Another source of knowledge and income.

Voice over, as a job, is a freelance business. The voice artist must market themselves, actively hunt down work and constantly improve their craft. Now that may seem like a lot of work, but it does offer something that most other jobs don’t, and it can be found right in the first word; voice artists are free.

AUDIOTUTS is the latest site in Eden’s suite of TUT sites which offer great advice and tutorials on a number of topics for the freelancer. From their Photoshop and web design tutorial sites to FreelanceSwitch, their community site dedicated to the freelance business, I’ve been a big fan of Eden’s offerings for some time now.

Coming back to the three points I’ve made about voice over freelancing; marketing, job hunting, and improvement, I want to bring to everyone’s attention all that AUDIOTUTS has to offer. As of posting this the site has just launched and is not filled to bursting with tutorials on audio production, but if all the other TUT sites are any indication of what’s to come then you can bet it will become a great resource. No matter the skill level audio production tutorials can be found there to improve anyone’s knowledge.

One of the greatest draws to the site has to be the ability to submit tutorials to them for anything audio related. And the pay off? $150 per tutorial that gets posted. I realize that this isn’t money one can live off of, but $150 is still some pretty good walking around with money for the week.

When you do get a tutorial posted and now have $150 in your pocket (or your PayPal account) I come to my next point, marketing. The TUTS sites are frequented by tens and tens of thousand of people with contributors becoming very well known within the suite of sites.

Overall AUDIOTUTS is a great site for looking up new tricks or refreshing your own knowledge in audio production. Plus, $150 bonus for getting a tutorial posted and sharing your knowledge helps improve the community as well. Now, you probably won’t get too many gigs from posting there but, hey, you never know!

AUDIOTUTS.com - Check out the main site.
Write a Tutorial - Check out the rules for submitting a tutorial.

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!

-

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.

The fourth time since 2004 that Duty has been Called

Mix Magazine, a fine purveyor of professional audio topics, has just released their February issue chock full of excellent information on all aspects of video game audio. The following is a wrap-up of five of the featured articles highlighted in this months print issue.

Answering the Call of Duty
Infinity Ward’s fourth installment of the acclaimed Call of Duty series was released at the end of 2007 to much fanfare. Not only was the story-line intriguing, the graphics stunning and the controls butter smooth, but the audio was spectacular. To pull of such stunning sound effects the audio team atIW went out to the field to capture real-life audio from M1A Abraham and AK-47 and small arms. While this is not new to video game recording, their methods of multiple recording angles optimized for surround sound is.

The closest you’ll ever get to rock stardom

This being a voice over blog I can’t not talk about the over 170 hours spent recording for all the dialogue for the game. Not only is the game translated into six languages, but theIW team scoured the globe for authentic and professional Arabic and Russian voice over actors. With the teams focus on battle moment intensity to produce a lifelike experience to the player, these must have been some fun recording sessions.

Guitar Hero Rocks
WaveGroup Sound is the recording and production group responsible providing the music tracks for a majority of the Guitar Hero games. In this extensive write-upWaveGroup owner/president Will Littlejohn talks about the future plans of one of the most established video game audio recording studio in the business. The article chronicles the beginnings of the company and their methods all the way to the estimated 250 million Guitar Hero tracks thatWaveGroup has so graciously bestowed upon the gaming public.

RTS Games Still Going Strong
Big budget action/adventure and first person shooter games aren’t the game on the market. You can’t forget about the scrappy Real Time Strategy genre that has been around longer than just about any other genre type. DevinHurd, Audio Director of Big Huge Games, sure hasn’t forgotten about RTS’ and with the sounds that he brings to the games, we’re betting that you won’t forget about them or the RPG’s (role-playing games) that he works on. With over 10 years in the game audio business this article details the sights, sounds and technology thatHurd and Big Huge Games utilize to pull you in to the top-down world view of the Age of Empire series.

He’s actually a tender thoughtful man

Scoring Splinter Cell: Conviction
What is one of the best ways to get into the gaming industry, in every aspect of the field? Be a gamer yourself. That’s what Michael Nielsen and Kaveh Cohen are and after a seemingly lifetime-length audition process the two 33 year-old virtual new comers are scoring one of the most highly anticipated and epic games to released, the fifth installment in the Splinter Cell series, Conviction. The two themselves grew up playing the Splinter Cell games and use their intimate knowledge of the games to other an audio experience that rivals any other. If you only pick up one thing from this article it’s guaranteed to be a new found familiarization of layers.

Total Immersion Effects
Video games have gone next-gen. With graphics this means high-definition 1080p imagery. With audio this means shake-you-in-your-seat rumble 5.1 surround-sound. With the number of actual audio clippings used in games today it can be daunting and costly to recreate these sounds for each game. This is where high-def audio collection come into play and the final article in the video game edition of Mix Magazine chronicles some of the best of those collection for audio engineers to use in triple-A blockbuster titles. Or if you have the money, for use in your own home movies.

[h/t to Gregory Best]

Voice Over Times has a great article up with 10 tips about utilizing Apple’s Garage Band software to make clean and professional podcasts and is worth a look. CLICK HERE for the story