Feb 28, 2023
Video game acting is a unique art form that requires strong acting
skills & an imaginative approach to storytelling. Anne is joined by
special guests Dave Fennoy & Randall Ryan to discuss all things
Game VO. Voice actors must bring their characters to life in a way
that's authentic & impactful for players. Believe it or not, the
average age for video game players is 40 years old, and these
people have been playing games for 15+ years. These players are
seeking a high level of story sophistication & depth of character
when playing games. For a voice actor, Game VO recording is often a
solitary and non-linear process due to logistics, but it still
requires a deep understanding of the character you're playing, the
world they inhabit, and their relationship to other characters.
Invent as you go. Know your character, the world, and how your
character would react in the moment. As with any genre, it’s best
not to overthink things too much before recording, but instead
trust yourself as an actor and allow yourself to get creative
during the session itself. And if you want to work with the pros,
stay tuned for a unique opportunity to relax, recharge, and level
up your game VO skills with Dave & Randall…
Transcript
It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level!
These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes
being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your
business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host,
Anne Ganguzza, and today I am pumped to level up my BOSS knowledge
about Game VO, and I am so excited and honored to have the best in
the industry, Dave Fennoy and Randall Ryan. Dave is a renowned
voice actor and instructor based in LA with a vast portfolio of
work in commercials, narration, TV promo, animation, and of course
video games. He's best known for his character, Lee Everett in the
Walking Dead Game, and has voiced characters for more than 500
games on some of the industry's biggest titles. And IMDB has named
him one of the 20 best male game voices of all time.
Randall Ryan began his career as a musician in touring rock bands,
and today is an award-winning composer and producer of gaming and
commercial music scores. He co-founded Hamster Ball Studios back in
1995, where he's been directing talent and producing game audio for
more than 20 years and has since contributed to numerous high
profile video game titles. Also, co-host of Let's Talk Voiceover
podcast and still performs the occasional live gig and thinks dogs
make the best people. And I of course, think cats, but maybe that's
for another podcast discussion, Randall, I'm not sure.
Randall: Who's your animal spirit podcast?
Anne: There you go. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. I am so
excited to talk to you today,
Dave: Oh, it's our pleasure. Happy to be here.
Randall: Absolutely.
Anne: So what I love, BOSSes, is that I have both sides of the
glass here today so that we can get a really comprehensive view of
game VO as it exists today. So I'd like to start off with Randall
and ask you as a casting director, can you give the BOSSes an idea
of the game VO market as it stands today, let's say, compared to 20
years ago when you first started?
Randall: Well, yeah, that's almost an unfair comparison. I think
what I would say is 20 years ago, games were just kind of coming
into their own as even an art form. And now as I think a lot of
people know, it is the gorilla of the industry. I mean, last year
games sold more than film and music combined.
Anne: Wow.
Randall: Which is just amazing. And the other thing that I see
that's very different from 20 years ago is 20 years ago, it was
certainly the wild west when it came to voice acting. It was often
like the person of the cubicle next to the developer, and they were
just throwing some voices in. And if they hired actors, there was
not a lot of, I don't know if I would use the word respect. It just
wasn't really truly a real part of
--
VO was an afterthought. And I think the difference is, is now is
not only has gaming VO reached a really high place as art form, but
the thing that I really see and, and it's the reason that I think
you don't pay attention to game voice as your own peril if you're a
voice actor, is it is changing every other genre.
Commercials are different because of gaming acting, and even for
the people that don't know it that are writing copy, they've been
growing up with games. They've been playing games, and they, and
they also see other commercials that have been going to more gaming
acting principles. And so even if they don't know that, that's
where that creative is driving from
--
bottom line is that is where that creative is driving from. So even
if you're not going to be in games, I think it's really important
as an actor to understand what it takes to be a VO game actor. It's
kind of like, even if you're gonna be on film, you really need to
understand theater. You need to understand all the principles of
it. It's very much the same kind of thing. You may not wanna be a
Broadway actor, but you don't study theater kind of at your own
peril. I think it's kind of the same idea.
Anne: Well, probably if I had to count the amount of times you said
acting
--
Randall: Yeah. Well
Anne: Right, in that response? So acting is so very important. Not
just I think to game view, but just to voiceover in general,
especially now. And I'd like to ask you, Dave, let's talk a little
bit about acting and your thoughts on why it's so important that
voice talent today really have that acting prowess.
Dave: You know, when we talk in the general world of voiceover,
acting is important, but it's more important when you are looking
at video games. We become a good actor in voiceover to be able to
be ourselves or a character similar to ourselves for commercials
and narration, or even TV promos. But we're looking for something
wider range, a much wider range of who these characters are and
with a different purpose. If you're doing TV promos or commercials,
your job is to get people to buy a product, watch a TV
show.
As an actor in a video game, your character drives the story
forward. Whoever your character is, whatever it is they are doing,
they are part of a story, not part of trying to sell you something
or get you to do a particular act. And what the audience for video
games is now, one, they're averaging about 40 years old, and
they've been playing video games for 15 to 20 years. And they want
an adult experience, and they don't mean adult like chicka chicka
wow wow.
Dave: But they're looking for cinematic performances, which means
more subtle, more real. Your performance has to fit into the world
that these games are in. It's not about your voice, no matter what
your voice sounds like. It's about can you let this character
inhabit you and bring this character to life with just words on a
page and a microphone? And there are various techniques that really
are founded in acting principles that'll help you get
there.
Randall: And, Anne, I'm gonna add one thing to what you said too.
You are right that your primary job in a commercial is to, I guess
you could say, is to sell a product. But really in essence, even as
an actor, is that really your job? Your job is still to inhabit
that scripts, and, and this is where I think some of the changes
are coming from. And so in the same way that there are certain
people who are spokespeople that the whole celebrity thing has
happened, but a lot of times you're putting the celebrity in
because people like them. They aren't really selling
--
Dave: Because people like them and believe them.
Randall: And believe them. Absolutely. And so people are putting
him in there not to actually sell. You know, did Matthew
McConaughey sell Lincoln? He didn't. He drove around and said some
talking. But he's playing in essence, even though it's him, he's
playing this character. And I think even in commercial, to
understand what that character is supposed to be that the writing
is, you still have to be that character more now than you ever did
before.
Dave: Which brings us back to your point, Randall, that learning to
be a good video game actor or good actor will help you across the
board in voiceover.
Anne: Yeah. I'm just gonna say, with my experience working with
students for not just commercial, but a lot of the long format
narration, like corporate narration and explainers and, and
medical, I mean, even then there is a role. It may not be as
dynamic or as long played out as, let's say, a video game, but
there is still that acting that has to come into play. And I'm
gonna talk about how important I think it is, especially now with
the advancements in technology. But I wanted to ask you about the
story. Okay, so the story for a video game is a lot different than,
let's say, a story that's laid out in front of you.
So like a story, if you're assuming that you're gonna be in a
commercial, you're gonna be selling a product, there's a character
backstory you can develop. Like you want it to end up that the
person agrees with you and says, yes, this is a great product for
me. If it's corporate narration, it's kind of a nicely wrapped up
little story about a corporate story about their brand. But with
video games, it's ever changing, and it's not necessarily all laid
out in front of you. And I was gonna also do the example of an
audiobook where you've got the entire book and the story's laid out
in front of you. But yet with a video game, do you know the entire
story right away? Or is it something that develops?
Dave: Chances are you will never ever see the entire script. The
video game industry is very secretive. We have all in the video
game industry signed hundreds of NDAs, non-disclosure agreements,
because they're very secretive. They don't want anybody to know or
share what's going on in their game. So even when you audition,
sometimes you have to sign an NDA before you can even do the
audition or send it in with your audition. And you're gonna get a
few lines of whoever this character is, maybe a little bit about
the game itself, but never
"this
is what the entire storyline is and this is what happens." You will
never see that script. If you're an actor in a movie, in a play, in
a television show, you'll see the whole script. You'll know your
character's arc. Being a character in a video game is much more
like being who you are. You have certain tendencies, a world, a
belief system. But when you walk out the door every day, you don't
know what's gonna happen to you.
Anne: That's a very different skillset, I would think. Because each
and every time you are getting that script or that little tiny
portion of it, you're either developing the scene, the backstory,
and the emotion. And so that's like constant, like I would think
acting requirement for that just is through the roof .
Dave: Well, you developed the character in that audition. But when
you get there, say you did five, maybe ten lines, now you've got
100, maybe 500 lines. And some of them may be paragraphs or
monologues. And it's a matter of being in character and going with
what is this character thinking, feeling, doing, being, who are
they talking to in this particular moment in time?
Randall: Yep. God, there's so many things that that just brings to
mind, but, well, what is Mark Dale's quote, a mutual friend of
ours, he's a director in London. Yeah.
Dave: This is the exhaust of the acting engine.
Randall: That's one. And then he is got that little spy thing,
which I think when you're talking about how do you deal with a
video game character, that to me is like, yes, that's actually
it.
Dave: One of the things Mark likes to talk about is the spy who is
in another city, another country, another place using a different
name, dressing different, pretending to be this other person. And
his life or her life depends on how well they roll with the
punches, roll with a different situation, somebody else asking them
particular questions, and it's constant improvising in
character.
Randall: Yes.
Anne: I love that. That's such a different way to look at that.
Okay, so when you're talking about how to, I guess, evolve that
character is sometimes the story
--
well, I imagine you would know this
--
developed as you also developed the character and then the story
might change?
Dave: Well, you know, it's interesting. Uh, during the Walking Dead
game, sometimes I would arrive at the studio, and the script got
there 20 minutes before me. So yes, actually sometimes the writing
is right there with you. So sometimes they wouldn't have been able
to tell you anyway because certain things hadn't been written yet.
Especially in something that's ongoing, episodic like that, but
whether they know it or not, you as an actor are not going to see
the entire script. You are gonna live this character moment by
moment. So you are living in the world of, what am I reacting to?
What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I doing? Who am I
talking to? And what's that relationship? Which we do as actors
anyway, but now it's moment by moment.
Anne: Now Randall. So then in terms of directing a talent, right?
What is that like for you? Because you also probably don't get the
script right away either, and so you're directing and so what's
that process like?
Randall: Well, I usually get it a little bit sooner than the
actors, but you're right. It's not like I've been sitting there
with it for months or weeks or anything like that. So everybody has
got a different philosophy. I guess I'll tell you mine, but I think
most directors I talk to will probably tell you something very
similar to this. I think this is true of other genres, but video
games, it almost has to be true. You cannot go in with this voice
in your head or character in your head. Like, this person is going
to be like this. It has to be a collaborative process, because you
haven't, as a director, haven't had time to absorb all the stuff.
But even if you did, even those occasions where you do, writers
write, and there has to be a translation, and that actor is coming
in with sometimes, you know, you're looking at Dave says 500,
sometimes you're looking at maybe 500 lines for that character.
You're looking at thousands of lines of script, and we're not gonna
put people together, ensemble. And there are a lot of reasons for
that. I, you know, I know that's a sticking point for a lot of
people, but there are a lot of reasons that's probably not gonna
happen anytime soon.
Long and the short of it is I have to trust the actor. So the actor
and I both have to be working together to come up with this
character. They come in with an idea, I come in with an idea, the
writer comes with an idea. At some level check your ego at the
door. We're gonna work this out as we go. And that's a lovely
process when it works well because once it starts clicking,
everybody's discovering, and that's where you get this magical
performance that you couldn't have scripted it like that. But that
also really derives more than anything else from actors who are
comfortable with this, who aren't thrown by change, who are able to
invent as they go.
And I think so much of that invention is that understanding what
Dave said, where are you? What happened before you got here? What
are you reacting to? How do you feel the other person? These are
acting principles, but I think they're also just mindset principles
that you have to get into as you're observing humanity and
everything else. And some people do that extraordinarily
well.
Dave: You know, one of the things I find working with students is
generally they don't realize how much time and effort they need to
spend in discovering everything about this character and everything
about a particular scene that they're gonna do. I like to tell
people, well, look, we've got words on a page or screen and a
microphone, and we have to stay on mic and we have to read the
words. An actor on stage, an actor on set has memorized their
script. They are in costume. They have another actor that they're
bouncing energy off of. There is blocking, they're gonna move from
this place to this place. They know what the action is that they're
going to do and they can do it. Once again, we're reading words on
a page in front of a microphone.
But we have to bring the same level of acting to those words that
are on a page through that microphone. And the only way to do that
is to put yourself in the place of that actor, say on set, on
scene.what am I wearing? You know, what does it look like around
me? Am I sitting, am I standing? Am I walking? This person I'm
talking to, what's my relationship with this person? Where are they
in relationship to me? Or where are they when there's more of them
in relationship to me? What just happened, I mean, in the last
couple of seconds, that I'm saying or doing what I'm doing, what
I'm thinking, what I'm feeling? It's that type of preparation and
using your imagination that brings you to believable
performances.
Anne: So Dave, when you're creating your character, before you're
going into record
--
and that might evolve, right, as you do that
--
what sort of steps are you taking to envelop that character in a
believable way for the script that you have?
Dave: Well, just the things I was talking about, you wanna take in
the whole script. Too many people I think wanna start, oh, what are
my lines? Oh, is my line, my line. Bullshit. Bullshit. My line, my
line.
Dave: And we wanna start with the big picture. If there is a
description of what the game is, take that in. Video games are very
much like movies. As a matter of fact, they're like 70-hour movies.
And whatever genre you can think of, including romcom, for a movie,
there is an analogous one in video game. So where does this game
live? What kind of world does it live in? Then who is your
character? And as much information as they give you, take that all
in. Now I realize sometimes it's three paragraphs of information
about your character and then five lines. You can't fit everything
about that character into those lines. But you can find how this
character would react in this situation. What is their worldview?
Create that.
One of the things I suggest to people from time to time is before
you read the lines, read the character description, and then ad lib
the character, talking about himself based on those descriptions.
He was born here, his parents died, he was kidnapped, he was made a
slave, he met a wizard. Tell your story, but without reading it;
just off the cuff, improvise it based on the few things that are
said there before you get into the script. And once you're in the
script, you gotta pay attention to all the alternate lines besides
your own and the stage direction. I'm amazed how often actors
will
--
they'll get their lines, but the alternate lines and stage
directions they ignore. All of those are clues that you've, you've
gotta take in.
Anne: Yeah. I say actually to my students that even for like
something that may seem dry or boring like a corporate narration,
the words are there for a reason. Somebody was paid to write those
words, and every word has to have a meaning. And I think that
there's so many people that just rush in to their studios, and like
you were saying, just line by line, and they don't take in the
whole story or try to imagine the story, that moment before.
There's a moment before even I think in every piece of voiceover
copy, there's a moment before. And I think if you can take the
time, right, to develop that story, it will help. Let's talk a
little bit about
--
because I know you've got something happening, Dave, at Voiceover
Atlanta, an efforts class, I think, or an X-session.
Dave: Yeah.
Anne: Let's talk about maybe not necessarily efforts, but body and
how important your body is to be able to, I guess, express better
acting.
Dave: Your body informs your voice. Once again, it doesn't start
here. It starts with all of this. It starts with the look on your
face. It starts with your honest reaction, your honest thinking,
and those thoughts, those feelings will trigger a physicality that
makes what you're saying come out in a certain way. Randall had
mentioned something, we are translating the written word into the
spoken word. They are not the same thing. I actually go so far as
to tell myself, look, I'm not that into the words. They're not the
most important thing. If you're crying or screaming, and there's a
dialogue that's going on through it, and I can't quite understand
what you're saying, for me, that's okay. Because what I really
wanna understand is what this character's going through in this
particular time. Now, if it's something very vital that has to be
said, that leads to something else, yeah, we'll want to
hear.
But voiceover 101, you wanna sound like you're smiling. What do you
do? Put a smile on your face. You wanna sound like you're a little
more important? Stand up just a little bit straighter and suddenly
there it is. You wanna seem like you're a little bit more tired or
something? Let your body relax, and there it is. How a character
with a limp, or with a hunchback, or with a injury to their face,
how they're gonna express themselves, or they're of a certain age
and, and the voice has gotten tired from smoking and drinking
alcohol
--
these are what we're trying to find.
A lot of people will say, well, I'm putting on this voice, but why?
There's nothing wrong with creating a voice, but why? How does this
voice serve the character? What is it about this character that
that voice is there? So your physicality, if you're somebody, maybe
your head's off a little side from an old injury, or maybe you're
that guy that's really tough and you're always got your chest out
and ready for action. That's what changes your voice. Not something
that you're putting on, but something that you allow to happen
based on so many other things: your thought, your feeling, your
action, your relationship and who you are, what your natural
physicality or the natural physicality of that character
is.
Randall: When you're talking about the body and you're talking
about the voice
--
I'll pull all three of these together, what I think at least is
kind of simply
--
you are acting in your emotions have nothing to do with your
character voice. That voice that you put on is a filter. And where
people get confused
--
because historically this would happen. That voice that you're
doing is somehow your character, and then that becomes caricature.
That's not true. That voice is a filter. And when you talk about
body parts, all the things that Dave just talked about, you could
be the age you're at, and if you've got a hip injury, or you've got
a limp, or you've got a lung issue, it's gonna sound a certain
way.
So all you're doing after that with that voice is, it's a filter.
If it's a guitar, it's, you're just turning the overdrive up a
little bit on the distortion. But what you play is still gonna be
what you play. It might make you play a little bit
differently,'cause
you got a little more sustain if we're gonna use the guitar thing.
But ultimately you're gonna play what you play. And that's, I think
the mental process it has to be. You are acting that emotion, you
are acting that injury, you're acting that malady, you're acting
that physical trait that you have. And then if it calls for it,
change your voice placement, change your register, change your
nasality, you know, all of that stuff.
Anne: Now Randall, you mentioned something earlier that I wanted to
ask you, about when you're recording the characters, they're not
typically done in ensemble format, right?
Randall: Right.
Anne: And typically the talent is recording from their studio or in
a studio with you. Right?
Randall: Yeah.
Anne: Why is that? Why is there not
--
because I would think if you're bouncing off other characters it
might
--
Randall: Yes, there would be. And sometimes you get that
opportunity, but there are two reasons really. One, you have
non-linear stories. In a movie and a TV and something of that
nature, you have a beginning and an end. So it actually becomes
very easy to say, well, we'll put these actors together
--
we'll say a movie more than a tv.
'cause
I think for TV set, you know, everybody shows up the same time. But
we know we're gonna need you on these days
'cause
you get at all your scenes that these people and they're gonna need
you on these other days.
When you have 50 characters that are all speaking. And when you
have interactions with any and all of them, the time to actually do
that, the logistic issue to do that is almost impossible. And
that's one of your absolute biggest reasons right there. When it
really comes down to logistics, if I'm going to have Dave come in
and do 500 lines, do 1000 lines, and in those lines he's got
soliloquy lines, he's got 20 that are interacting with this one
person, you just can't really pull that together in the same way.
And the other thing in a movie that's different than, than a video
game is there's all this back end
--
of course movies are more than just about filming, about having the
actors there. But that is so much of a focus, where in the game
there's all this other stuff you have to construct. You know, think
about a movie. If you actually had to construct the world in which
you live, now make it non-linear, now make it so that there're
branching storylines, or that if you go this way this happens, it
actually becomes logistically almost impossible to do.
Anne: That makes a lot of sense. Now, in terms of, let's say the
flow of what you do as a director, once you cast something, is it
mostly just when the actors available they record their lines? I
mean there's gotta be so many things, I would think that the
story's gotta be there, right? The game writers have to have the
story written. and then you have to get all of the characters to
record their lines. And then
--
so tell me a little bit about that process.
Randall: Well, that's a big thing. I'll try to make it kind of
short. So one of the things you really have to do is at some point
you gotta lock the script down. And trust me, that can sometimes be
an issue. But you just do, you have to lock the script down, and
you have to get everything that you're going to get. Of course
there has to be some when the actor's available, if I, if an actor
not available for a week
'cause
they're on set doing something else, of course you can't use
'emthen.
But really that becomes the puzzle piece that comes on this end of
scheduling everybody. Dave, I've got this time on Monday and
Tuesday. I don't have anything till Thursday. Do any of those fit
with you? Bam. You lock it down, you, you do that.
The other thing that is also different about games that
--
I mean as budgets go up, maybe this will change, but at least for
now, again, some of it is logistics and some of it is budget
--
I cast Dave to do a role. By the way, when Dave shows up, sometimes
he knows ahead of time, but a lot of times it's like, hey, there're
probably gonna be a couple more, just letting you know. And he
shows up and because you've got soldier numbers 1 through 10 and
townsperson number 1 through 20, it's like, Dave, can you pick up a
townsperson? Can you pick up a soldier? By the way, they can't
sound like the character that you're actually in here to do. You
know? So that's another thing that happens all the
time.
Anne: Yeah. And I always like for talent to understand what happens
like outside of their little bubble of just voicing something. And
so that's why I think it's wonderful to have the two of you
there,
'cause
it can kind of see how you really have to work together in order to
produce and do something successfully together. So it's good to
know like what you have to do as a producer or director. And of
course the talent has to really, I think, be able to perform pretty
much on demand, is what I'm thinking. That's what it's sounding
like to me.
Dave: Exactly pretty much on demand. . And it's interesting from my
perspective, whether I'm in my home studio or I go into another
studio, there will be a producer there, the writer might be there,
the director might be there. And I, I think the director's job is,
the director's the person who knows how to communicate with actors.
The writer may be able to tell you, well this is what's going on
and so forth. But they have a tendency to keep talking too much,
and they're more invested than they need to be to get the
performance you want, whereas the director is your guide. When you
are at home doing your audition, you are your own director. You
have to make choices. But when you arrive on your gig or the gig
arrives at your house, and you're on camera there, now you have
somebody to take some of that weight off. And maybe they've
listened to your audition and said, well you know, you made a good
acting here, but that was the wrong choice. What actually is
happening is this, and our job as actors is to be able to create
the thought, feeling, attitude, movement of a character, and if
it's something different, it's up to us to just make it
different.
Anne: I love that you said that cause there's so many people I know
that seem to be afraid of making that decision whether it's right
or wrong and committing to the acting, because they don't
necessarily know what's happening and so therefore they just play
it safe.
Dave: And beyond playing it safe, they don't really know. They
haven't made a definite decision. And the person who is listening
to that audition come in, it doesn't say anything to them. You're
probably going to do better making wrong strong choices than no
choices.
Randall: Absolutely. Or safe choices. Absolutely.
Anne: I love that. I love that. I got so excited that you
said,
'cause
I was just like totally connecting with that. Let's talk a little
bit about talent that might wanna get into video game voiceover and
maybe the demo, which I think is probably an important part of
helping them maybe get their foot in the door. Let's talk about
what's important in a game demo.
Dave: It's interesting. We were talking about this with each other
just the other day. I always liken video game acting
--I
always tell my students, look, I want you to think of yourself as a
character actor. When we think about character actors, and even
movie stars who started as character actors, there's something
about them, the way they speak, the rhythm of it, their look that
we have a reaction to, an emotional reaction to. And every one of
us has some of that. You may not feel like you are ABC to yourself,
but people who encounter you, that's what they see. So we wanna
find out who you are, and now we wanna display that character, that
you, the truth of you in a variety of characters from a variety of
times in a variety of places with a variety of points of view. So
we might be in space, we might be medieval, we might be futuristic,
we might be post-apocalyptic, we may be a doctor, a lawyer, a
soldier, a wizard, a swordsman, a thief. We wanna bring all these
characters with dissimilar energies, dissimilar worlds together to
demonstrate all the things that you can do.
Randall: Yeah. Be authentic first. I mean, I like to listen to a
demo. I have a 1 and a 1A. 1 is be authentic. That has to be it. I
have to stop listening to you as an actor
'cause
there's time for that after the demo's done. When I hear a snippet,
whatever your 12 seconds or whatever the time is with that
character, ideally, and I know you, you can't always do this, but
ideally when that clip stops, you're like, no, wait, what
happens?
'Cause
you got invested in it, you know? And then the second thing is a
certain amount of versatility. Now, I think unfortunately to most
people, versatility they think means different voices. And it is
true that that is part of it. There's no question that you have to
be able to demonst
--'cause
if there're gonna be three characters in a game, I can't hear the
same voice. So yes, you do have to be able to learn to change your
register, to change your voice placement, to change accents, to do
all this other kind of stuff.
But ultimately it really comes out of your attitude difference and
your emotional difference. And being
--
if you're hyped, if you are just in this manic place, your voice is
just gonna sound different than if you are at the bottom of the
well depressed, even being the same person. So find those things,
not just the emotions of them, but what does your voice do when it
does that? How are you delivering things in a different way when
you find that? And that's where you get all this variance and you
hear different people out of it. So that is definitely 1A. If you,
if you're a one trick pony, if it's a good trick, you might get
booked a lot, but you're just gonna up your game and up your
bookings the more legitimate tricks you can show. I probably
shouldn't use the word trick. The more legitimate shades of
yourself that you can show, the more legitimate shades of what you
do, the better it's gonna play for you.
Dave: And let me just say this, there are people who can do lots
and lots of accents, lots and lots of different voices, and
sometimes that can kind of hurt you on your demo. If you've done so
many different things that they don't come away with a sense of who
you are.
Randall: Right.
Dave: You might not remember the name of so-and-so who did all
these voices. None of them were the same. They may have all been
really good, but you don't remember who this person
is.
Randall: Right.
Dave: So I always say, look, start with who you are and keep coming
back to who you are. You may have some in different accents and
different voices, but start with you and keep coming back to
you.
Randall: Yep. I agree.
Anne: So is there a time period
--
I know that I work with so many students that are new, and they
always wanna know, well, how long will I have to study? Or how long
will I have to do this before I can create a demo? If you had to
give your experience, how long would it take for someone to
--
I don't even wanna think that it's all about the demo because
really it's about the acting. Right? And it's about who you are as
a voice actor. How long should a student expect to study acting in
video game VO? Is it the same for everybody? Is there a length of
time that you think, oh, after five years, this will be great? Or
after one year, what do you guys think?
Randall: Absolutely depends on the person. I think mentally, if
you're talking to people who are getting into the business or are
wanting to get into, even just, I've been doing commercial, I wanna
do video games. Even if it's that, so somebody who has been
working. I think if you mentally think two years of hard work,
that's a good baseline. Now there are gonna be people who have all
the tools that they need, and in six months they're just rocking
and rolling. There are gonna be people that after two years,
they're just now starting to figure it out. And it's gonna
take
'em
five. How do you know? But I think you need to be mentally
prepared. Kinda like if you start a business up, I think this is
gonna take me a $100,000 in a year. Double it or triple it and then
you're probably safe. I think it's the same thing.
Dave: And in so many ways, I think people getting into voiceover
and not just for video games or animation, but for the various
genre, each of the genres calls for something a little different.
There are some rules of the road for all of them. I just think when
you get to video games especially, from the smallest whisper to the
loudest shout, from characters who very much might be like the disc
jockey you used to be, or to the used car salesman that maybe you
remember
--
you're gonna see all those kinds of characters. If you come with
some characters, with some idea of playing like you were when you
were a kid, when you were playing cops or robbers or spaceman and
aliens
--
whatever it was, you weren't judging yourself. You were having a
good time. And you put yourself completely into it.
One of the big things I see with a lot of grown up people who now
suddenly wanna do this, or maybe they've wanted to do it for a long
time, but there's a timidity. Oh, I'm a little, I'm a little
scared. I don't wanna, I don't wanna, I don't want anybody to think
this is silly or
--
you gotta give yourself to it and that holds people back. Your
ability to read can hold you back. Because especially in video
games and voiceover in general, we are reading in the moment. We've
gotta take the words off the page and connect them to somebody. So
I have run into people who've come to me, not often, but a couple
people, I've said, look, you don't need me. You've got this. Get
your demo done, you can do it with me or somebody else. But you're
ready. There's some other people I've worked with for a long time,
and I see improvement, but it's slow. But if that's where you
really want to go, and you are getting better and getting better,
stay on the road.
Randall: Yeah.
Anne: Yeah. It's a journey. It's a journey. So you guys have an
exciting event coming up at the end of April I saw for Game VO.
Tell us a little bit about that.
Randall: Well, this really came out of an outgrowth of Dave and I;
we talk a lot. We've known each other for a long time. And one of
the things that we have not seen along the way is what I would call
a throughput. There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, there's
some wonderful things to do this, but you go to most conferences or
retreats or whatever you want to call them, and there's not a real
throughput. You get the promo person, you got the commercial
person. And there's, there's some real value to that, you know,
especially if you're working in multiple genres. But what we don't
see anybody doing is, okay, we're gonna strip this down to the
basics and take you through
--
you know, you don't get to cherry pick. We're gonna take you
through this whole thing. Okay. You went to drama school and you're
like, and you wanna roll your eyes? I don't know about going back
to drama school.
I had a student, I shouldn't even call him a student, an extremely
well known voice actor who took one of my recent two-day workshops.
And when I saw his name on there, I was like, really? Well, that's
interesting. I wonder why he's doing this. And you know, the thing
that was really interesting is there was a technique that really
truly went back to original acting. And this is a guy who's a drama
school, totally trained, accredited, all this other kind of stuff.
He's done so much other stuff that he literally had
--
now it was easy to getting back in there, but he had forgotten to
some degree like, no, you have to start here. He's got all these
voices that he can do. He's a wonderful actor. You know, if you had
mentioned your name, maybe he'd be like, really? Well that's the
point. Somebody like that even didn't have that beginning. So all
this throughput we have not seen. And so the idea that we wanna do
is take people all the way through what it takes to really truly be
a video game voice actor, from let's start with basics of acting
all the way up to we're gonna do sessions, and you can't skip the
steps along the way. You've gotta do this to this, to this, to
this.
Dave: I have to echo the same thing, that I've worked with students
who have been on camera, on stage. And for them, the world of voice
acting is completely different. And because they're used to
memorization, and being in costume, and having another actor that
they're working with, they are lost all too often when it's words
on a page and a microphone. And sometimes it's just coming from
this genre to that genre. If you're doing promos, TV promos, you
can have a style. If you're a narrator, you can have a style. If
you're doing commercials, you can have a style and work and do very
well. With video games, style isn't gonna carry you but so far. You
have to be an actor.
Randall: It's a bigger thing. You know, it's, it's actually a
bigger thing. You can't have a style.
Dave: Style can be this big, but if you're gonna be an actor
--
Randall: No, that's true. It's a range. It's not just a style, it's
a range.
Dave: Yeah. And learning how to connect to that, to your
range.
Anne: And now, so when is this event and how long is this
event?
Dave: Well, it's called Game VO Mexico 2023. It is happening in
Akamal, Mexico. That's on the Yucatan Peninsula. And it's the 27th
through the 30th of April.
Anne: Okay. Three days.
Randall: Three days.
Dave: Three days.
Anne: All right. Three days of intensive classes,
sessions?
Dave: Intensive classes, sessions, and it's gonna be fun. And in
one of the most beautiful places in the world. We were doing some
location scouting a couple of months ago. I was down there with
Randall, and we went to a restaurant, and that night they said, oh,
come back and watch the sea turtles make their little baby walk to
the sea. It's those kinds of
--there's
iguanas around and toucans. You'll hear the monkeys in the tree. I
mean, it's, it's an amazing place and it's very much outside of
your norm. I don't know about you, but have you ever been
someplace, you got outside of your house, outside of your city, a
different place, and suddenly you could think
differently?
Anne: Oh yeah. It'll change your life.
Dave: This is gonna be one of those places, one of those events
that you'll be able to shed some things that have been holding you
back and embrace some things that are gonna carry you
forward.
Anne: I love it. So end of April, where can people find out more
information and sign up for this?
Randall: Well, it's the website. It's gamevomexico.com. So just
like it sounds.
Dave: Gamevomexico.com.
Anne: All right. Awesome. And for the BOSSes out there, you guys
are going to give us a special coupon?
Randall: That is correct.
Anne: Just for the BOSSes. So if you guys want to, you are
definitely getting a discount.
Randall: It's a $500 discount. So it's, it's basically 10%. It's a
sizable discount.
Anne: That's awesome. Woo. So a $500 discount, you guys can go to
that website and enter a coupon code, VO BOSS, to get that
discount. That's amazing. So gamevomexico.com. Coupon code VO BOSS
to get that discount. And how can BOSSes get in touch with either
one of you? Let's say Dave, if they wanna get
training?
Dave: Oh, I'm so easy to find, they can email me at
davefennoy@mac.com. They can go to my website, davefennoy.com and
get in touch with me, and they can check me out every Wednesday at
6:00 PM Pacific for Ask Dave Fennoy anything. I promise I will talk
about this.
Randall: This is true.
Anne: Yay. And Randall, what about you? How can people get in touch
with you?
Randall: The two easiest places, and I say easy because I've got
the long email addresses. My company, what I do the direction
through, is Hamster Ball Studios. So it's Randall,
randall@hamsterballstudios.com. But on the other side, the stuff
that I do as far as teaching and coaching and consulting, I
probably shouldn't say coaching
'cause
I don't, you know, Dave's the one on one guy. I'm more big macro,
big picture, hey, wow, dude. But it's
randall@thevoicedirector.world.
Anne: Awesome. Thank you, guys, so very much. This was so
informative, so wonderful, and we so appreciate that discount.
BOSSes, check that out. Gamevomexico.com. Use that code of VO BOSS,
get yourself a discount. BOSSes, I want to ask you a question. Do
you have a local nonprofit that is close to your heart? Did you
ever wish that you could do more to help them? Well, you certainly
can. And visit 100voiceswhocare.org to learn how. Big shout-out to
our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect and network like BOSSes
like us three today. Thank you, guys ,so much again, find out more
at ipdtl.com. Everyone, have an amazing week and we'll see you next
week. Bye.
Randall: Take care, Anne.
Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host
Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up
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