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In the last two articles that I’ve posted (Part I, Part II) in this series we’ve discussed both the why and the tools regarding making voice overs for your game. Today, we’re going to talk about the talent.

Auditioning
Auditioning talent can be quite tricky. Assuming that you aren’t going through a professional talent agency and are assured of professional actors, how do you “scout” for talent amongst your friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates, relatives, etc. to find some people who could pull off the job?

Before you begin, make sure that your script is done. Have everything that you want that person to say figured out and written down. If you’re making a WW-II era game ala “Call of Duty” and you’re going to have a bunch of guys jumping around yelling short phrases and screaming, make sure you decide how many screams you will need. How will they be different? Think about their placement in the game… will you hear lots of scream sounds cued in short order? If so — you may want to go for multiple effects for the same “action” so you don’t have a sound effects track that winds up sound like this during game play:

Ahh!
Ahh! - - Hhh
Ahh ahh hhh
ahh ahh ahh aahh

(you get the picture)

Also, if you DO have the same effect, and they are cued simultaneously, will you have multiple sounds overlapping or have them essentially interrupt each other and start over? Planning ahead for durations and frequency can really help prevent these problems.

Your sound will be far more natural if you mix it up. This same rule goes for sound effects.

Now, beyond the short phrases that may happen frequently in more of a sound effects manner rather than voice over (another example that comes to mind is the infamous “level up!”) think about what type of voice you want for each of your characters. Many people are character actors who don’t know it. These are people who can change their manner of speech and the sound of their voice to convincingly sound unlike themselves. Professional actors are well known for this. For example, all of the voices in the Simpsons TV show are done by 4-5 people (not sure on exact number — don’t flame me!)

For example, let’s say that you decide — we need a man with a chinese accent who speaks english, perhaps another who is british and a woman who is from the south and in her late 70’s. These simple descriptions probably conjoured some sort of vision in your head as to what they should sound like. Make the story guide you. Although some things may be able to get done in post processing — to help these things, you are ALWAYS better off starting with a good source. The one exception for this is things like “alien voices” or monsters which sound so inhuman that its best to let the technology help you.

The Casting Call
So, you’ve sent out some emails to people you know who would be interested, maybe posted some flyers around town or your dorm room, worklpace or whatever. The casting call should have more or less described in simple terms the kind of of voice you are looking for as I explained above.

So here you are on casting call day. Great! I hope some people showed up.

You ALWAYS want to do the readings with the actual equipment that you will be using to record them. This serves two purposes. One, you’ll be able to go back and review their audition after the fact. This is especially in cases where you want others working your game to have a say in who you use. Second, people’s voices change whenever they are recorded — there is ALWAYS some coloration in your system at some level, so its good to know how their voice picks up on the mic.

Pick out a few choice passage for them to read. Have them read it once without the mic and give them some direction if you don’t think its the way you’d like it. Try and read it to them the way you want it read. Put appropriate pauses in or emphasize certain words. Explain the emotion that comes in this scene or in the scenario in the game. Is there a sense of urgency? Are they scared? Angry? Frustrated? Depressed? All of these things can come through in someone’s voice.

Do NOT leave it up to the talent to interpret what you have written. This is YOUR show and they should be doing this the way YOU want. If any actor starts saying “I think it should be more this way…” and you don’t instantly agree with their idea, I would seriously think twice about casting them as they will probably be more trouble than they are worth!

Let the talent then record each phrase you are having them read once or twice. Keep the total length down to around 10-20 seconds that they are reading. In this way, you should be able to process auditions fairly quickly.

Amanda Engelke records the voice of “Mrs. Carrilou” in Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa from Pocketwatch Games — in stores NOW!

Cast!
Great — now you have your actors picked out. Unless multiple people are having a conversation in a game, try to have them all come on seperate days. Until you’ve done this many times, its pretty hard to estimate the total amount of time this process will take, so allowing more time than less is probably a good thing.

In your multitrack editor of choice, I recommend recording each cue (or “take”) several times to the same track. This helps me stay organized — but you may find another organizational strategy may work equally well for you. For tons of cues, perhaps it makes more sense to have multiple project files so you don’t have hundreds of tracks… its your choice.

While you are recording them, watch your gain levels. Its easy to make the mistake of recording people at to low a level and then using the near-silent amplifiers of modern technology to make it “seem” loud to you. However, when you actually try to bring that sound up in the game, it will probably sound very noisy and harsh or worse yet — peak and distort. Getting a good qualit signal strength to begin with is key to making this work. You don’t need it peaking into the yellow… but several green bars is typically a very good thing.

Post Production
Now that you have everything recorded, its time now to enter post production. In this phase, which will be covered in my fourth and final installment of this series, I’ll discuss some of the fine tuning that can be done once you have the raw material recorded. Stay tuned!

Also, remember that the Seguin Sound Forums are a great place to ask questions and compare notes specifically related to game audio and music. Stop on by and ask a question, solicit feedback or start a discussion!

-John Seguin
jseguin@seguinsound.com
www.seguinsound.com