At a ceremony in Los Angeles last week, Ben Burtt, legendary Star Trek and Star Wars sound designer, received the Charles S. Swartz Award from the Hollywood Post Alliance, which honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of post production. J.J. Abrams presented the award to Mr. Burtt.

Burtt’s film production career spanned thirty-five years, and included films such as Star Trek XI, WALL-E, the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T. and various Star Wars episodes. Burtt’s skills include: directing, producing, sound design, sound editing, editing, voicing and voice design in both motion pictures and television.

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J.J. Abrams‘ Star Trek XI was nominated for two Hollywood Post Alliance awards.

Nominations have been announced for the Fourth annual HPA Awards and Star Trek XI was nominated for two awards, one for Outstanding Editing-Feature Film and one for Outstanding Compositing-Feature Film.

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Star Trek XI Sound Designer Ben Burtt brought elements of the original series to the newest Star Trek movie.

The attention to detail when it came to the sound effects in the original series was something to be emulated according to Burtt. “Two things in the original Star Trek effects were revolutionary: Roddenberry had his team create lots of detail. Every room in the ship sounded different. Every button made a noise, when you pressed a lever or a switch. Not only were there sounds articulating all these things to make them sound like they were real, but they were very musical sounds. Somebody pressed a button, there was a little melody. That was not in the movie at the point I came on: you’d just hear a little beep. If it was Star Trek, it needed to sing a little bit and feel like it was alive.

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