Rockstar is recording the scenes of the original movie "Red Dead Redemption". Benjamin Byron Davis plays the Dutch der Linde and is waiting for a confrontation in the bar. Beginning.
He and other actors stood in the performance capture space-a stage full of props to mimic a four-door saloon-and Davis was sitting at the table. Director Rod Edge wants him to stand by the bar, but Davis believes that if he sits on a stool when the quarrel begins, the situation will get better.
Davis recalled: "Like me, I was a little confused about this. Rhode came over and asked me why I was sitting at the table." "I said, 'Because he came in, I wanted to stand up and tell him how old I was. 'At that time he said, "You're not that big-you're six feet tall."
In real life, Davis is a 6 & # 39; 6-inch tall person, but the guy he plays here is half a foot short. This moment perfectly encapsulates what the performance captures-a fusion of theater and weirdness that makes everything look like nothing. Although this made things more difficult, these performers were fortunate to be able to react to live partners. Speech performance is a completely different discipline, and it has its own challenges. For example, they are often in a booth alone.
Here are some examples of different acting disciplines in video games:
Davis said, "That's what I do: I never like to analyze any behavior." "I don't like to say, 'Some comedian, so dramatic, so-called TV actor, so-and-so movie actor.' . But I also do n’t like ‘voice actors’ too. I will admit that these are the true geniuses of sound acting when we look at Mel Blanc's work or see what Phil La Mar is doing now, and many others like him. There is indeed sound performance, which is a real skill. "
Some of the best VOs in video games play multiple roles in a single game. Their voices can change and adapt to a variety of personalities, and even transcend ordinary human voices, eliminating alien crying or loud calls to raise children. Some of them may be imitators, and their voices sound like other actors, just like Troy Baker (both part-time VO and performance capture) how to put on Mark Hamill's clown shoes and play "Batman : The Joker of Akhahan Origins. It is important to understand this distinction without compromising any one skill.
"This is becoming more and more challenging because when someone comes to you and says:" You are the voice of the Dutch van der Linde, I love you so much ", you do n’t want to say & # 39; "Bastard, am I his voice-I made a complete performance record," Davis said with a smile. "Because that person ended up saying: 'I love what you do'. The last thing you have to do is correct them. But when you call what we do on Red Dead," Sound Agents " At the same time, consumers came to their minds with the idea of having a stack of papers and standing in front of a microphone.
"For me, one of the most important elements of what an actor does is the concept of an ensemble, and Red Dead is an example of an extraordinary ensemble. When you are just talking about my speaking work on this project, I The other thing I heard was firing everyone else who was with me when the character was created. This character doesn't exist. The existence of this character is the same as everyone else around him. "
As motion capture technology becomes more and more integrated in modern movies, you will think that the public's understanding of it will increase. But not yet. Perhaps part of this is due to the obsession with privacy in video games, but it's also a question of how the industry can show itself. As I typed this, the 23rd Annual DICE Awards were just announced. Among them, there is an award for best role, and despite full performances, Mads Mikkelsen and Norman Reedus are still considered "voice actors."
Red Dead Redemption 2 actor Roger Clark explained: "I think a lot of misunderstandings are very easy to understand." "I think this is largely related to the fact that six, seven, eight years ago, The main way to make a video game is dubbing, (the audience) has no reason to think that the situation has changed. Another aspect is the simple habit. Even now, even those who know this is the main role of the performer in the 3A role Way people, they still call it dubbing, because that's the role they've been calling. I think it's like calling Pepsi.
"From myself, I just want my work to be better understood, and I want to do my best to ensure that people who appreciate my work have a chance to better understand it. I try to do it on social media A better advocate instead. I don't want to be a Moyle Myrtle, but at the same time if people do have misunderstandings, and if I see them spread it to others and mislead others, I always It will be polite to point out that most of the work done in red Dead Redemption 2 is not actually dubbing. I have always said that I also oppose voice acting. I am honored to be a voice actor. I just think the two media are very, very different. "
Many video game actors can perform performance capture and VO, but different skill sets ensure that not everyone does. What makes you successful in one discipline may not automatically transfer to another.
Acting director Tom Keegan explained, "VO actors have very sophisticated skills and are physically strong." "They are great, absolutely great, but sometimes, microphone-only technology may require Some ways to adjust the body, this may not be what the character does physically. I auditioned many very successful voice actors to perform. Some people are good at it, some are not. You will see them auditioning to stand up, and Instead of standing in front of the microphone, sometimes I ask myself, "That sounds good? "They're even hard to express. And some actors can perform performance capture because they don't have microphone technology, so they don't perform well with microphones. Microphones have a lot of tricks to keep the clicks small and keep your breath quiet .They are different. "
Some techniques used for VO, such as lowering the jaw, placing hands on the ribs to promote breathing or bending over the hump, are not intended to capture capture. When you track body and face movements, it doesn't look natural, but it works well in the booth. Of course, the nuances of VO may also make it difficult for performance capture actors to do their best in this situation.
"Cold reading is an important aspect of dubbing," explains Horizon Zero Dawn and Life, a strange actor Ashly Burch. “Unlike other acting disciplines, you often enter VO booths where you have never seen a script. Before you get there, you may not even know what role you are playing. Therefore, your ability to read, process and execute the material at once is very important .You must also be able to form characters very quickly without the help of set, costumes or even other actors. Attend a seminar for one character and then be asked to perform one or two other characters that sound exactly like your previous performances Different, whether in sound or character, it is not uncommon.
Firewatch and Darksiders 3 actor Cissy Jones added: "We don't have that rich facial expressions, body language or raised eyebrows to convey meaning." "This is the two-inch small fragment you can use in the middle of your throat To do. That's right. "
With VO work, you have limited tools to understand all the emotions and nuances of a full performance. For older video games, these records are usually done separately. Sometimes this is still the case, but video game creators are gradually realizing that when two actors can perform with each other, they get a more natural performance instead of splicing two separate performances together and doing Franken Stan's conversation.
Firewatch is a game about two people who have never met face to face, but they have created a true rapport through radio. You can really feel the familiarity of the game increasing throughout the game, which is partly due to the fact that two actors, Cissy Jones and Rich Sommer, recorded their lines while Skyped was attending the same meeting. They are having an actual radio conversation.
"This has made a huge difference because I was able to react emotionally to what Rich said, and vice versa." "(Player character) Henry said one thing, 'I don't believe I will Month came here with this view, or something similar. Then the text on the page was: "You will love it. "Then I went (* singsong *)," Oh, that's awful! "That's why it came into the game. Because she is a fun character, she can only play with her through my voice, which brings a lot of very interesting moments."
This brings me back to what Ben Davis said in our previous conversation about classifying performances into categories. It's all acting-just acting. Whether the performers are alone in a booth, on a motion capture stage or on a Broadway show, they are all actors. So let's start calling them like this.
We have been publishing articles about the video game agency industry all week, and you can read other articles on that link.
