Well first, studio musicians aren't actors. Totally different crafts, totally different approaches and needs.

You can't make the argument that because a carpenter can install your cupboards in two days, that the pool shouldn't need to take any longer to build. Just because they are both part of the construction of a house doesn't make them the fundamentally same.

So it goes for being a musician and being a voice actor. Just because both involve recording sound doesn't make them the same thing.

This article is pointing out the problem in how developers approach acting the same way they do a foley session. It's more technical than creative, and it's painfully obvious to anyone who wants to be invested in a game's story.

 Reply

He was in Call of Duty: WaW, and he kinda sucked...

 Reply

I'm inclined to agree with you, though many game designers do hire full time writers. While it's certain that the script in a game isn't typically much to get excited about, you can't dismiss the significance of poor (or the absence of) quality direction in hurting the voice actors performance, as well as the dramatic payoff of dialogue scenes for gamers.

Besides, look at Hollywood. Shit writing gets turned to gold all the time in movies, so why not games as well?

Because in game development, 'talent' typically refers to programmers, artists, and level designers more than it does the acting or directing involved in

 Reply

I'm irked about the Phil and Lil memories, but this was overall well-acted. Really.

 Reply

Final Fantasy XII is one of the worst offenders to me. That faux half-elizabethan accent they were going far was just awful, and completely unnecessary.

Sure the acting in general wasn't awful, but why is it that anything above awful is deemed excellent?

FF XII was poorly translated, passably acted, and to me the victim of terrible voice direction more than anything else.

 Reply

I'd agree on Lost Odyssey for sure, but why did you have to pick the most overblown, ham-fisted scene in the game as your clip of choice in making the argument?

The above clip is more akin to prohibition-era melodrama than it is anything you'd see in the theater today...

Children wailing like sirens, as in the clip above, is over acting, not necessarily good acting. The scene was compelling for the first couple of minutes, but seven minutes of blubbering was absurdly unnecessary, and sort of an affront to anyone with a desire to see actual dramatic acting rise to prominence in videogames.

Besides, even the best examples like Lost Odyssey are merely on par with average-at-best English dubbed voice acting in anime. What's that tell you?

This industry is still light years behind where Disney was with their movies before going digital, and the reason is because game designers don't think it's worth investing in.

They are wrong.

 Reply

Since MGS1, the localizations for the series have been absolutely awesome in my opinion.

Previous to that, however...well...THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!!

 Reply

Still, I can't imagine it being anywhere but high on the list of best VA work for a game and I imagine the crew will be adding some awards to their mantlepieces before the year is out.

 Reply

I know there was that report last week where someone interviewed Dan Aykroyd, and it mentioned something along the lines of "there can't be any ad-libbing", but that I'm wondering if that was some kind of misquote, or a badly led question.

It completely contradicts another thing I read from an interview with one of the Terminal Reality peeps, where they mentioned Dan telling them that Bill Murray won't use the script, he'll give them something infinitely better. Which I assumed meant that although he'll stick to the plot, that he'll more likely than not ad-lib his lines.

I can't see why this isn't possible. In the "no ad-lib" interview the interviewer didn't seem to understand the voice over to animation process much. Voice-overs are (usually) done first, possibly to a very rough animatic, and the animation is done to fit after. There's no reason an ad-libbed line can't be integrated into a cutscene.

In fact, another recent preview of the game has mentioned how that since the cutscenes shown in the trailer, they've brought the actors back in for lines, and completely re-animated the cutscenes (which can be seen in some of the preview videos released this month), compare the trailers version of the Stantz "It wasn't me this time, I swear it" scene to the new version seen in the recent footage.

 Reply

It's was really nice hearing that they went back over the cutscenes too. It shows that they are commited to bringing us a story driven game that won't feel like some corporate milking of a franchise.

I need to check out the latest trailers though. I've seen the one about the multiplayer but that's it. The game can't come soon enough.

 Reply

IMO, the way Uncharted did it was best. In case you haven't played or you have nut didn't watch the bonus materials - the actual voice actors put on the mocap suits, are placed in a very rough mock-up of the scene (just so tables are where they should be, etc) and are then recorded, filmed and mo-capped as they act.

 Reply

Most studios simply can't afford that amount of cash.

 Reply

Voice acting as a whole isn't treated with the respect that it deserves on this side of the world. Hopefully with the increase in CG movies and the popularity of games and anime, that will start to change but we still have a long way to go.

 Reply

My mistake.

 Reply

The no money thing is correct, no information regarding the other, though.

 Reply

Truth be told, when a game sells as well as GTA IV, I think everyone who worked on it should get some form of royalty check.

Including the development budget for Rockstar's RAGE engine, the total development costs for GTA IV ran around $100,000,000. However the game itself is poised to make at least $1,000,000,000 in revenue . . . and that is just for the sell of the actual game; does not include revenue generated from DLC, merchandising, or usage of the RAGE engine on other games produced this generation by Rockstar Games.

Films and TV do not make anywhere near as much money as the potential which games can make, yet royalties are standard procedure in those industries.

One of the sticking points that lead to the writer's strike of 2007/2008, were over royalties for work produced for digital media and digital entertainment. The WGA (Writers Guild of America) was quite lax in it's negotiations, and ultimately lost out, however, SAG (Screen Actors Guild), has been more hard lined concerning the issue. The only reason they've allowed it to go almost a year, working without a new contract, is going into a second strike, just months after the writers strike ended, would have crippled the entertainment industry irreparably, which would have been good for no one.

However, their strategic withdrawal on the matter does not change their hard lined stance - actors are doing more and more work in the digital medias, which are beginning to take in billions of dollars in revenue, and actors should get their fair share of royalties for their work.

Keep in mind, that is not my stance personally, just that of the largest screen actors union on the continent. However, it is no secret to anyone that the digital medias are the future of the entertainment industry. Whether we are talking digital distribution of film and television via streams or downloads, or we are talking about the work that union actors are doing from everything from professionally created YouTube-esque shorts to video games, ultimately, all of this is going to be up for discussion when SAG finally returns to the negotiating table. Royalty concessions for this work is so important to them, they were even ready to negotiate giving up most of their DVD concessions in order to secure proper concessions for digital media.

That matter is only acerbated when technologies like Mova's Contour Reality Capture looks to set the standard for the future of both Hollywood films and video game performances.

For the uninitiated, Mova's Contour Reality Capture (CRC), is the first usable tech in the relatively new field of volumetric cinematography - think of it like motion capture on bullshark, testosterone steroids. Where motion capture can only capture the "skeleton" of a mocap actor, and still requires and entire animation department to overlay polygon and texture information over that . . . and even still requires a large amount of keyframing by animators to get it to look relatively authentic, Mova's CRC captures motion 1000x more detailed than motion capture. It not only captures motion, but it also captures skin, clothes, color and even production set pieces in the background. It does all of this in high definition, and in full 3D at a level of detail down to minor details like pits on an actor's face.





[www.mova.com]

[www.mova.com]

[www.mova.com]

Ultimately the power that Mova's CRC brings to the gaming industry, is the ability to instead of just capturing the voices of an actor's performance, to capture their entire performance (in 3D) as they act - all of their facial expressions, all of their body language, everything. Digitize it, re-manipulate if (if necessary) and then put that information directly into the videogame or film. So if you had a scene where a group of characters in a game were having a conversation, using CRC, you could literally film the conversation on a set (like you do in the movies), and use that directly in the game.

If you have seen Brad Pitt in Benjamin Button or Ed Norton and Tim Roth in The Incredible Hulk, then you have already seen Mova's CRC in action, without realizing it. Benjamin Button can age in reverse, in realtime and look more realistic than any make-up artist and special effects crew has ever been able to deliver. The Hulk and the Abomination can display such an incredible level of emotional range, down to incredibly realistic facial expressions, because it is literally Ed Norton and Tim Roth delivering those performances. And this is only scratching the tip of the iceberg of what future volumetric cinematographic technologies are bringing to the table.

What this means for gaming is an immeasurable increase in realism and believability of your characters. It also means that hopefully, actors get a larger role in fleshing out game characters into more believable people - something as the article above points out, does not happen near enough in gaming. However, it also means that you can no longer get actor performances on the cheap like they are doing now. The usage of technologies like CRC is going to guarantee, sooner rather than later, that for games to get the best performances, they are going to have to play ball with and start doling out royalties for actor work.

 Reply

That said, I recently was playing through an "undub" copy of FFX and found that part to be much better with the original voices. Not that I can understand Japanese, but just the tone of their voices felt ...right. Yuna's laugh had this purposely forced nature to it, which to me seemed to be a reflection on the stressful nature of her journey, alongside the cheery appearance she wished to maintain. Tidus's laugh felt similarly forced, and almost psychotic - perhaps a portraly of the desperation and overwhelming nature of his current situation?

At anyrate, it seemed far better than the english voice over "canary impressions" that the scene became.

 Reply

I wish more games had translations and acting as bad as the original Resident Evil. Right now they just fall in the sea of mediocrity of slightly-higher-quality-than.

RE1's acting was at least entertaining.

Here, be entertained: [audioatrocities.com]

 Reply

Left4Dead had great voice acting and even if the game does take some influences from B-movies, you can't say that the voice acting was bad.

Take the following excerpt from the intro for example:

Louis: "We made it! aha! I can't believe we made it!"

Bill: "Son, we just crossed the street. Let's not throw a party till we're out of the city"

If the VA wasn't as good as it was, those lines would just be two bland lines of a game intro that no one remembers but because the VA for Louis and Bill was so good, it is memorable.

 Reply

Mass Effect is another prime example of voice acting being an integral game mechanic for players.

 Reply