STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT BEN MINTO

Ben Minto, former audio director and sound designer at EA Dice and now company director and supervising sound designer at Sweet Justice Sound, reflects on bringing the sound of Star Wars Battlefront to life, the fans’ favorite sonic moments, and the one in a million sound hidden in the game…

You were the sound director for Star Wars Battlefront at EA Dice, which has elements that we all recognize as being a part of the franchise’s sonic universe. Where did you start?

The first Battlefront came out just before The Force Awakens, so it was this idea of – let’s go back to the original trilogy from the ‘70s and early ‘80s. I think I was one of the few people on the team who was actually born before the Star Wars titles! There’s always this idea of: how do you up-res things? How do you take things that were obviously recorded on tape – maybe in mono. There’s not a lot of variety to that. How do you take those roots and then expand it to bring up the fidelity overall?

We were super fortunate early on to visit the ranch at Skywalker Sound to ask Ben Burtt and Matt Wood questions, and could we have access to the film stems in the original recordings? If we asked for material and they had it, they would supply it to us. We had these ingredients to start from the original different, iconic Star Wars sounds, but we needed to expand and build upon those so that we could cover all the areas needed in the game. People said, “Don’t you feel really constrained?” And actually that was great. It’s like, “Okay, it has to sound like the films” – you don’t have to reinvent anything, you don’t have to come up with a brand new lightsaber sound. What you have to try and do is make the game sound like the film, which obviously is a challenge in itself!

Did Battlefront see you visit any weird and wonderful places all in the name of capturing some interesting sounds?

Yes! On the first one, we went to four locations in the Star Wars universe. There was Endor, Tatooine, Hoth, and then a planet which is part of the lore, but it’s not part of the films as such. I did end up in the Redwood Forest to record ambiances for Endor and I had two weeks recording in Iceland. Hoth was originally done in Norway; I went up to the top of Sweden in the middle of winter and that got most of those. For EA Dice’s 20th anniversary, they flew the entire studio to Dubai for a week and I got to spend some time in the desert recording the stuff needed for Tatooine. There’ve been such great books about how Ben Burtt did a lot of the original sounds –and we obviously tried to recreate a lot of those as well. I went to a guywire – the one where you hit it and it goes “twaaang” – to try and recreate the blasters.

Did you slip the famous Wilhelm scream in there somewhere?

Of course! The way it works in the game is you have a bank of screams –I think there’s 100 from all the different voice actors. What you want to try and do is find the right conditions. So if a person falls from above 10 meters velocity and reaches this speed, then there’s a chance they do the Wilhelm scream. There is another one as well. It’s the famous Tarzan scream that Chewie does in Return of the Jedi, and he does it in The Clone Wars as well. We put that one in with, I think, a one in a million chance of it playing – so somebody would have heard it somewhere. I’ve never heard it!

Are you surprised by fans’ attention to detail when it comes to game sound?

Not really, because with some of these online multiplayer titles, people put in hundreds of hours, sometimes even thousands. Playing games isn’t a passive experience – it’s active; the soundscape is giving you information about what’s going on in the game that’s vital, so people usually listen deeper. In the first game, we had Darth Vader, and when he went below 10% health somebody suggested that we switch over to his labored breathing at the end of Return of the Jedi – spoilers! – where they take a helmet off, and he’s wheezing away. It’s like, “Wow! Such a great idea and very simple to implement.” So we fixed that in the next patch and then for the next title as well.

What are some of Battlefront fans’ favorite sounds in the game?

In Star Wars there was a sound for a thing called a Thermal Imploder, which is a device that’s a bit like the sonic mines that come out of the back of – if I get this wrong, please don’t crucify me! – Jango Fett’s ship in the prequels. It sort of drops, but the great thing about it from a sound point of view is it sucks all the silence in before it detonates. We knew it had to sound a bit like the sonic mine, but we had to record some other elements as well as a type of plucked string sound. Ben Burtt, who made the original sound, has never said how he did it. I did ask him once, and he said, “Can’t I keep some secrets?” Sure you can! But I think we did it justice – and it was the most talked about sound in the game. People have ripped it and made ringtones, memes, all that kind of thing.

EA Dice has over 300 Genelec speakers and is upgrading two Atmos rooms to LCR Ones and the rest on GLM. We’re guessing you’re very familiar with Genelecs for your game sound design work?

Very much so. When I started at EA Dice, they had Genelecs from about 2008 and then we upgraded them with the SAM system. I think most studios ended up on 8330s and 8340s by the time I was there, and then when we moved to Atmos, we started drilling holes in the ceiling and sticking some more up there.

“WHAT YOU HAVE TO TRY AND DO IS MAKE THE GAME SOUND LIKE THE FILM.”

What is it about Genelec that is such a crucial part of your sound design work on these games and how important is that when you’re working so closely on intricately mixed game sound design?

The first thing for working on something is just the confidence that what you’re hearing is correct and that you’re not going to take it somewhere else and be surprised, like, “There’s too much bass in this, or the high end is mushy, or this TV tone coming through.” They need to be transparent, but they also need to be accurate as well so that you can just get on with the work and not worry. If I go somewhere else, the same thing has to translate between different rooms.

We don’t typically work where the platform we share is something like say, Pro Tools or Reaper or a DAW like it is in the post production industry. Our shared space is obviously the game engine. If I make something in my room, somebody else should be able to play it in their room and it sounds the same – there should be no surprises. When you have many different contributors towards the game, where there’s a final mix that needs to be done, you will need to adhere to certain standards regarding loudness and frequency content.

I first got to know the Genelec people in Sweden and they came by the office one day because they were buying lots and lots of Genelec and upgrading the rooms, and they left me a pair of The Ones and said, “How would you like to try these?” It was a pair of 8341s and I loved them because for some reason they remind me of the Pet Shop Boys [laughs]. I don’t know why, maybe just the white speaker with the black bit in the middle. That’s so Pet Shop Boys! They just looked so different and a bit alien. I was like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll plug them in.” I did the whole thing of going through denial like, “Sure, they’re probably 5% better. They sound different.” But then it made me start to question my previous setup and where I was sitting and everything like that. I went through a whole period of doubt and then eventually was just like, “Okay, you’re not taking these back. Sorry, they’re staying here with me.” I’ve been a fan ever since.

Yes, I started with a stereo pair of 8341s and then as I’ve expanded into a new room, I did LCR with 8351s – so the next size up – working on things like explosions and guns. I try not to monitor too loud, but occasionally you do need to, so I did like having the extra power in the 8351s. For the subs they did recommend I went for the 7380, but I did go for the 7370 in the end as well.

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