Did you know R2-D2's infamous scream originated from a human? New reference book Sound of Star Wars goes into fascinating detail about how sound effects were made long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. Watch the trailer!
There are over 250 sounds explained in this amazing book that's jammed with little factoids like the ones Ben Burtt revealed to NPR: Burtt's biggest challenge, though, was figuring out how to give the astromech droid R2-D2 a voice that didn't feel too robotic.
"There wasn't any precedent in movies for a character like a robot that was to be so expressive, but not using words in English or any language," Burtt explains. "And I went to synthesizers at first, but the results sounded too much like a machine, just something cold - it didn't seem to have a soul."
Burtt tried lots of approaches. He "auditioned" plenty of noise-making doodads. After a while, he and Lucas realized that as they'd struggled to define what they wanted to hear, they'd developed a repertoire of funny little bleeping noises - verbal sounds that were beginning to take on the characteristics of a language. "And suddenly one day I realized, 'Well, why don't we just do something like that?'" Burtt says. "And so I began to make my own sounds."
Which later lead to the creation of the R2-D2 scream, which was just Burtt's own scream sped up! We're definitely interested in this book, and we can't wait to "hear" more.
Image via The Art of Star Wars.
