Behold: A Conversation with Ben Burtt

Join the Academy Museum for a special conversation with Academy Award–winner Ben Burtt as we revisit his legendary career. This program will explore Burtt’s early career, sound as an art form, and a behind-the-scenes look into the making of his installation Behold: Ben Burtt featured in the Inventing Worlds and Characters: Encounters gallery in the museum’s Stories of Cinema exhibition. The conversation will be moderated by filmmaker Midge Costin (Making Waves).

Ben Burtt
Ben Burtt has more than 45 years of experience as a writer, director, film editor, sound designer, and sound mixer.His work includes documentaries, network television movie specials, and educational, specialty, and feature films.

Burtt has a degree in Physics from Allegheny College and master’s degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Burtt received a Special Achievement Oscar for the creation of the alien, creature, and robot voices featured in Star Wars (1977) and for Sound Effects Editing for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981); he won Oscars for Sound Effects Editing for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).He has also earned additional Oscar nominations for Return of the Jedi (1983), Willow (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Special Effects: Anything Can Happen (1996), Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), and WALL-E (2008).

Burtt is the voice of Pixar’s robot WALL-E and the source of Darth Vader’s breathing.

Also a film scholar, Burtt is a yearly presenter of programs for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences along with Craig Barron.

Most recently, Burtt created a special film called Behold which has a dedicated circular theater in the Academy Museum

Midge Costin
Midge Costin produced and directed the award-winning feature documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound which had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and its international premier eat Cannes Film Festival in 2019.She was nominated for Best First Time Director by the Critics Choice Awards.

Costin has been a feature film sound editor in Hollywood, worked at every major studio, and has collaborated on soundtracks for filmmakers such as Tony Scott (Crimson Tide), Michael Bay (The Rock), Kenneth Branagh (Dead Again), John Waters (Crybaby), and David Wolper (Imagine: John Lennon). Crimson Tide (1995) and Armageddon (1998)—for which she edited effects and dialogue—received Academy Award nominations for Sound Editing.