Ben Burtt

Ben Burtt

Benjamin Burtt Jr. (born July 12, 1948) is an American sound designer, film editor, director, screenwriter, and voice actor. As a sound designer, his credits include the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), WALL-E (2008) and Star Trek (2009). Burtt is notable for popularizing the Wilhelm scream in-joke and creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the 'voice' of R2-D2, the lightsaber hum, the sound of the blaster guns, the heavy-breathing sound of Darth Vader and creating the Ewoks’ language, ewokese. Burtt was also the sound editor for WALL-E and performed the vocalizations of the titular character as well as other robots in the film. Burtt has won four Academy Awards, two of which are Special Achievement Academy Awards. He has also directed numerous documentary films and was the editor of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

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