Everyone who has every been.

The contract negotiations are over and the cast of The Simpson’s are ready to get back to work. Their pockets may be a little heavier than before, but maybe not as heavy as they were hoping for.

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God of War 2 by SCEA

Greg deBeer, the Dialog Manager for Sony Computer Entertainment of America Foster City, sat down with Gamasutra and gave a very candid interview on the state of dialog and voice over’s in the video game industry. In this six page interview deBeer’s speaks of finding that original voice for a game, casting actors for their range, and most interestingly his thoughts on celebrities doing voice over for video games.

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Image Credit: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

Michael Hollick has voiced the most well-known character in the year’s biggest blockbuster game when he took on the role of Niko Bellic in Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 4. Now Michael was paid for his work and at a little over union scale he took home roughly $100,000. Not nearly as much as a famous-faced screen actor would have netted for a large role such as this, and Mr. Hollick will most likely never see another dime for his work. No residuals or royalties will come his way at all even after his voice will be heard by millions in online campaign and television commercials due to the current structure between union contracts and the game developers and publishers themselves.

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Voice Over Video Sunday

I know of Rodney Saulsberry. You know of Rodney Saulsberry. I know that you know of Rodney Saulsberry. I know you know you I know of Rodney Saulsberry. His voice can be heard everywhere from movie trailers, to commercials, to cartoons, to video games, but he may be most well known in the industry for his voice over instructional seminars, the most recent being at the Voice Coaches Advanced Marketing Expo and Conference.

Unfortunately this isn’t a video from that seminar, but it is a short interview with Rodney on a local new station promoting his book. The interviewer doesn’t toss up the most in-depth questions (she enjoys the fact that voice over actors don’t worry about their hair), but Mr. Saulsberry does manage to get across a few good tips about the industry. My favorite part of this video — and maybe it’s just that great voice that helps get it across — is how upbeat and inspirational Rodney is. The next time he holds a seminar in the New England area you can bet that you’ll find me there.

Also, does anyone know when this clip is from? He promoting his book YOU CAN BANK ON YOUR VOICE: Your Guide to a Successful Career in Voice-Overs so my guess is sometime after 2004.

This weekend brought Stephanie from Vox Daily to the Voice Coaches Marketing Expo down in New York and with it came great voice over panels and discussions. Now a days you can’t have a proper discussion about the future of voice over without mentioning the huge potential in the video game industry.

At the Expo Evan Skolnick, VO Producer at Vicarious Visions, put on an interesting panel about the state of voice over in the gaming sector today and Stephanie has a nice write-up about it and some facts and tips about the industry as a whole. Of course, one of the most important tips is still to play the games!

Some of the more interesting aspects of the article is just the shear volume of dialogue that goes into a video game as opposed to a movie. Your standard movie averages out at about 2,000 lines of dialogue as opposed to a video game which average tops out at roughly 8,000 lines! But it doesn’t end there as your blockbuster, voice-heavy games such as Mass Effect and Fallout 3 can have as many as 70,000 lines of dialogue! Try imagining reading 70,000 lines. You may need a glass of water after that session.

The article as a whole is a concise, handy guide to the seemingly wide open world that is video game voice acting and a recommended bookmark for all interested.

Game On : Gaming Voiceovers - via Vox Daily

Voice Over Video Sunday

One thing you’ll come to learn is that I am a huge fan of the show Futurama and all the voice talents that bring it to life. Of course, one of those actor’s has been a powerhouse in the voice acting community for years and I just lap up any interview that he may do or any speaking engagement that he may have in hopes that he will impart some of his knowledge onto the listening masses.

As you may have guessed by reading the title of this post that I am speaking of Billy West. The voice of Fry, the Professor, Dr. Zoidberg, Ren, Stimpy, Billy Bastard, Doug and the list goes on and on he’s one of the quickest and creative talents in the industry today. I just wish he wouldn’t have gone on Donny Deutsches show, but that’s for another post on another site…

Voice Over Video Sunday

Now I’ve never been a huge fan of Family Guy. The humor and stories just never seemed that fine tuned enough for me. I still laugh at some of the moments that I catch but I wouldn’t call myself an avid watcher.

With all that being said Seth McFarlane does have a great range in his voices from Quagmire’s squeakiness to Peter’s back-of-the-throat nasalness. It’s also fun to see all the actors in a booth together playing off of each other for their scenes. It does give a sense of realism to them.

Finally, how times can you act out the phrase “Oh my God” differently?

With such lackluster average scores how could developer Reality Pump even think to make a sequel to 2007’s worst voice acted game of the year, Two Worlds? Seemingly redemption.

Two Worlds: The Temptation

Even the developers’ themselves realize that Two Worlds not only suffered from the overt problems, like regular lock-ups, mind-numbingly buggy and terrible voice acting;

“We did all the scripting and voice over recording ourselves for the original Two Worlds, which I’m proud we accomplished but the end results show that it’s not exactly our forte.”

But, underlying internal issues also hampered the game;

“The main lesson we learned is to be more realistic with our goals. With the original idea, we were all so excited to be working on an RPG, that we tried to fit in every idea we had, even the ones that came late in the process.”

Two Worlds: The Temptation hopes to help the series and the developer regain face with gamers and the industry, and what is one of the glaring errors they will first correct? Reality Pump is going to hire professional voice actors for the sequel.

“As for the voiceovers, we’re hiring a very high profile recording studio to hire the actors and lay the tracks. We’ll reveal who these teams are soon enough, but suffice to say that the games they’ve done in the past are very well known.”

Ooh, a mysterious high profile recording studio. The suspense is maddening. It is great to hear them admit their mistakes and to try and fix them which has ultimately made me want to play The Temptation that much more. Also, to be honest, the atrocious voice acting in Two Worlds kind of makes me want to play that game as well.

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Read the full interview with Two Worlds: The Temptation developer Reality Pump HERE.

You could be an Igor

The 2008 New York Comic-Con has finally wrapped-up and it definitely was a blast. I had previously mentioned the VO contest to be in the next Spider-Man game that was being held at the Activision booth. The line was long, people were excited and I can’t wait to hear who won the gig. But, that wasn’t the only voice over contest that came out of the Con.

September 19th, 2008 brings the release of the new animated movie Igor starring John Cusack and Steve Buscemi. Igor is the story of an evil scientist’s trusted sidekick who aspires to be mad scientist of his own one day. Igor then takes it upon himself and enters into the Evil Scientist Fair and that’s where hilarity is sure to ensue.

As a fun promotion for the movie The Weinstein Company - producers of the movie - are running a contest for a voice over role as one of Igor’s pals in the film. By heading over to www.BeAnIgor.com you can sign up to win a chance to be in the fim. Currently details on the contest are limited (i.e., non-existent) but as soon as they become available VoiceOverture will be sure to post them. So sign up and have fun with it!

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Igor is directed by Tony Leondis and written by Chris McKenna. It also stars Eddie Izzard, John Clease, Molly Shannon, Jay Leno, Arsenio Hall and James Lipton.

With Frank Welker’s extensive resume in the voice over industry why would I choose a clip of him making monkey noises? Well, if you don’t know the answer to that then you never seen the genius of Frank Welker in action. I leave these seven simple words for you to think about, “Curious George as a record player scratching.”