Supervising sound editor David Collins discusses his career and his innovative work on the recently completed Willow, a project that saw him put his many skills to their best use.
“Willow has its own language like Star Wars,” Collins adds, “and as we do with a new project like Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, you’re taking older material and making variations to give it that same feel. Like what Industrial Light & Magic is doing with the visuals, or James Newton Howard is doing with James Horner’s original score, we’re trying to do with the sound.”
Together, Collins and Farmer discussed how Willow would be different from other fantasy soundscapes. “The magic sounds were David’s biggest focus, but he was also very particular about things like thunder and lightning,” Collins says. “He didn’t want it to be the standard sounds. It was very specialized.”
They also discussed opportunities to exaggerate and caricature the sound, including for Boorman’s massive cleaver. “Even when he just puts it on his shoulder, it makes a huge sound,” Collins notes. “It seems ridiculous when you first talk about it, but it works.” Similarly, the running and stomping of the Scourge “are almost like mini-explosions cut into footsteps,” as he puts it. “It’s similar to Indiana Jones, who has a pistol that sounds like a howitzer cannon! If it makes an impact, then it’s working, and it doesn’t matter what it is.”
We had the good fortune to chat with David recently, an interview that you can listen to here.
