VoiceActing
Latest
Sting is the narrator in 'Where the Water Tastes Like Wine'
When the story trailer for Where the Water Tastes Like Wine dropped in August, it featured the voice of one of the most prolific and famous singers of the past forty years -- and no one noticed. Sting, the lead singer and bassist of the Police and a successful solo artist in his own right, voices the wolf in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, which basically makes him the narrator of the entire game.
Video game voice actors gain bonus payments with new contract
Members of SAG-AFTRA have voted overwhelmingly to approve a new video game contact that grants performers bonus payments. The deal comes just over a month after the gaming industry's voice talent agreed to suspend one of the longest strikes in US history. Launched against 11 major game publishers (including EA and WB Games) on October 21st 2016, the strike lasted 340 days in total. Now that the trade union's board has given the proposal the thumbs up, the strike is officially over.
Video game voice actors reach deal to end almost year-long strike
SAG-AFTRA has reached a "tentative agreement" with leading video games publishers to end its strike. After months of debate, and rejected deals, voice artists began striking on October 21st. Along the way, they also carried out picketing campaigns against Electronic Arts, WB Games, and other firms. Now, 340 days down the line, the strike could finally be coming to a halt. The new agreement (which still needs to be approved by the labor union's board of directors) includes bonus pay relating to the amount of sessions a performer works on a game. The payments start at $75 for the first session and max out at $2,100 for ten sessions.
How Troy Baker's Naughty Dog work influenced 'Shadow of War'
Troy Baker has lent his voice and performances to some of the biggest games of the past decade. From six roles across Darksiders 2 to playing Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite or stepping into The Joker's shoes in Batman: Arkham Origins, you might not realize it's actually him delivering the lines until you see the credits. That's because he approaches each performance incredibly differently. With Middle-earth: Shadow of War his job was particularly complex: In addition to reprising his role as Talion, a Ranger of Gondor who's more or less possessed by an undead prince, Baker served as the director for all of the game's performance-capture story sequences. For that task, Baker relied on his experience with director Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog and his roles in the studio's The Last of Us (TLoU) and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Naughty Dog is widely regarded as having some of the best performances and shot composition in video game story sequences -- there are definitely worse places to look to for inspiration.
The strange life of video game voice actor Ashly Burch
It took two years for Ashly Burch to record all of Aloy's dialogue in Horizon Zero Dawn. This was after about a year of auditioning for a mysterious new project from the creators of the Killzone series -- Burch had no idea what this new game was or even which role she was auditioning for. She had no idea it was the beginning of a new mainstream, multi-million dollar franchise from Sony Interactive Entertainment, and she didn't even realize she was reading for the lead role. "I think I'm just extremely lucky," Burch says. "I had no idea what Life is Strange was going to be when I auditioned. I had no idea what Horizon was going to be when I auditioned."
Twitch is taking auditions for an internet-wide talent show
Twitch may have started as a broadcasting service laser-focused on beaming your gaming exploits out to the world, but it certainly isn't staying that way. Now, the Creative banner has been expanded to include comedy, music, theater, voice acting and illusions magic tricks.
'Gears of War 4' stars 'Dragon Ball Z,' 'Spartacus' actors
Gears of War 4 is set 25 years after the events of Gears of War 3, and its story stars JD Fenix, the son of long-time series protagonist Marcus Fenix, Game Informer reports. He's joined by Kait Diaz, a survivalist who grew up outside of JD's walled-off world, and Delmont "Del" Walker, one of JD's best friends from boarding school and the army. After a mysterious military incident, Del and JD find themselves in the wild -- in Kait's territory, in fact -- and that's where the game kicks off. But, it's not going to go very far without a handful of talented voice actors.
Video game voice actors vote a resounding 'yes' to strike
Last month the Screen Actor's Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists started the process to strike in an effort to be better compensated. Now, the union members have voted and over 96 percent feel that a strike is in order to protect themselves. As a refresher, the organized voice actors are asking for royalties on games they performed in that sell over two million copies, stunt pay for particularly stressful roles (those sustained screams and yells can do damage) and stunt coordinators for certain situations, among other things. Where do the actors like the cast of The Last of Us up above go from here? Back to the collective bargaining table. This vote doesn't mean that the union will strike, but it gives them the option to do so if negotiations fall apart. [Image credit: Imeh Akpanudosen via Getty Images]
Video game voice actors may go on strike
Voice acting in video games is serious and often thankless work. You have to recite hours of dialog that doesn't always get heard, and only a handful of actors (like Nolan North, John DiMaggio and Troy Baker) have high-profile careers. However, they're now fighting to get a bigger piece of the pie. The actor union SAG-AFTRA is considering voting for a strike that would push for more payments and greater rights for game voice actors. It's proposing that these performers should get bonuses every time a game sells 2 million copies, and stunt pay when they have to strain their voices -- think about every game where your character screamed from taking damage. The guild also wants stunt coordinators for motion capture work, and it hopes to prevent companies from both hiring their own unionless staff as well as instituting fines over relatively arbitrary faults, such as failing to audition for small roles.
'Destiny' ditches Dinklage
Before Destiny officially launched on consoles, it launched a meme: That wizard came from the moon! The phrase, which was printed on Bungie-sanctioned t-shirts (and sold like hotcakes), spawned from Peter Dinklage's awkward, non-committal voice acting as the game's helpful, floating Ghost character. Soon, we'll be able to tell if the dialogue was to blame, or if Dinklage simply phoned this one in: Bungie is replacing all of Dinklage's voice work in the main game with that of Nolan North, the voice actor behind Uncharted's Nathan Drake and Assassin's Creed's Desmond Miles (among many other credits). North spilled the beans to Game Informer this month.
Video games give B-list actors a second chance
While some of you might recognize the gap-toothed gentleman pictured above as actor Keith David, from such films as "The Thing" or "Requiem for a Dream", we'd wager that more of you know his voice -- David is arguably the most prolific celebrity-turned-video game voice actor on the planet, picking up roles in Fallout, Saints Row, Planescape: Torment, Mass Effect, and, of course, providing the guttural dialogue for the Arbiter in Halo 2 and Halo 3. Though his on-screen career isn't booming, David has found a comfortable niche in the video game voice acting market.According to a recent Reuters article, he's not the only celebrity to slip through the cracks of big screen Hollywood, only to find solace and celebrity in video games. Terrence 'T.C.' Carson, whose career dried up after his role in the moderately successful sitcom "Living Single", has voiced a number of video game characters -- including everyone's favorite brooding Spartan, Kratos. Michael Ironside of Top Gun and Starship Troopers fame provides the voice of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher.These kinds of jobs are quickly gaining popularity in Hollywood, says Reuters, as voice work provides a much steadier paycheck than that of on-screen roles. We see it as a win-win situation -- down on their luck actors with distinct voices can find a nice amount of celebrity in the gaming realm, and as a result, we don't have to suffer through another era of wretched, Tenchu-esque voice acting. God bless you, Keith David.
The Starcraft 2 petition
So I wandered over to Blizzplanet this morning to check out what new information they might have, about the Wrath of the Lich King, about the upcoming patches, really anything of interest. Now, I only recently got into the Starcraft universe, really since the announcement about a sequel being in development. It was at that time that I decided to pick up a copy of the game and see what it was all about. RTS had never been my genre, but I am really enjoying the game for multiple reasons. So when I saw the petition listed on Blizzplanet, I was intrigued.In Starcraft2, Blizzard's new addition to the genre, there are many things that have reappeared. Characters we know and love are back, albeit with some updates. The most notable change in the characters aside of their appearance is their voices. Evidently Blizzard has decided to go with new voice actors for this project, which leaves diehard Starcraft fans feeling disjointed and more than a little irritated. Thus Blizzplanet has put together a petition, and no it's not to bring back the Firebat. The petition is to let Blizzard know how much the players of Starcraft want to hear the same voice acting in Starcraft 2. The voice work in Starcraft was particularly brilliant, and was a huge part of what gave the game its personality. They ask that Blizzard work with the people that brought that magic to the first game. It really isn't a lot to ask, it just requires a change in Blizzard strategy. Will it work? Sign the petition and find out.
No More Heroes: more beam katanas and Raidenesque Irishmen
The latest No More Heroes site update reveals some of the different beam katana weapons that Travis Touchdown will be using in his quest to become the highest-ranked assassin in Santa Destroy for some reason. The "system" page has images of the pistol-gripped "Blood Berry," which is the katana that Travis wins from an auction, and the elegant Tsubaki, which is made for him by Naomi.We think we're going to scour eBay for a couple of hours now. We're definitely pro-beam katana, even if we feel pretty strongly anti-assassinating-folks.In other No More Heroes news, on the Kojima Productions Report podcast, voice actor Quinton Flynn revealed that he was a member of the No More Heroes voice cast, playing an Irish character named Henry. Flynn, best known for playing Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2, was on the podcast to discuss his upcoming reprisal of that role. But you guys knew all of that, because you already listen to the Kojima Productions Report every week, right?
Seeing the voice behind Jeanne D'Arc
Sony's upcoming SRPG, Jeanne D'Arc impresses with stellar production values. At Comic Con, GameTrailers was able to talk to Kari Wahlgren, voice of the titular lead character. In the informal chat, you'll see that she doesn't have a French accent -- it's something she just had to pick up for her role. Sony emphasized that the accent needed to be mild. Looking at the footage, we think it works quite well for the role.
Breakfast topic: Best voiceacting
For the longest time, I didn't even know that WoW bosses actually had voices. It took halfway through BWL for me to finally turn on the sound and listen to what my enemies were saying, and I discovered that some of the voices were actually pretty decent. There are concurrent threads on the US and EU realm forums about the best raid boss voice acting. There are a lot of different nominees, but some recurring mentions include:
