Via Starwars.com:
THE VETERAN HOST REFLECTS ON CELEBRATIONS PAST AND LOOKS FORWARD TO HIS GALAXY STAGE DUTIES IN LONDON.
As a well-established and highly regarded voice actor and sound designer, David Collins has left his mark on Star Wars in numerous ways. In Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, he provided the voice of the homicidal droid, PROXY. As a sound designer, he worked on classic Star Wars video games like Star Wars: Battlefront II, Star Wars: Republic Commando, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. And for nearly a decade, Collins has been a staple of Star Wars Celebration. In two days, he will host the Galaxy Stage at Star Wars Celebration London and once again give fans a behind-the-scenes look at the Star Wars galaxy. In advance of this, StarWars.com spoke with Collins about what it means to be a Celebration stage host and all things Star Wars Celebration.
StarWars.com: How did you get started with being a Celebration host?
David Collins: [Laughs] I think the best way to do this is to go back to the very beginning. Right out of college I applied for an internship at Skywalker Sound and was accepted. I worked there for about a year on the scoring stage before a sound assistant position opened up at LucasArts, and I jumped at it and was hired. And I ended up working at LucasArts as a sound designer and dialogue editor for a lot of video games from about 2002 to about 2004, and by the time 2003 and 2004 rolled around, I was leading the audio on a project called Star Wars: Republic Commando. I was just really passionate about it, and the nature of doing sound work and, especially in video game where you’re not going to a set, you’re very much in a soundproof room cutting explosions and things like that. So I was just getting an itch — having a theater background and loving Star Wars — to get out there and just represent our games and see what was going on. So there was a call on the Republic Commando team to volunteer at E3 and I said, “I’d love to volunteer. In fact, if you guys ever need help demoing, please let me know.” And they said if I wanted to give it a shot they’re actually doing a thing called a demo derby, which is when producers and people get out in front of all of the executives at the company and basically get coached on how to play the game. It’s sitting at a kiosk, basically, to talk to press and buyers and gaming press and cameras, things like that. So I did it, and I did that in 2004, and I demoed every year around the world after that just because I loved it, you know? It led to E3 and Comic-Con and events in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, London, France, and I just went all over the place. And I had a ton of fun because I was a part of the development team, which made it fun to talk to crowds, and also just because I loved it.
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