LO2: Know the techniques and processes used to create sound effects

Ben Burtt is a sign designer, who designed the entire of the sound design for the Animation WallE, which was created with the intension of creating a sense of an entire new world for audiences to appreciate. The film WallE truly submerges audience into a world dominated by robots. Ben Burtt was the guy who designed the soundtrack for the first Star Wars films, and he is considered to be the father of sound design for science-fiction films.

He created foley sounds through the use of a slinky, that when stretched a part and then struck, creates the sound of a laser gun that we are all familiar with today. He also liked to record sounds from the real world, for example the flight/landing of a plane, which sounds like a spaceship from Star Wars.

Ben Burtt believed that creating sounds for animations should have a musical quality, since it fits with animated styles, because the fun audio matches the fun visuals. Musical sounds which are used for sound effects fit into the criteria of an animation, because it fits into the music timings of sounds, since sound design is just as much about when the sound is played as well as what particular sound is played. This is because animation relies on timing, in order for the comedy/charm of the feature to work better.

Foley Design is the process of sound design where real life sounds you are familiar with are mimicked in a more controlled environment. When Disney were creating their original style of animation, devices were built to mimic the sounds of draw bridges, and their chains, which consisted of three cylinders each surrounded by a hoop of chains, which was then turned slowly mimicking the noise imagined when a castle lowers its bridge across a mote.

Another technique of foley design which is famous, is the sound the penguin makes in the wrong trousers, when it pulls his chicken hat back with his flipper, the noise was mimicked simply through the use of a a balloon.

Microphones with a high sensitivity are always used in order to pick up the sound in as crisp a quality as possible, since the majority of these films were intended to be seen on the cinema, which would have a high quality sound system.