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| 27 OCT 2002 at 6:25pm |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | P.S. Lest any misunderstanding occur, I make no distinction when I say professional developers. You who work for the likes of Dreamcatcher and Microids, and you who develop freeware/shareware/indie games for us to enjoy, even you who have the dream of creating your own game one day and are working toward that goal; you are all professionals in my eyes.
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| 27 OCT 2002 at 11:47pm |
PharosGamesIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 50
Joined: 18 OCT 2002
Status : Online | John Bell is a fantastic voice actor, and did some work for me in Cherokee. His webpage is here:
http://www.profzounds.com.
Karen Veaner, another professional voice-over artist, also does great work and did some readings for Cherokee too.
Otherwise, I used unpaid amateur volunteers who did a great job, and I really appreciate them!
I think voice-over artists usually make about $50-$100 per minute of commercial work for radio or other media.
If you'd set up a webpage with some voice clips of your work, I think you'd have a good chance of getting some offers.
If you'd be interested in working on my next project, maybe we could work something out. Can you do British accents? Because I'm thinking the cats in my next game might be British.
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 12:15am |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Hmm.. voice clips. Publicly accessible? ACK!
/me faints from virtual stage fright
I gotta pee....
OK anyway. In answer to your question, yes. That'd be way cool! I can do London proper and Cockney rather well (I've played both Henry Higgins and Eliza Dolittle), and am working on Manchester.
Thx muchly for your response
.gita
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 12:22am |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Oh and by the way, if anyone's developing a game with anyone Indian (the sub-continent) in it, you need me. Road to India was *most* horrible in that regard.
.gita
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 2:15pm |
Baron_Von_UngernIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 41
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I think your best way to get into the industry is to begin by doing voices for small product.
Even if you are real good, I don't think that Majors will even think about hiring you on a 2 millions project if you have no previous experience in the gaming industry.
The only way to get directly into big project whitout gaming experience is to be a professionnal actor.
Good luck.
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 3:55pm |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Thanks for the response. If by "small product" you mean independent developers with a small budget, that's fine by me. I'm not presumptuous enough to think I can just waltz in.
.gita
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 4:17pm |
JonasKyratzesSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 280
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Maybe some day...
[i]
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 5:22pm |
mbc841Space Cadet
Posts : 194
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Well the game I'm working on now, Harvest, I did all the voice acting myself, which is why that'll probably be the worst part of the game. There are two characters in the game and I've tried to disguise my voice so the two characters sound differently.
Perhapse my next project, I'll be able to afford to hire someone to do the voice acting.
[url=http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/index.htm][[img]http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/Graphics/banner1.jpg[/img][/url]
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 5:23pm |
mbc841Space Cadet
Posts : 194
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Oh, and just out of curiosity JustG, what do you chage for your services?
[url=http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/index.htm][[img]http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/Graphics/banner1.jpg[/img][/url]
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 5:25pm |
JonasKyratzesSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 280
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | BTW, I swear that one day I'll get Wil Wheaton to do a voice for one of my games!
[i]
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| 28 OCT 2002 at 9:22pm |
bleepnikPrivate Detective
Posts : 544
Joined: 13 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By mbc841 (28 OCT 2002 5:22pm)
Oh, and just out of curiosity JustG, what do you chage for your services?
For you, gratis! No, seriously, I just love doing it. It would be *so* cool to make some money doing something I love, but right now I'd just be happy to get some experience and have you tell all your developer friends how great it is working with me
.gita
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| 2 NOV 2002 at 3:30am |
The Terror of the Wolf part 3Schattenjger
Posts : 2391
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I've done a few vocal work pieces for local radio, and a couple of audio plays here and there, but nothing major. The most recent work was http://www.brutalpaws.cjb.net/ which basically considered of a 'mystical-Saruman' type vocal for Pantha, and a 'macho russan' type vocal for Ivan the Bear. Fun.
I don't charge for my work unless it involves actual studio time. I can manage a large enough range of dialects to at least put in an attempt at anything. I must admit that I can do better than some of the really awful voice actors on dubbed anime, but then, so could most people
[url=http://www.justadventure.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1136331866/0#0]GAMES FOR TRADE!![/url]
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| 2 NOV 2002 at 12:19pm |
Agustín CordesGuild Master
Posts : 5696
Joined: 23 OCT 2002
Location: AR, Buenos Aires
Status : Offline | Heres a nice idea: why don't each of you pick a line from your favorite game character, record it with your voice and post the .wav file here? That way, developers can get a glimpse of your voice
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| 4 NOV 2002 at 2:48am |
NordicWallyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 2
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Over the years, I've used a lot of voice talent in my retail games. In the beginning, when we were just starting out, we used non-union talent when possible to save costs. But whether union or not, we always listened to samples (the artists' portfolio) of their work prior to auditioning them. This was usually samples off of CD (the web would be fine now, of course).
When we started in 1992, many studios still used employees for voices - and it was very obvious. We rarely used employees for voices for two reasons: (1) few people, with a microphone shoved into their face and the money flowing away and 2-8 people staring at you, will sound the same as when they're just shooting off their mouth (kareoke not withstanding). Theatre experience helps negate this. (2) The ability to read-ahead and also be able to give the reading several interpretations in inflection are a learned skill. With studio time costing anywhere from $150-600 per hour (or more), most of the cost is in not the voice talent themselves but how long it takes for them to do the job.
Still, you can't learn if you don't do.
That being said, the suggestions of putting samples on a website and giving contact info is standard practice. The sound/timbre of a voice is just as important as any dialect (as is whether you can keep the dialect and voice consistant). 22KHz, 16 bit is more than adequate for voice work - don't make files 44KHz sampled sounds. DO use some kind of semi-professional recording equipment (record out in the open if you don't have access to a decent sound-dampened room) or at least a better-than-$30 microphone. And don't overlook the possibility of getting a gig singing in a game, as well as the usual "You can't do that here" and "OW!!".
It can be pretty fun to do and it's always a kick to "see" your voice come out of a computer character. Good luck.
NW
ps - Here in Seattle, where the main character in a game may be in the studio for days, I don't think anyone makes $100 per minute .
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| 4 NOV 2002 at 2:53am |
PharosGamesIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 50
Joined: 18 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By NordicWally (4 NOV 2002 2:47am)
ps - Here in Seattle, where the main character in a game may be in the studio for days, I don't think anyone makes $100 per minute .
Was I given wrong information? I think he meant that for 1 minute of actual ON-AIR time in a radio commercial. Of course, this might take hours of studio time to produce.
It did seem kind of steep to me... especially for a large project! Could you give us a ballpark figure then, or does it vary too much to say?
I worked out special deals, and used volunteers for my last project. Couldn't afford many minutes at $100 each.
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| 4 NOV 2002 at 12:19pm |
Agustín CordesGuild Master
Posts : 5696
Joined: 23 OCT 2002
Location: AR, Buenos Aires
Status : Offline | 22KHz, 16 bit is more than adequate for voice work - don't make files 44KHz sampled sounds.
Hey, you're absolutely right. A 44KHz file can have a lot of hissing if its a voice recording. Also, it doesn't need to be in stereo (what a silly commentary...) so the files would be very small.
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| 11 NOV 2002 at 8:13pm |
NordicWallyIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 2
Joined: 4 NOV 2002
Status : Online | > PharosGames
> Was I given wrong information? I think he meant that for 1 minute of actual ON-AIR time in a radio commercial. Of course, this might take hours of studio time to produce.
Perhaps. If so, I wish I had had _that_ agent years ago. Usually, (voice) actors get paid _only_ for their time, and the person paying for their time gets their work, much like at McDonald's . A good agent will at least get the voicework assigned (in writing) to the specific project, with promotion or demo material included in that contract. That way, the paying party can't re-use the voices in a sequel or as filler in other works. Of course, it's the paying party's best interest to get universal, irrevocable, worldwide rights to the work to use as they see fit. Thus the role of the agent, as negotiator, is born.
In a more informal setting, a simple written agreement as to who owns the voice work would be enough, as long as it covers the scope of the useage.
In radio/tv/movies, residuals for each displayed instance of the work is still fairly rare (I believe) unless the talent has clout or owns part of the production company itself.
However, it could be in the case you're referring to that the artist was paid by the final commercial time, rather than studio time. I can't imagine why.... unless all parties agreed that the voice talent was new to studio work and would take a cut due to the slower recording process.
Or it could be another logical reason. I'm only familiar with the West Coast, and even that was several years ago.
Rael, You're right about stereo - no point to that.
However, hiss has very little to do with the sample rate (unless you downsample, which can add some). To minimize hiss, use 16-bit sound (and if you _do_ use 8-bit, but recorded in 16-bit, always Truncate instead of dither, as the "dithering" is done by adding hiss called "white noise". Turning the gain up too high on the recording device also causes hiss, as it records the random electron movement in the microphone or recording device as well as general white noise we normally supress.
Telephones have a frequency rolloff of about 2.5KHz (which is why the original design for modems capped out at 300baud, which is approx 3KHz). It cuts off some of the higher frequencies in voices, making them sound less natural. But human speech, for the most part, doesn't go very high up in frequency (i.e Hz). Not compared to things like high hats (those cymbals on stands you see next to drummers).
Ideally, 22KHz, 16-bit Mono WAV files are probably the safest for voice files on a web site, as all web browsers and media players on both PC and Mac should be able to play these files
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| 20 FEB 2003 at 6:46pm |
mbc841Space Cadet
Posts : 194
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hey JustG, check your PM.
Mike.
[url=http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/index.htm][[img]http://www.justadventure.com/IndependentDevs/TheArrangement/Graphics/banner1.jpg[/img][/url]
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