𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂.
𝗕𝘂𝘁 - 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗢𝗧.
In the last decade, there has been a greater appreciation of the importance of context in a voice actors work.
If we know who we are, where we are and who we're talking to - 𝘚𝘜𝘙𝘗𝘙𝘐𝘚𝘌 - you tend to get better results.
The more detailed these questions are answered, the more an actor's imagination has to respond to, and the richer that response is more likely to be. It provides the necessary boundaries to our creative response.
But a lot of games can sometimes involve pretty generic environments.
Where are you?
A battlefield. Fighting. Again.
And this is when you can fall prey to churning out more generic reads rather than responding in the moment.
𝗜𝗙 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝘀, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱.
In real life we do this all the time.
I'm typing at my computer right now, but my mind is constantly flitting to the various locations I've got to visit today.
With the Shakespeare speech below, I felt something unlock once I moved beyond the horror of the immediate circumstance. Picturing the room I would kill Julius Caesar's killers in (and how I'd do it) activated something different for me.
This doesn't make it 'right'. But it makes it more 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦.
And so, if an actor is ever feeling a little flat in their response to a scenario, maybe try investigating where the characters 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 is rather than their physical body.
Rather than on a battlefield, maybe their thoughts are rooted in the family room they left behind, the lover's bed they're no longer lying in, the town hall that was once filled by their (now dead) comrades.
All of these 'internal' landscapes might trigger something different to the purely external one.
It might give a take something new and unexpected.
And while that's not what's always needed from a voice actor - it's a damn more interesting approach to a second of third take than just doing it louder or faster.
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By Christopher Tester, British Male Voice Actor
