OK, I decided to re-do Marvins original translation (j'espère que tu ne m'en veux pas!) and then translate a part of the interview that seemed pertinent
Here's the link: http://www.objectif-cinema.com/spip.php?article4547&artsuite=8
Gazette du doublage: You worked on the first Star Wars films. Retrospectively, what do you think about the first trilogy? Were you a sound engineer or a technical director?
Pierre Davanture: When Michel Gast and I saw Star Wars (1977) to prepare the dubbing into French, we were very impressed and immediately took particular preparations.
Knowing that the film was going to be mixed in Paris in 6 track stereo (for the 70mm release prints) we immediately envisaged the grand auditorium of the SIMO de Boulogne. I got in touch with my friend Jean Neny who wanted to come see the film. Before projecting it, he told me, "if I'm watching this film before it's even mixed, it's for you" but after watching it he recognized right away that I had done the right thing.
We decided that I would do some sound tests for Vader's and C3PO's voice and that I would give him, for the mixing session, edited tracks that were voice-distorted for each character. We only had a harmonizer which was used to distort Roger Carel's voice for C-3PO. We could not use the same machine used in the States for Vader's voice, so I used the harmonizer to bring down François Chaumette's voice an octave. Then, in order to recreate the resonance effect of the mask, I decided - as I've often done - to get closer to reality. We then constructed a box made of laths (about 40x25x30 cm) the inside of which we placed an omni-directional microphone and a small 12cm speaker, mounted on a pivot so that it could be adjusted for better results. Our chief editor, Maurice Martin, prepared the French voice tracks and Jean Nany, at the studio in Boulogne, worked on the mixing session in the presence of Ben Burtt, the production sound engineer.
This little box that I talked to you about was nicknamed the "Vader Box" and an artist even drew Vador's face on it. It stayed in PM Productions' auditorium throughout the years but unfortunately it has disappeared since.
La Gazette du doublage: Did you get the impression in 1977, at the release of the first film, that you had worked on a very special film that would mark its time?
Pierre Davanture : Yes, certainly. But we didn't imagine the infatuation that would continue 30 years on.
La Gazette du doublage: Did you have particular recommendations from Lucasfilm/Fox for the dubbing? Talk to us about your collaboration with Jean Rouat, Jean Neny and Ben Burtt, the sound engineer from Lucasfilm.
Pierre Davanture: No, we didn't have any recommendation from production seeing we couldn't even obtain the name of the machine used for Vader's voice.
As technical director of the SND dubbing services, I organized, in agreement with Michel Gast, the methods used to distort the voices as previously explained. Jean Roua recorded the dialogue. Maurice Martin made sure the voices were in sync and he then sent off the tracks for mixing. I only met Ben Burtt at the mixing session, as directed by Jean Neny.
La Gazette du doublage: Do you remember who the artistic directors and supervisors were for these films?
Pierre Davanture : For Star Wars Fox hired Eric Kahane as artistic director. Michel Gast surely regretted it because he really loved science fiction films and would have loved to have directed the dialog himself.
The following episodes, The Empire Strikes Back (1981) and The Return of the Jedi (1983) were dubbed by PM Productions under the direction of Michel Gast this time. I did the recording and premixing, Maurice Martin did synchronization and the mixing was done in the States.
Heidy Webel supervised those films and I have good memories of her which is not always the case with certain supervisors that I've had to deal with on certain films.
La Gazette du doublage: Did you ever go to Skywalker Ranch for the films' mixing sessions? What was your implication in the States?
Pierre Davanture: No, I never went to the States. Certain films like E.T and every other large Spielberg productions were mixed in the States after a premixing of the French dub tracks in Paris. This was always a source of problems because I think that American engineers were happy just adding the French dialog to the international tracks (music/effects) and to this day, I am persuaded that it is difficult, in a mixing session, to judge the intelligibility of words in a language that we do not understand. When the French version was listened to in Paris, it was rejected and remixed.