Porgs are sped up chickens, and other 'Star Wars' sound design secrets
In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, all those wailing porg squeals are just chickens processed through what amounts to an Alvin and the Chipmunks filter.
A new ABC News documentary covering the sound design in The Last Jedi takes an up-close look at the efforts of the foley crew. They're the reason that porgs, rolling droids like BB-8, or even something as simple as footsteps all sound like distinct, natural extensions of the images on screen.
There are several big spoilers in here, so don't hit "play" until you've seen The Last Jedi.
The documentary doesn't just look at sound effects. It's packaged around profiling the work of Matthew Wood, supervising sound editor on the film. From that perspective, the 30-minute special highlights how many of the biggest and most memorable moments hinge on sound
There's a whole section, for example, devoted to revealing how the Kylo/Rey Force-talk scenes arrived at their distinctive "speaking in a vacuum" sound. Another peels back the many audio layers behind a split-second moment with BB-8 and a drunken alien gambler during the Canto Bight scene.
Yes, the Holdo Maneuver is in there too. Obviously.
If you like Star Wars and you're interested in learning more about an often under-discussed but completely essential and wildly creative facet of filmmaking, this is a great watch.
It's also a good thing to check out if you need something to tide you over until you can see Star Wars: The Last Jedi again. The movie will be out for video on-demand services on March 13 and for Blu-ray and DVD on March 27.
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Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
