Skywalker Sound
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Skywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editorial, sound design and music recording division of George Lucas's Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California. It began as Sprocket Systems in San Anselmo, California and changed names soon after The Empire Strikes Back. Sprocket moved from San Anselmo following a disastrous flood in January of 1982. During the sound recording of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Harrison Ford could be spied practicing his bullwhip technique in the parking lot. [1]
Its staff of Sound Designers and Re-Recording Mixers have either won or been nominated for the Best Sound or Best Sound Editing Academy Award every year since Star Wars in 1978 (in that year Ben Burtt was given a Special Achievement Award, since the category for Sound Editing had not yet been established.)They have worked on over half of the twenty highest grossing films of all time.
The facility, on a sprawling, sylvan campus high in the Marin foothills, is a model of technological sophistication and integration. Dubbing facilities, editorial services and scoring stages are all located in a central "Tech Building," with dining areas and living quarters in the vicinity but separate from the main work area.
The idyllic locale fosters a unique and creative work environment, but for film producers the main draw of Skywalker was the reliability and very high quality of its key personnel, namely its stable of sound supervisors and re-recording mixers, including:
- Randy Thom - Sound Designer - The Incredibles, Forrest Gump
- Tom Myers - Sound Designer - Toy Story 2, The Dust Factory
- Richard Hymns - Supervising Sound Editor - Saving Private Ryan, Hulk
- Matthew Wood - Supervising Sound Editor/Designer - Titan A.E., Mission Impossible, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith