Sounding out character in movies

For all the computing power that animators employ these days, sometimes it's a simple sound that conveys the most emotion. Pixar's hit movie, "WALL-E," is the most recent example of sound's crucial role. The first hour of the intergalactic love story has almost no human dialogue. Instead, the story line starts with simple bleeps, squeaks, and background atmospherics, which, by the end of the film, become a sophisticated interweaving of 2,600 sounds.

The orchestrator of this symphony is Ben Burtt, who, with his team, found everyday sounds they could alter to create each mood. Making a robot "come alive" on screen takes clarity on the part of both animators and sound designers. "It's about understanding if the sound should be happy or sad, sympathetic or mechanical," says Mr. Burtt from his office in Nicasio, Calif. That way, every time the character WALL-E moves his arm, turns around, or "speaks," his sounds consistently reinforce his kind, industrious, and ever-hopeful nature.

Despite the fact that animated films are largely special effects, creating the character voices for "WALL-E" did not originate with an electronic synthesizer. Burtt recorded human voices for the robots and converted them electronically to fit the focus of each scene. He would then play them for director and co-writer Andrew Stanton to be sure they were true to his vision of the characters' identities.

The collaborative nature of this animated film was more intense than working on the live-action "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," says Academy Award-winner Burtt, who also created the voice of R2D2 in "Star Wars." "If there's one thing you learn at Pixar," he says, "it's that every animator is an actor. So when the creative team got together, the animators all spoke in funny voices and acted out the characters' personas. My job consisted of what I call 'audio puppeteering' – pulling the strings to make the character come to life audibly. So when I saw the movements of the animators, I understood better how the characters should sound."

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