.
The Hollywood Post Alliance has awarded Ben Burt the Charles S. Schwartz Award for Outstanding Contribution to Post Production.
