Sound editor Matthew Wood reveals the origin of Jango Fett's (Temura Morrison) seismic charge sound effect in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. The film was released in 2002 and received mixed to negative reviews from critics and audiences alike but was generally praised for being an exceptional display of sight and sound as it revolutionized digital film production. Although the film was derided by many, Attack of the Clones received recognition for its technical achievements with an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Star Wars Seismic Charge Sound Effect
Attack of the Clones found Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) tracking the bounty hunter Jango Fett to the desert planet of Geonosis where he uncovers a secret Trade Federation factory used to build their droid army. In the preceding chase, Jango tries to lose Kenobi in an asteroid belt around the planet and uses a series of seismic charges in attempt to decimate the Jedi. The sequence is regarded as one of the most exciting in the entirety of the film and prequel trilogy, with the unique sound of the charge's detonation as a stand-out aspect from that sequence.
During the Attack of the Clones 20th anniversary panel at this year's Star Wars Celebration, Wood shared the origin of the distinctive sound effect for Jango's seismic charges. While discussing behind the scenes details for the asteroid sequence of the film, Wood explained that reaching the final sound resulted from frustration during the editing process. Read what Wood said below.
"In the sound world, George Lucas trusted Ben Burtt so much that we had carte blanche to kind of create this whole universe -- audio-wise -- in the films, however we wanted. And he really trusted our input on that. So we had crazy things like in the speeder chase we had the sonic charges that everyone really loves. The PRAAANG. The big sound there. That was just born out of -- we were just trying to find a sound for the initial explosion."
The brief silence before the cracking bang of the charge proved to be exactly what the explosion needed. Throughout the runtime of Attack of the Clones, there is rarely a moment without the orchestral score playing in the background. However, during the asteroid sequence above Geonosis, no music plays and director Lucas lets the diegetic sound carry the audience through the action to riveting results.
Finding the right sound effect for a moment in film can be as simple as pulling an effect from a database of files, but more so than not its an act of pure creation, especially within a science-fiction film where there may be no real-world comparison for the on-screen action. Every blaster fire, engine hum, and explosion needs to be carefully crafted to help make an alien world distinctive yet familiar. The Attack of the Clones seismic charge sound effect has gone down as one of the most iconic sounds in all of Star Wars, a sound that excited many when it made its return in The Mandalorian season 2.
A seismic charge (also sonic mine or sonic charge) was a weapon released from a starship, capable of unleashing a devastatingly explosive shock wave. Seismic charges were commonly filled with a mix of baradium and volatile collapsium gas.
A few seconds after launch, a seismic charge would detonate into a blue ball-shaped explosion which had the unusual side-effect of drawing in all sound from a given area around it. This small explosion soon collapsed in upon itself before releasing a shock wave of energy that would obliterate material in its path. They were particularly effective in asteroid fields, enabling the pilot to clear an area of hazardous asteroids. Such seismic waves were even capable of penetrating thin durasteel plating, such as the Void-7 seismic charge produced by Krupx Munitions.
The sound from an explosion of this weapon is an interesting take on the Star Wars "ignorance" of the fact that there is no sound in a vacuum. There is no sound at the start of a blast, but there is still the impossible phenomenon of sound in space afterward. The idea during the production of Episode II was that the charge would suck in and absorb all the sound around it (such as the sounds of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett's ships during their fight in the Geonosis asteroid belt), and then release them in a sonic explosion, resulting in the shockwave effect heard in the explosion sound.
The sound effects from AOTC were out of this world and the seismic charge sound fx dropped by Jango Fett's Slave I were the most spectacular sound effect in the entire film. Episode II sound maestro Ben Burtt talks about the seismic charge, or rather doesn't talk about it, but discusses its development in the official site's latest Ask the JC question.
How must Luke have felt when he finished constructing his new, green-bladed lightsaber and heard it ignite for the first time? Sound Designer Burtt might know. The famous ignition sound was one of the first effects he ever created for the films, inspired by the hum of an old projector motor at the USC Cinema Department. The whirr of the worn-down machine soon evolved into the famous sound that countless kids (and adults) wielding plastic sabers of their own have tried to imitate.
Now, this is a depiction clearly inspired by a real world effect due to the difference in the speed of travel between light and sound. (It is readily apparent in the delay between observation of lightning and thunder.) Putting aside the question of what exactly the sound effect represents in space (It looks like it's supposed result from some kind of matter shockwave):
The effect appears to have been created specifically for the movie. Attack of the Clones sound designer Ben Burtt has referred to the effect as an "audio black hole." It was inspired by previous sound design techniques and not by a specific effect found in nature.
Some more unexpected attention came in the early nineties when several women attending a music concert in New York's Central Park claimed to have been stimulated by the sound created by a blaster beam being used in the performance. This prompted Australian radio station 2SER-FM to conduct an experiment in which they played a continuous loop of a blaster beam performance and asked their female listeners to report any stimulation they experienced. (FM's frequency response typically starts at around 50 Hz which is similar to the theoretical lowest frequencies of the blaster beam, but these frequencies might have been more prominent at the live concert.) On this occasion none of the show's listeners reported any arousal whatsoever.[5]
Burtt later was the sound designer and supervising sound effects editor for The Empire Strikes Back, and then the sound designer and sound re-recording mixer for Return of the Jedi. More recently, he currently does original sound effects for the prequels and all of the Star Wars video games.
"The idea behind this [seismic charges that the Slave I drops to get rid of Obi-Wan Kenobi in 'Attack of the Clones'] weapon and the explosion actually harkened back to what Ben Burtt had tried to create during the production of A New Hope. Burtt experimented a lot with what he called the "space ether explosions," which were explosions in space that were suppose to sound different than explosions you would hear in the atmosphere of a planet. However, Lucas did not like them and ended up going with the sounds heard in the film. To complete the sound effect, Burtt added a delay which would create an audio black hole before the twang of the sonic weapon. This was inspired by real life lightning that you often see before hearing the thunder. The source of the twang itself remains unknown and is something that Burtt prefers to keep a secret. Because it is such an unprecedented thing to have an absence of sound in a movie, the technicians who evaluated the film said that there was an audio problem with the reel which needed to be fixed." -- From Concept to Screen: Slave I StarWars.com
He is most notable for popularizing the Wilhelm scream in-joke and creating many of the iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the "voice" of R2-D2, the lightsaber hum, the sound of the blaster guns, and the heavy-breathing sound of Darth Vader, made from himself breathing into a scuba regulator. Burtt is also known for "voicing" the title character, WALL-E, in the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E. He also created the robotic sound of WALL-E's voice, along with all the other characters in WALL-E, and was the sound editor of the movie.
Burtt pioneered modern sound design, especially in the science-fiction and fantasy-film genres.[1] Before his work in the first Star Wars (now known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) in 1977, science-fiction films tended to use electronic-sounding effects for futuristic devices. Burtt sought a more natural sound, blending in "found sounds" to create the effects. The lightsaber hum, for instance, was derived from a film projector idling combined with feedback from a broken television set, and the blaster effect started with the sound acquired from hitting a guy-wire on a radio tower with a hammer.[2]
Burtt used the voice of an elderly lady with a very low voice that he had met in a photoshop for the voice of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The woman's low voice was the result of very heavy smoking, specifically Kool cigarettes. He created the "voice" of the title character and many other robots in Pixar's film WALL-E (2008), about a lonely garbage-compacting robot. Additionally, he is responsible for the sound effects in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).[3]
Burtt has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed "the Wilhelm scream" in many of the movies he's worked on. Taken from a character named "Wilhelm" in the film The Charge at Feather River, the sound can be heard in countless films: for instance, in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when a stormtrooper falls into a chasm and in Raiders of the Lost Ark when a Nazi soldier falls off the back of a moving car. 2ff7e9595c
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