Video: 'Hearing Star Wars: The Force Awakens'

By: Benjamin Hart

While Star Wars has also been beloved for its stunning visuals, what we see on screen would not have near the impact if it wasn't for what we hear. Sound design is key in any film, but Star Wars takes it to a whole other level with incredibly iconic sounds such as the Lightsabers, blasters, Droids, aliens ships, and much more. Legendary sound designer Ben Burtt created many of those sounds during the production of A New Hope in the mid-1970's and subsequently went on to work on all six of the original Star Wars films.

Now, in the wake of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we have a whole new collection of sounds to enjoy, as well as some old favorites. Burtt returned to work on the seventh installment in the saga alongside supervising sound editors Matthew Wood and David Acord. The Force Awakens is full of interesting sounds, some you've heard before, like the the scream of TIE Fighters, the firing of Han Solo's DL-44 Blaster and Chewbacca roars. The film also introduced a plethora of new sounds, including BB-8's voice, the sizzle of Kylo Ren's Lightsaber, and the terrifying roars of the Rathtars.

A new supercut video created Zackery Ramos-Taylor brings attention the incredible sound design of The Force Awakens, quickly cycling through an assortment of sounds. Everything from Han Solo punching a Kanjiklub member to Starkiller base firing is in there. Be sure to watch, and listen, below:

Hearing Star Wars: The Force Awakens from Zackery Ramos-Taylor on Vimeo.

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Matthew Wood & David Acord Discuss The Sounds Of 'The Force Awakens' With Nerdist

By: Benjamin Hart

The sound designers behind Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens have been getting a lot of much deserved attention recently through interviews and even awards. Supervising sound editors Matthew Wood and David Acord are widely know for their work in the Star Wars saga and deserve much credit for not only mixing in classic sounds but also creating new ones, even providing their own voices in many instances. Just recently Wood and Acord spoke with Nerdist about the sound design of The Force Awakens. They cover a variety of sounds and how they created them, including Kylo Ren's Lightsaber, Teedo, the Rathtars, and further discussed the various voices in the film, which included David Acord's now infamous portrayal of FN-2199(Traitor!!). You can check out a few excerpts from the extensive interview below:

Nerdist: Star Wars is, more than any other film, I think, known for its unique sound. Can you talk about some of the new sounds you designed for The Force Awakens?

David Acord: I think the most obvious new sound effect in the movie is Kylo’s lightsaber. We were attempting, along with his Force power effect, to create sound effects that would mimic his persona, which is this raw power he has that’s not quite formed. He’s not well trained, but he’s extremely powerful. It’s a little wild and dangerous. The sword itself, the look of the sword has the extra darts coming out the side, and it’s really sparky and wavery and it looks a little homemade. The idea of the sound was to match that–something that sounds like raw energy, just pure power, very brutal and kind of wild and dangerous sounding.

The Force sound to go along with Kylo had that deep, raw, animalistic sound. It’s a chunky, raw growl that’s supposed to imitate the Force power he wields, which is a little more raw versus Rey’s Force power , which tends to be—in the few moments when she’s using the Force, hers is a little more smooth and rhythmic and like a heartbeat. That’s the contrast between the two.

Nerdist: Since you do contribute to rounding out and developing characters’ personalities with your work, at what point in the story process does your work start?

David Acord: Once you read the script and come on board, early on there’s some obvious pieces [you know] you’re going to need to tackle. I mentioned the sword, there’s some new spaceships, some ambiances. Maz’s bar–you know that’s going to be a whole thing even before you see a frame of it. Then obviously, once you see the image, it all starts to take shape.

I think the first thing that I designed, I was asked to do—there were two things. One was the Teedo character that captures BB-8 in the beginning, the voice for him and then the two junkers that hassle Rey when she’s cleaning pieces of stuff, the voices for those two guys. Those are the earliest design pieces I made, and they’re vocal designs. That’s my favorite thing to do is alien and creature vocals; that was super fun for me.

Nerdist: Along that line, what are some of the weirdest sources you pulled from to design a sound in The Force Awakens?

David Acord: [Laughs] Off the top of my head, the Kylo Ren Force rumble—the really chunky and animalistic rumble—is my cat’s purring. It’s heavily pitched and slowed version of my cat’s purr that becomes Kylo Force rumble.

When the rathtar has his mouth on the cockpit of the Falcon, when it’s trying to eat the cockpit, that is me literally choking myself. [Laughs] Finger down my throat in front of the mic to accomplish that and then it’s pitched down.

Nerdist: Dave, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about voicing FN-2199, a.k.a. TR-8R. I know it was part of the “additional voices” recording—how were those recorded and how did “Traitor!” come about?

David Acord: Normally you have a loop group, which is a collection of highly trained, skilled voice actors, gather in a room. There are a couple of microphones, and the movie is projected on a screen and the scenes are tagged or spotted ahead of time [to say], “We need two stormtroopers talking in the background of a hangar here.” That scene will come up, two actors will walk up to the mic, and will ad-lib a performance. Matthew’s expertise is in dialogue and he was very careful to pick loop group actors that were all Star Wars savvy. There are a ton of Clone Wars alums and names from previous Star Wars movies who were cast as loop groupers because they would know what to say and how to properly deal with things like the mundane dialogue two stormtroopers would have.

And then occasionally, you’ll just be working and, “We need this guy to say this right now” and we’ll go record it. That’s another way; it’s on the spot. You find somebody that can do it, and you do it. That’s how FN-2199 happened. Originally, it was J.J. His voice was a temp placeholder, and he wanted to replace it. It went through four other actors, I think, before it landed on my performance and he was okay with it. It’s a really funny thing to me. It’s a cool scene; the stunt actor, Liang Yang, really did all the hard work in that scene, but it’s fun to be part of. I didn’t even know it was a thing on the Internet until Pablo Hidalgo emailed me and asked if he could post on StarWars.com that I was the voice of FN-2199.

You can read the rest of this insightful interview by clicking here, in which they discuss BB-8's voice, the sounds of Maz Kanata's Castle and an interesting Indiana Jones Easter Egg.


Source: Nerdist
Photo: Star Wars Aficionado

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'The Force Awakens' Sound Crew Discusses Creating BB-8 & Kylo Ren's Voices

By: Benjamin Hart

An orchestra of many different elements helped make Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens so great, and one of the most important things was the sound. Supervising sound editors Matthew Wood and David Acord, along with production sound mixer Stuart Wilson and re-recording mixers Andy Nelson and Christopher Scarabosio all earned Oscar nominations for their work on The Force Awakens. While the film brought back a host of previously heard sounds, it introduced an assortment of brand new ones, all of which had be created from scratch by Episode VII's sound team.

The group recently spoke with the Los Angeles Times about their handiwork in The Force Awakens, specifically detailing the development of the now iconic voices of BB-8 and Kylo Ren, among others things. A portion of the interview can be seen below.

On BB8:

"For the actors to interact with BB-8, the sound team built a receiver and speaker system into five different set versions. "This allowed J.J. to trigger audio from a tablet or a live microphone depending on the situation," Wilson says. In postproduction, Wood and Acord were tasked with developing BB-8's original sound. "J.J. had a lot of interest in the voice of BB-8," Wood says."

""He wanted it to sound distinct enough so if it was outside the doorway, and you couldn't see it, you'd still know it was him. We set J.J. up with a tactical interface so he could be more hands-on in the creative process and have points to touch on a synthesizer, controlling timbre and pitch. We then brought actors in to guide an emotional beat and refined BB-8 until we found its final audio palette," Wood says."

On Kylo Ren:

"On set, Wilson placed a microphone inside [Adam Driver's] mask and attached another one to his chest. "Adam has a great voice, and by placing two mics and combining them in phase, it gave it this larger-than-life quality with a lot of bass and presence." Wood then recorded additional dialogue with Driver using the mask's final post processing. "We don't normally do that kind of thing live with an actor, but it allowed Adam to get more into the character and play with it as an acting tool." It was then up to Nelson to make the dialogue audible. "There's a tendency when you hear a line of dialogue a few times that it becomes clearer in your head even if the audience can't. So I became the gatekeeper and stepped in when we needed to lighten up so the audience wouldn't be left saying, 'What did he say?'""

In addition they discussed the sound mix for Finn's introduction into the film and when Rey discovers her powers. It's all very fascinating and I recommend reading the full article here!

Source: Los Angeles Times

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