‘Star Wars’ is an outlier,” veteran sound designer Ben Burtt remarked to Variety before accepting the Vision Award Ticinomoda at Locarno. “It laid the groundwork for my career and created a fan community that has been incredibly enduring.”
He continued, “I’ve encountered many people who watched these films as children and were inspired to enter the film industry. There’s nothing else that has remained so popular for so long. This ‘Star Wars’ connection will always be a part of me.”
This connection proved useful while working on Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis. “I had fewer chances to work on films that weren’t set in space. This one was straightforward—no creature voices, no spaceships, just simple sounds. But when Lincoln’s pocket watch appeared frequently in the script, I thought: ‘Why not record the actual watch of Abraham Lincoln?’”
Burtt spent a year tracking down and obtaining permission to record one of Lincoln’s remaining timepieces. “One watch was in the Smithsonian, but they were hesitant to touch it.
Then I found out that the Kentucky Historical Society had a watch that Lincoln allegedly had when he was assassinated. Fortunately, their curator was a big ‘Star Wars’ fan,” he recalls with a laugh.
Reflecting on his career, Burtt mentioned the challenges of pleasing the “Star Wars” fanbase and the evolving reception of the prequel trilogy. Despite these challenges, he finds joy in the creative process, especially in breathing life into a scene through sound.