Sound Design in Star Wars Episode II

Here are the notes I took on watching the documentary about the sound design in Star Wars Episode II.

George Lucas "To me the sound is a very important part of the picture"

• Sound helps the footage to become real.
• Over 5000 sound recording in the Star Wars studios.
• The old sound recordings can be resurrected using an oven to heat them up.
• Matthew Wood - Supervising Sound editor.
• 1942 Gas Air raid alert sound is used - for the speeders dive.
• They recorded sound from a biplane for the hovering bike gun scene. 
• Matthew Wood provides raw sound effects elements.
• The droid factory sequence required most of the machinery sound recordings.
• Dialogue replacement is used when the set is to noisy. 
• Rick Mclean - Producer.
• You sinc the sound recordings to match dialogue.

Sound Effects Editing.

• They have a very small sound editing crew.
• Foley recording - Jana Vance and Dennie Thorpe are the Foley artists.
• Adds realism to the scenes.
• Alien Language Creation - Changes a word at a time starting with English - Uses computers to manipulate the language.

Final Mix

• All elements to sinc with the footage. 
• Inch there way through each scene.
• Gary Rydstrom - Re-recording mixer.
• The miner details can add up to significant changes.
• Some of the musical sounds were dropped in the droid factory sequence, but they were reused in other parts of the movie.
• There is always a point at the end to take a look at the final details. 
• As long as there is time, there are always some improvements to movies.