When you're not a voice actor but have to do some voice acting

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/12/where-youre-not-a-voice-acto.html

3 Likes

Reading uninspired scripts in a sound booth brings little joy to the end product.

Also, lamest high fives ever!

4 Likes

Almost as good as the opening scene in Castlevania SOTN!

5 Likes

Absolutely giving a shit; fantastic.

8 Likes

I was hoping for helpful tips in case I had add some quicky voice to software.

  • Give a shit.

That’s a start!

12 Likes

If I had my way, all video games would be voiced by Steven Ogg. There’s a guy who can bring some brio to his reading.

4 Likes

I feel sad for the one guy who comes in all pumped, did some stage at school, and they have to tell him, no, being natural and clear will be really weird, just listen to what everyone else did and fit in with that.

11 Likes

I am puzzled by how this would add value to the product – but then, I am neither a basketball fan nor a player of basketball video games. Is that really what post-game chatter is supposed to be like?

1 Like

I’ve recorded/directed a number of famous actors and not so famous actors for kids software and toys. Even with pros you usually have to do a couple of takes to get what you want. I can’t imagine recording an NBA player who has never acted, doesn’t want to be there and (from the audio) has a mumbling problem.

4 Likes

That’s some really horrible voice acting, i wouldn’t place blame on the voice actors themselves but whomever is directing them as the quality of their performances is on whomever is running the readings. If the actors were being stubborn and consistently giving bad performances i would still say it’s on the people running the show to turn that around.

Anime has some pretty legendary bad performances, but at least they’re amusing for the most part:

Here’s a compilation:

2 Likes

Dude, that sounds pretty authentic to me. Ever listen to post game interviews? They usually have about the same level of enthusiasm.

5 Likes

Well, the “acting” is good enough for the unrealistic, lifeless character “animation”.

4 Likes

The moral here is that you might think some creative idea will work, but the only thing that matters is whether it does work when you actually try it.

I’m sure some of the people involved did understand that, but those people probably don’t get much of a say, at least on this sort of big-budget, production-line title.

1 Like

I don’t hear “The train will be humming in no time.”

I hear “The train will be rolling in no time.” Which makes a bit more sense.

It seemed to me Andre Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal were the only ones who didn’t “phone it in”.

I’m convinced there are college classes for how to do information-free, contentless, phatic post-game interviews.

Should’ve checked if any of them had family members who were interested.

1 Like

Now this fails at being bad because he had such a great voice, and he’s radiating “I don’t give a fuck!” across the spectrum.

NBA 2K15 has a mode called My Career in which you create your own custom player and lead them through the life of an up and coming player trying to make it in the NBA. So this voice acting isn’t what you’d normally encounter as a result of gameplay, but the offshoot of having a specific game mode that has a storyline and cutscenes.

Well, I mean, if these dialogs are just supposed to be what would-be purchasers expect post-game chatter to resemble, then is using the voices of the actual players saying things they’d probably never actually say somehow more enticing? If it is all just needlessly dramatic, then I’d think it would make more sense to find actors who can provide the necessary gravitas.

Maybe it would be nifty if they just invited the players in to say whatever random things they genuinely felt talking about, and then somehow tried to generate a mode around the resulting recordings. But trying to structure that would be a nightmare.