and sound collecting."

There
would be indeed. At the age of 27, Burtt collected his first Academy Award,
a special achievement honor for the alien, creature and robot voices in
Star Wars, the movie that blasted the film medium into hyperspace. Seen
today, its credits read like a who's who of top industry personnel, including
Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler and Derek Ball, who collected their
own Oscars for the sound design of the movie.

If
you've been anywhere near the orbit of North America this year, chances
are you revisited Star Wars and its companions, The Empire Strikes Back
and Return of the Jedi, and seen those credits writ large once again on
the big screen. International engagements are also reintroducing the Star
Wars trilogy, freshened with newly-created CGI effects and soundtracks,
to audiences eagerly awaiting the next batch offilms, which are scheduled
to lift off in 1999. The re-release of the movies gave Burtt, who supervised
the sonic redesigns, a chance to revisit his youth, and fix it, too.

In
the 20 years since Star Wars, Burtt has added three more Oscars to his
shelf (for sound effects editing on Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The
Extraterrestrial, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), and a total
of seven nominations. By the time this issue goes to press, he may have
copped another win, for his direction of the Imax film Special Effects
in 1996. Burtt worked full-time for Lucasfilm until 1990, and has since
freelanced, with Imax (on films like Blue Planet and The Dream is Alive)
but also for his old Jedi master, for whom he directed episodes of TV's
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

When
The Force