Scotland on Sunday offers a fascinating look at Pixar’s latest, including an interview with Ben Burtt, the legendary Star Wars sound designer who gave Wall•E his voice. “It was three years ago and I’d just finished Revenge Of The Sith,” says Ben. “I went home and said to my wife: ‘Oh boy, this is great. No more robots!’ They are the hardest thing to do.” Days later, Ben Burtt was ushered over to Pixar to meet Stanton, who showed him some rough artwork of his robot and proceeded to act out the whole film on the spot. “He gave me the private show,” laughs the 59-year-old, who ended up working on Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull at the same time as Wall•E. “I was totally charmed. Andrew is a great lover of sci-fi, but this was so different to Star Wars. It wasn’t about war in space, it was a very charming, romantic movie. The power those animators have to give life to non-human things, to make you love what is basically two eyes on a stick, was thrilling.” Ben has spent much of the past two years holed up on his own in a concrete bunker at Pixar’s studios, recording the sounds made by toothbrushes, household appliances, miniature jet planes, army tanks and his own voice. “I went to a newspaper printer overnight and recorded all the gigantic scanners and presses,” he says. “There are sounds in the movie I recorded when I was a kid from my grandfather’s shortwave radio. I would tune it between stations and tape the weird electronic noises. I’ve used something from those original recordings in every science-fiction movie I’ve worked on.” In 25 years in the business, Ben Burtt has never created so many sounds for a single film as he has for Wall•E, and there are at least half a dozen that have come from “my own lungs”, including the voice of the titular trash compactor himself.
Behind the scenes of Wall•E