BETA | VOICE ACTING Direct action
WHILE IT’S easy to be excited by the likes of full performance capture, the good old voice over recording session remains a fundamental and relevant process in the game developer’s arsenal. And, like the role of actors explored on the
previous pages, the responsibility of the VO director is also undergoing a significant change. At least, that’s the case at OMUK, where
Veteran director Mark Estdale believes voice actors need to connect with the moments that the player lives through in the game world
veteran casting and voice director Mark Estdale has built a recording facility like few others. Stood in the booth, the actor looks through the glass to a studio fronted not by an engineer, but a director. That director is Estdale himself, who
believes that there must be a change in directing game voice actors. “What we’re trying to do here at OMUK is,
instead of putting games into a traditional model, to bring the performances to life. If you follow the traditional directing and acting model, you’ll get the best the traditional model can offer. What I’m trying to do is build a model for recording performance that is suited to navigating the maze that is a game’s script; that whole complex, branching, looping madness that it can be.”
LIVE FOR THE MOMENT Core to Estdale’s concept is that game scripts are no longer linear narratives still typical of film and theatre. Take, for example, Driver: San Francisco, to which OMUK helped in recording audio for a game script fleshed out by 30 writers over 200,000 words and several hundred characters. For an actor to comprehend that entire world and their place in such a fractured ‘narrative’ is near impossible, so the director must help the actors focus on the many thousands of moments that make up the atmosphere of the game.
36 | DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012 “You now have to help actors unlearn what
they have learned about becoming a character,” explains Estdale of the changing role of VO directors. “People say that the more you become a character, the more you can assimilate that character, and the more real your performance will be. Well, I think that’s bollocks really. All you need to do is help actors connect truthfully with these moments that the player lives inside. There’s a different model of acting emerging for games, and that means a new model of directing must also emerge.”
There’s a different model of acting
emerging for games, and that means a new model of directing must also emerge.
Mark Estdale, OMUK
A CLOSE CALL Estdale also advocates a method where the director gets as close to the actor as possible. He’s happy to admit he’d quite like to be in the booth with the actors if it were feasible, and he has developed a system whereby he can deliver visual and audio assets to the talent instantaneously via linked monitors and speakers. The actor alone in the booth also has
access to an open mic feed from the other side of the glass, meaning he or she is party to all the conversation around the mixing desk. This holistic methodology that seems to be working for OMUK, which has developed an
The OMUK recording studio allows actors to instantaneously see context for their part through the delivery of visual and audio assets
At London voice recording outfit OMUK a new model for talent direction is evolving. Will Freeman investigates
immense portfolio that is now close to numbering over 500 titles. “It’s almost a philosophical approach here; a philosophical change,” offers Estdale. “A game’s director must help an actor move towards working on a kind of instinct. A director needs to get actors to give that subtlety, that naturalness of behaviour, and you do that from the front of the studio; not tucked away behind and engineer. You do it through the make-up of your studio.” And it is the make-up of OMUK’s London
facility that has allowed the team to realise their vision of what a VO director must now offer. And in this model, the director in this new context is emerging as a role with a significantly increased impact on the creative process of developing a game.
www.omuk.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76