Trailer Released For Upcoming ABC Documentary 'The Force Of Sound'

By: Benjamin Hart

One of the many elements that makes up each and every Star Wars film is the sound design. While much of their work goes unnoticed by the average moviegoer, sound designers still go the extra mile to make their films sound as real and immersive as they look.

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Matthew Wood Breaks Down Rogue One's Audio Easter Eggs

By: Benjamin Hart

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was chock full of Easter Eggs from all corners of the Star Wars Galaxy, including everything from appearances by Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan, to the Ghost and Chopper from Star Wars Rebels. But not all them can be see, and there's quite a few interesting details you can catch if you listen closely.

/Film's Peter Sciretta recently sat down with Rogue One's supervising sound editors Matthew Wood and Christopher Scarabosio to discuss a number of audio Easter Eggs that are hidden in Rogue One. Wood specifically had some fascinating insight into some sound gems that you may or may not have noticed.

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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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'The Force Awakens' Wins Golden Reel Award For Music Editing

By: Benjamin Hart

Last month it was revealed Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens had been nominated for several Golden Reel Awards by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. At a ceremony held on Saturday in Los Angeles, the winners were announced and The Force Awakens came away with one award alongside other films which including Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant and Bridge Of Spies. Supervising music editor Ramiro Belgardt and fellow music editor Paul Apelgren were honored with the Golden Reel award for "Best Sound Editing in Feature Film: Music Score" for their work on The Force Awakens.

Episode VII overtook other nominees in the music editing category such as Creed, Jurassic World and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, among others.

Congratulations to Mr. Belgardt and Mr. Apelgren, as well as the entire music editing on The Force Awakens, for this outstanding achievement!

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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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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