20 Things You Somehow Missed In Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
11. The Origins Of A Number Of Notable Noises
Keeping with the sounds of Episode I, it's always remarkable to learn precisely what real-world noises sit as the origin of some of the galaxy's most notable rackets.
In the case of certain underwater monsters seen when Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi attempt to make their way to Theed with Jar Jar Binks, for example, those warbles can be attributed to none other than sound designer Ben Burtt's own 18 month-old daughter, with him claiming:
"At one point she had a growl in her voice when she was crying. So I recorded that and then lowered the pitch way down in the computer."
Elsewhere, Burtt was said to have used the cheers and roars from a San Francisco 49ers game for the spectacular crowd noise used during the Tatooine pod race. The ominous hum of the battle tanks was forged via sticking an electric razor in a salad bowl. And the noise of the force fields heard during the climactic Duel of the Fates reportedly started out as little more than the sound of an audio supervisor's neighbour's ceiling fan.