With its stunning visuals and other-worldly (literally) creatures, Avatar needed to pack a huge sonic punch, or there was no way Cameron would be able to sell Pandora to the audience. When you need a post audio job that big, who better to go to than Skywalker Sound.
Skywalker Sound, stationed in George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, 45 minutes north of San Francisco, is the pinnacle of all that is sound design, especially when it comes to science fiction. With a staff stacked with the legends of sound design, such as Ben Burtt (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ET, Wall-E, Star Trek, etc…) and Randy Thom (Star Wars, Cast Away, Harry Potter, War of the Worlds, a handfull of pixar movies, etc…), Skywalker is able to tackle pretty much anything.
Skywalker’s veteran mixer Christopher Boyes (Jurassic Park, LOTR, Pirates of the Caribbean, King Kong, Iron Man) was at the helm as Sound Designer, Re-recording Mixer, and Supervising Sound Editor. He did nothing less than to completely sell the world of Avatar, completely immersing you in Pandora’s glory (especially if you watched it in 3D in one of the chest-thumping IMAX theaters).
Sound blog Soundworks Collection has a great video interviewing Boyes about the sound design of Avatar.
