Lucas Seastrom talks to Josh Lowden, the 25-year veteran and General Manager of Skywalker Sound, as they kick off their 50th anniversary celebration with a discussion about the company’s legacy, creative process and future.
“It starts with community.” For Josh Lowden — senior vice president and general manager of Skywalker Sound — the people are at the heart of what makes this company distinct.
“The culture is a really good entry point into understanding this place,” Lowden says. “In other markets like Los Angeles or London, the creatives move around between different facilities more often. Since we’re the only ones based in Northern California, our community of artists have been here working together for years. It’s the people, the setting at Skywalker Ranch, the technological infrastructure and support, and the filmmakers who come here with their amazing stories — that’s the combination that’s made the difference as we mark our 50th anniversary in 2025.”
Storytelling Roots
Back in the summer of 1975, writer and director George Lucas was busily preparing Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). With an audacious vision for a space fantasy unlike anything audiences had seen or heard before, Lucas had to create new units within Lucasfilm to help realize his creative goals. While Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) quickly grew into a large visual effects team, Skywalker Sound originated with a sole hire: sound designer Ben Burtt. A recent USC film school graduate, Burtt’s Oscar-winning achievement on A New Hope not only laid the groundwork for the growth of a company, but also helped change perceptions about the use of sound as a storytelling device in filmmaking.
“The way that George approached sound was unique at the time,” Lowden explains. “He hired Ben a year before production even started on Star Wars, and approached sound like it was a principal creative consideration rather than an afterthought. There were unique worlds inhabited by unusual creatures, with weapons and ships and environments that had never been imagined before. All of these elements needed sounds that felt real and gritty, and practical. Ben collected organic, real-world sounds and built a library that was completely bespoke. And it wasn’t just about individual recordings, but also about combining them and using various technologies to augment them.
“Try to imagine Star Wars without Darth Vader’s breathing,” Lowden continues, “or lightsabers, or TIE fighters, or a Wookiee language, or R2-D2’s expressive responses, and on and on — it wouldn’t be the same movie without them. By the time Ben was finished, he had unique sounds for a distinct world that helped make it seem real. And they weren’t sound effects just for their own sake. They were serving a broader story and they had everything to do with understanding the vision of the filmmaker and what they were trying to achieve in each scene, what was at stake, and how the sound contributed to moving that forward. It was a fundamental part of defining the characters and their world through sound.”
That methodology continues to define how Skywalker Sound collaborates with its client filmmakers to this day. Skywalker Sound’s 50-year legacy has been the story of establishing the prominence of sound design, editing, and mixing in the overall production process. Skysound artists have not only been great practitioners of the art form, but great proponents of it as well.
An Innovative Home
First known as Sprocket Systems and based in the Northern California town of San Anselmo, Lucasfilm’s post-production sound team grew in size on early projects like Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Later, moving to the Kerner facility in nearby San Rafael, Sprockets worked directly alongside teams from ILM and the Lucasfilm Computer Division. Soon technological breakthroughs emerged like the SoundDroid, a first-of-its-kind digital audio editor. Sprockets engineer Tomlinson Holman created the THX Sound System in the early 1980s, ultimately becoming an industry standard for movie theaters around the world.
In 1987, Sprocket Systems moved to its current home, the 153,000 square foot Technical Building at Skywalker Ranch. What appears to be a historic 19th century winery on the outside is in fact the world’s best-equipped post-production facility on the inside, boasting multiple mix stages, sound design and editing suites, Foley stages, and a state-of-the-art scoring stage. Two years after moving to the Ranch, Sprockets changed its name to Skywalker Sound and adopted a client-service business model, working with filmmakers from around the world.
Image: One of Skywalker Sound’s mix stages at Skywalker Ranch’s Technical Building – Lucasfilm.
For Lowden, discovering Skywalker Ranch was a major influence on his decision to join the team. “I started as a project manager at ILM, my first gig was for the Model Shop on Kerner,” he explains. “I was a freelance employee for the first couple of years, doing various projects around ILM and Lucasfilm. One of the projects was up at Skywalker, and as soon as I got there, I said to myself — This is where I want to be. It was very distinct. I’d been floating around the company, and I loved the work, but when I got to the Ranch, there was something special and different and I knew this was where I wanted to stay.
“Even after all these years, I still think Skywalker Ranch is a special place,” Lowden adds. “This is the place created by the person out of whose mind came Star Wars and Indiana Jones and all these amazing stories, along with hundreds of other filmmakers who have come here to dream and collaborate with other artists and finish their movies — you feel that here. Being part of this community, this facility, and this legacy is an incredible honor.”
A Legacy Powered by People
As sound cinema approaches its centennial in a few short years, Skywalker Sound celebrates its legacy of creativity and innovation over more than half of that century. What began as a single hire for just one film directed by an independent filmmaker has since grown into the world’s premier facility, comprised of hundreds of artists working on every conceivable type of project. Together with ILM and Lucasfilm, they have reshaped our ability to tell stories across multiple artistic mediums.
“I feel the gravity of the legacy of all the people that came before me here,” Lowden says. “They are, frankly, much more important to the legacy of this place — people like Ben Burtt and many others who have been here for 30, 40, or even 50 years. They’ve contributed so much, not just to this company but to the industry. I just want to create an environment where all of our artists can do their best work.”
“I am a steward who is here temporarily,” Lowden concludes. “This place existed before me and it will exist after me. We’re all here to play our role for a moment in time until the next set of artists comes in and takes it over. It’s the honor of a lifetime to lead this place and hopefully set it up for the next generations to carry forward over the next 50 years. We’re here to help artists tell personal stories that are important, that help people make sense of the world, stories that are told with authenticity and empathy, and hopefully, help to connect people.”
Read the fascinating interview in full at the link below.
Main Image: The Technical Building, Skywalker Sound’s home at Skywalker Ranch in Northern California – Lucasfilm.
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