Category Archives: voiceover

May 23 2019
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game voices, voiceover

Total Voiceovers, #TotalWarThreeKingdoms

Over the past year I have been working with Creative Assembly, a gaming company in Horsham who produce a number of platform and strategy games in the ‘Warhammer’ and ‘Total War’ series.

I’m probably on an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) as to what I can say about it, but as the release day is today, I thought I’d better write up about my experience. You’ve all seen the character trailers. When they first dropped, it didn’t hit me initially that my character was actually one of the main characters! It’s pretty massive for me!

 

 

Thankfully, doing game voices is not a new thing for me, as I’ve got a pretty good history of doing game voices from Just Cause II to James Bond: Bloodstone. One is due out soon called Doragon Kuesuto XI which sounds suspiciously like something else. I wonder what that could be…? As you can see from my IMDB, it’s pretty cool that I’ve done all these character voices for video games. What’s cool about this, and working with Nick Gratwick who directed me, and Pete Stewart who wrote the script at Creative Assembly, is that it’s one of the lead characters, so the voice is going to be pretty recognisable throughout the game. That’s making me so stoked with excitement!

Have you played any of the other Total War Series? Which is your favourite?

Screen Shot 2019-02-05 at 16.24.46

screenshot of the trailer  ©CreativeAssembly

I love this aspect of game voice acting. The changing of not just the accent I normally speak with, but also where the voice is coming from (or where am I “placing” it) in my head or chest or throat, what textures am I using? Different to much of the radio drama that I have done, but still using those acting skills. Different because you sometimes don’t get a total script, sometimes it’s just your speeches. As the person in the booth you do have to rely on your imagination. Thankfully, that, combined with the director’s knowledge of what the writer is doing with these (sometimes) disjointed lines of text, it they made it easy for me, it felt that it was really a collaborative effort. Yes, it may be my voice, the character that I’m creating, but the understanding of where these lines happen, what these lines need to do, that is the writer and director. Working with both Nick and Pete is great. It was often just Nick and myself in the studio, but usually at the start of the sessions, Pete would be in, helping more with context.

 

In the studio with Nick Gratwick (director) and Peter Stewart (writer)

I hope you enjoy Total War: Three Kingdoms. I’m sure the wait was worth it! Let me know what you think of the new platforms. I’d like to hear from you.

May 17 2019
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game voices, voice acting, voiceover

#EGXRezzed Panel

Check the link in the tweet above!

A few weeks ago I was invited to speak on a panel of voiceactors about our experience at EGX, a games convention at Tobacco Dock in London. Talking about how we started and how we work. To be honest I was fairly newbie compared to the women voices on the panel – Amelia Tyler who is famous for various roles as well as donning a MoCap suit and doing that section of the job too! Also Samantha Béart, another seasoned character voiceactor for games.  Really exciting to be on that panel! And Sally Beaumont (who got me on the panel).

Dave Gilbert, who directs games chaired the panel and was able to ask us questions about what we do. I’m afraid I had much too much fun laughing to give cohesive answers.

The full session is below but in the link to the tweet above are all the funny bits that Amelia Tyler edited together.

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May 16 2019
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game voices, voice acting, voiceover

#Vampyr – a mention in a review

vampyr

Vampyr ©Dontnot Entertainment

I found this little mention for my role as Rakesh in Vampyr! How nice to be mentioned!

“Let’s talk about the voice acting shall we?

I loved the attention to detail that Dontnod has provided players. The characters who are from different countries are actually voiced correctly. The idea of wandering accents is not an issue in Vampyr like is often the case in many movie productions. Characters portrayed by actors are well done and thought out properly. Even the writing of the different characters is done brilliantly.

First, Jonathan Reid is voice acted by a man named Anthony Howell, a British actor who has done roles in other games such as Star Wars: Battlefront II, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Horizon Zero Dawn. And he’s no stranger to vampires either, because he play Lord Laurent in the 2013 TV series Dracula. (I’m actually still salty they cancelled the show after only one season. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS).

Jamie Zubairi plays the voice of Rakesh, and he was born in the UK although he grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While his acting credits [are] shorter than some of the other voice actors in the game, Mr. Zubairi was hired for games like James Bond 007: Bloodstone and Just Cause 2. 
While there is a decent cast for the various characters in Vampyr, many of the actors are from England – a detail that goes a long way in creating an immersive video game experience. Though, birth in a particular country does not mean that other actors could not have taken on roles. All I’m saying is the use of primarily British actors delivers a captivating and realistic story.

Each character is tailored perfectly to portray different types of people from their sexual orientation right down to their social standing and temperament. These characters are voice acted in a manner that fits the story and the time period well enough that it’s quite noticeable to keen observers.

I absolutely love every bit of the sound and music used in Vampyr. I especially love the casting choices for the characters in the game. ”

 

You can read the whole article by Susan N here!

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Apr 24 2014
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Self employment, voiceover

Learning when to say ‘No’

 

Why have a real queen when you can get cheaper version?

Why have a real queen when you can get a cheaper version?

I hate saying ‘no’. To a friend, to a client, to a director. It puts you in the negative. It makes them think you’re being unhelpful or to good for them. Today I did just that, to a client. I hated it but I think sometimes you have to. Some people could say that it’s a lucky position to be in but sometimes you just have to say ‘no’ to jobs. This’ll probably jinx me for the next time but I’ve taken the risk.

I don’t know about you, but often when I get offered work, more work will come my way, either out of the blue or off the back of the first gig. In whatever field, be it business or creative (or creative business?) the buzz around a working person is positive and it keeps building speed. Have you seen it on television where a series, a soap, a one-off drama will have the same actor appearing either as a guest or as a recurring character. I’ve seen that about actors “Do they not stop working?” I think to myself. How lucky they must be!

In my 17 years as an actor I’ve seen that happen many a time. And I’ve experienced it. Like buses. Though often not for the same sector. Sometimes it’s all acting, sometimes voiceover work will come through, often interspersed with some one-off temping or a painting for a friend. I consider myself to be very, very lucky because I do a variety of things to earn a crust. I’d love to be able to specialise a bit more but I enjoy the changes. it’s doing them often enough which is the tricky part.

Today I said ‘no’ to a translation job. It was 2700 words and had to be timed to video. Given enough time I’d have jumped a the chance but with the weekend coming up (I have a regular paid job at the weekend as an assistant chef in a cafe, which I am loyal to) so working on outside project without prior notice is out of the question. I couldn’t have given it my full attention especially since they wanted me to work out the timecode for each of the sections, translate within the parameters (see my previous post on translations for voiceovers) and then neatly packaged with my own voiceover. (Which I don’t think is ethically right – I could be translating anything for myself to speak, and creating more work and expense for the client). For a “package fee”.

 

I know someone out there is doing the translation gig, but I hope that they’re doing it for something closer to the proper fee (all my agents have a standard fee for translation, so I’ve based it on theirs). I don’t expect others to lower their fees when we’ve worked hard at  our job to maintain professional standards, equipment and relationships. There will always be someone who will do it for cheaper but they’ll probably need it more. This weekend there was not time in my schedule to be fitting in a technical translation, something that required a lot of headspace to get around the jargon.

Luckily I’d still kept the voiceover gig!

An agent once said to me: Only accept the jobs that fulfill at least two of these:

1) is it paid – and paid correctly?

2) is it high profile – is it going to be good for your career?

3) Does it feel artistically fulfilling?

I know in the realm of voiceovers we often can’t be choosers but sometimes.. sometimes we can.

 

P.S. in case you were wondering, the photo above was backstage before a performance of a monologue for the Solo Festival at Lost Theatre in London for a piece called “Queen of The Jews” in which I had to play Queen Elizabeth II who was considering to convert to Judaism by Ivor Dembina

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Mar 25 2014
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Studio, voiceover

#voiceovers Do you get the belly gurgles?

Cake!

Cake!

When you’re in a studio doing a voiceover, do you often get the engineer querying a deep rumbling in the studio? I’ve used to be too embarrassed to admit that it was my belly gurgling. After about 30 minutes into a session, my stomach will start to rumble! I soon got over my embarrassment and started buying snacks to munch on the way to a session. I think it’s gotten so bad that whenever I have a voiceover session booked, my immediate thing is to buy croissants for the journey.

I was in a particularly long session at a studio the other day and I have gotten so used to this, I came supplied with croissants. About 4. It was a 7 hour session in the studio and, sure enough, after the first 45 minutes, I got the first rumble but we carried on.  Stefano, the engineer, must be used to this by now, we’d been working on this project and others for a while. We took a break after the first hour, as expected, so I was able to stuff my face with croissant number 1.

While I was on the break, it got me thinking… does any other voiceover artist have this issue? I’m sure I can’t blame my voiceover career for my growing waistline and I get a Pavlovian reaction of thinking about croissants when I get a voiceover booking. Sound engineers? What funny stories have you experienced with voices in the booth?

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Feb 21 2014
5 Comments
corporate, recordings, voiceover

Translations for Voiceovers

Do video production companies take into account the foreign markets when making their videos?

I’ve been doing voiceovers now for newarly 7 years and am getting to notice things about foreign voiceovers in particular. I speak Bahasa which is a language spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia and, with the current economic interest in the region, there is a growing interest about investing in the oil and gas industries as well as manufacture.

With this investment comes job, with jobs comes regulations and training. With that, comes e-Learning and instructional videos.

I have so far been involved in the translation and voicing of about 20 Bahasa Health & Safety and “how-to” videos for the airline industry, oil & gas, manufacture. There are some which are incredibly easy to voice, especially when it falls into the “e-Learning” category and there isn’t any video to sync to. The problems arise when there is already an existing video, voiced usually in English and all I’m given is the timecode to fit in the translation. Often I’m left frustrated and tearing my hair out as a simple sentence in English  will sometimes be almost a third longer when in Bahasa. I wonder if production companies ever take this into account when they know their client will be using their video for the worldwide market. It’s something to consider. I’m sure it’s the same case in Standard German with their portmanteau words. Bahasa, or any other language where almost every consonant is followed by a vowel, for example:

There’s something in the air tonight = Ada sesuatu di udara malam ini

might look like a sentence of similar length but if you consider that the English has 8 syllables, the Bahasa (in this case Malay) has 13 syllables. Fitting the amount of syllables within the start and end of a particular timecode starts to make the sentence sound ridiculous. The viewer will be have to first get over the hurdle of how ridiculous it sounds before they can start actually taking in the information, which may be about airline safety or toxic gases.

When I am translating for voiceover I am always aware that someone is going to have to speak this at some point (often me) so the translation should match the lenth of the English. I’m often in vocal booths editing words out of someone else’s hard work in order that it should fit the client’s specification. Which increases my time in the booth as well as my fee and the cost to the whole production.

 

Often it’s the case where the voiceover client has the the video production company as the client, so there’s nothing the sound engineer can do.

I would love a situation where production companies producing the video made a slightly longer edit for the foreign markets their clients are selling to. It would help the voice doing the work as well as the person having to take the information in. What is the point of sitting your workers in front of a Health & Safety video if they can’t take it seriously and, by extension, feel that they are not being taken seriously by their employers?

@zoobyvoice

Doing what I love best

Doing what I love best

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May 10 2012
2 Comments
corporate, marketing, recordings, voiceover

Voicereel Demo

My current voiceover demo reel

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Mar 23 2012
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voiceover

The Value of Training

I’ve recently started a new audio editing training course. Refining my skills and learning new ones, making sure that I’m not making basic mistakes. As someone who has learned my craft by listening to other voicereels and wondering ‘How did they achieve that?’ and fiddling around with various audio editing software. Doing courses has been really helpful. I’ve been really lucky in that the course I went one was part of an initiative that my local borough (Southwark) are really keen to promote and encourage artists and The Arts in the area.

This week I will have started a new client’s commercial demo voicereel. Her session was really fun and relaxed – that’s what I can offer as I record from my home studio and we were able to expand on the sides that she found, chop them up creatively to give her a wider range of commercial styles. We’d also found some for using her ‘small boy voice’ which was really fun to record. We’d discovered this as she was mucking about over the mic and that got me excitedly thinking of another category that she could record for. I’m quite jealous of anyone who can voice young boys – there’s market for them out there and not many women can. Louise was one that could! Look out for her reel in a few weeks time when it’s up and running.

I’m glad I undertook the relatively short course. One day a week for four weeks is sometimes a little tricky to commit to when you’re freelance but training is important to me. What is nice is the fact that I’ve been able to learn about aspects of editing that I didn’t think I’d need. Effects, for example – how many times in a corporate VO have I needed to use any reverb or presets? With Louise’s demo reel I needed two very different types of voices for the same segment, two different atmospheres, her using two different character voices wasn’t enough. Having just learnt how to manipulate the sound digitally, I came up with three different variations of the same take. And using the multi-track option on Adobe Audition, I was able to easily come up with the same effect on the three different takes that she gave of the same read, without the fiddly editing of each segment. It came at the right time.

Mar 10 2012
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marketing, voice acting, voiceover

Recording Demos

I thought it was time to update my drama demo as it was feeling a little in need of refreshing. Because of the nature of the work, most of my voiceover home recordings are corporate and have a certain tone which I’ve been working with with some efficiently. The text of most corporate voiceovers don’t usually deal with emotion or conveying a story. (I say that, some really creative corporate voiceovers have been like little stories, or I had to play certain characters). As I haven’t been working with drama scripts for several months I knew that I’d have to have some help.

Today my actor and voiceover friend Amanda Gordon came by to help me record these demos so that I can concentrate on the acting side and not have to worry too much about pushing buttons. I have already recorded a version of these but as an experiment, Amanda offered to direct me on these pieces. From what I have heard already, doing a compare and contrast listen to the tracks, I really like the suggestions that Amanda has made: “Slow down”, “tell ME the story, make me see the images that you’re making”.

Really helpful suggestions. I guess it doesn’t matter how experienced you are as a voiceover artist, it really does help having an outside ear when you’re recording your own demos. Someone in the business whom you can trust who can talk to you straight as both a friend and professionally.

Having listened to one of the recordings I can hear the subtle changes in variety and colour that my voice has after her direction. I hope I can post these up here when I’ve finished with the edit and mixdown.

Happy voicing!

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Mar 09 2012
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marketing, voice acting, voiceover

The VoiceOver Site

I thought I’d start a voiceover site now that I am getting a lot of voiceover and translation work which is independent of my acting and artistic ‘work’. From now you’ll be able to hear what I sound like with various clips on the clip page – there will hopefully be images (as I’ll be making them video clips so it’s not merely the audio).

I’ll also hopefully be sharing what advice and learning that I have been given along the way. It won’t be that technical as I’m not very technical but at least it’s be jargon-free for new users. Of course, as I get more into the business it will have to include stats and things like that, but hopefully enough for anyone to understand.

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