Skywalker Sound

Skywalker Sound is the renowned 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 the Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California.

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.)

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:

• Gary Rydstrom - Sound Designer - Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• Chris Boyes - Sound Designer - Pearl Harbor, Lord of the Rings
• Richard Hymns - Re-Recording Mixer - Saving Private Ryan, Hulk