came calling again two years back, Burtt and a staff of 10 hunkered
down for months of 12-hour days at the Skywalker Ranch in Northern California,
to reinvigorate the sound of Star Wars for contemporary movie theatre technologies.
The film was the first ever recorded for Dolby stereo, but the introduction
of digital formats like DTS and SDDS left Star Wars, and its sequels, sounding
comparatively tin-eared in the 1990s.

With
his varied, and bustling career, Burtt doesn't go on many sonic expeditions
these days. But his first order of business on the revised Special Edition
trilogy was to create new "Huttese" dialogue for the surprise appearance
of Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars, create a squishy sound for his movements
(a garbage can stuffed with wet towels did the trick), then piece the scene
together with the animators. 'We'vethings have stayed the same, as Burtt prepares for
preproduction of the new Star Wars films, and develops an Imax film about
the mystery and excitement of sound. Y still have my Nagra," he laughs.
"It's a completely reliable piece of equipment that refuses to break down.
I'll continue to use it until someone arrests me."

Skip
Lievsay, partner in C5 Inc., a New York sound production company for motion
pictures, eschews the currently trendy title "sound designer." Sometimes
directors ask him to take it because, as he says, "I think there's a certain
perception that if you have a sound designer, the sound is something special."
But he feels that it is important to understand and respect the heritage
of the term. "People like Walter Murch on The Conversation and Apocalypse
Now, and Ben Burtt on Star Wars, had