One-on-one with the voice of WALL-E, sound guru Ben Burtt

Very occasionally a sound effect can become almost as famous as a character in a film. The unmistakable hum of a lightsaber being drawn for instance and the chilling scream of a TIE-fighter are as recognisable as the speaking clock and both were created by the same man. In fact, Ben Burtt has probably made more recognisable noises than anyone else in Hollywood.

When Pixar’s chief creative officer and director of Finding Nemo decided to put his next animated project, starring a lonely cleaning droid called Wall-E into production, his first casting call was to filmmaker and sound expert Ben Burtt. 'Ben, I want to make R2D2 the movie' was Andrew Stanton’s strange request.

Burtt has a rare talent for bringing inanimate objects, like George Lucas’s dustbin-shaped robot to life through creative use of sound. R2’s earnest bleeps and trills made him an equally important character. Similarly, WALL-E has very little facial expression and no lines in the first part of the film, but still manages to convey his emotion.

'Sound gives a sense of reality and a sense of emotion', Burtt explained to HCC at the luxurious Pixar studio in California. 'For the WALL-E feature I created around 2,600 sound files and much of those were collected rather than synthesised.'

Because WALL-E doesn’t talk much in the film, Burtt uses the sounds he does make to get his feelings across, so that some of his motors sound a little mournful and others more excited. 'For WALL-E’s short movements I use a World War II generator and for his tracks I use an old bi-plane engine' said Burtt, cranking the handle of heavy-looking piece of machinery that let out a long mechanical wail. 'It’s amazing what you can find on eBay', he laughed.

'Most of the best sounds are found by accident. When I went to my friend who is a policemen to record his taser, we found that it didn’t really work, but the sound of his handcuffs clicking on his belt was perfect for the movement of the cockroach.'

In the end, Burtt used a spring much like a slinky stretched from a stepladder with electrodes attached to each end for Eve’s laser cannon sound effects. He demonstrated how a current passed through this moving coil sounded exactly how you might imagine a laser blast. Only he could have thought of that, or perhaps his friend and Hollywood’s other famous soundman, Gary Rydstrom?

'Gary and I worked together at Lucasfilm on The Phantom Menace. We’re friendly rivals because he and I can have great conversations about things like the sound of bodies falling on gravel. Two of Burtt’s favourite movie soundtracks are Saving Private Ryan and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which are both by Rydstrom.

Burtt is unsurprisingly, something of a home cinema fan. “I have Snell THX speakers and a Parrasound processor. I get to listen to them at the right level when Gary [Rydstrom] comes over too” he laughs.

WALL-E is available to buy now on DVD and Blu-ray, courtesy of Walt Disney Home Entertainment.