Video Game Audition
Before I catch up on some overdue happenings, I wanted to jot down my latest audition note. This one was for several voices for a video game, and the auditions were held in a music studio in Santa Monica. I love voice auditions. It’s a chance to create characters I would otherwise have no chance of pulling off on camera without heavy makeup, and sometimes not even then.
I did forget to fill in the talent “card” (really just a sheet of paper with blank spaces next to personal info and measurements), and they bumped me one slot while I scribbled. Embarrassingly amateurish of me. One thing seemed odd, they asked for my birth date and Social Security number. Uh, sorry, I’ll be happy to hand over my Social once you need to write me a check, but until then I’ll keep that private. And asking for my birth info is just gauche.
But they didn’t blink at the missing bits, and were all smiles and handshakes as they ushered me in. I gave them a young hothead, a sneering goblin, a kindly old man, and a scholarly 50-year-old who seemed to me like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. I stayed far away from an impression, of course. It’s best not to sound like anyone else’s nerd.
They liked what I did for the lead character, or at least they heard something that made them want me to try the arrogant punk character. It’s always encouraging to be asked to read for additional roles.
Since this was for a game, there was a lot of shouting for spells, battle cries, and the like. It was hard not to snicker when hearing lines like, “eeeeEEEEERAAAAWKAH!” float past the door as the guys ahead of me did their thing. Some of them really screamed their heads off, and the rest had almost no inflection. Do these guys not play games? It seems to me it’s the quality of the shouts, not the volume, and they’re delivered with some passion in the games I play. Often the acting is pretty sub-standard, but I think the game companies still use in-house employees for some things. It’s only recently that the voice acting has been examined by reviewers and critiqued by players.
If I don’t get this, I’ll have to check it out when the game is released. Maybe they LIKE the guys who scream their heads off.
