Voice Over Contest

imadoctornota · June 2013

I've mentioned it in passing a few times, but I thought I'd make a thread to discuss the this:

The voice overs, I think, add a LOT to this game! The Romulan missions were excellent to begin with, but so enhanced by the frequent voice over work!

Unfortunately, voice over work isn't cheap! So why not use a resource that would cost a mere fraction? The players and fans! With a series of contests over the course of several months where players would compete for the chance to have their voice used for a character in-game.

Set sound quality restrictions and have them send in one character at a time you'd be bound to find some good, almost free (someone is going to have to go through all of those recordings and eventually put the winners' recordings in the game) voice overs!

I think that if the devs seriously want to go in the direction of voicing, this would be the most realistic way of getting the whole game voiced! Thoughts?

imadoctornota · June 2013

I could see it being a problem to have all of those files being sent in, so if need be, the entries could be made by mailing in a flash drive with the file(s).

imadoctornota · June 2013

I'm surprised that after requesting the opinions of everyone that nobody has anything to say! lol Am I the only one that thinks this is a great idea?

imadoctornota · June 2013

I guess if it's not controversial nobody wants to get in on the conversation. Not enough telling or name calling I guess lol Maybe I should've called the thread "Tier 5 Constitution is coming!" or something.

hippiejon · June 2013

The amount of work involved with going over all the submissions, as well as whatever legal hassles t
he company would suddenly have to go through, make this seem unlikely at best, and an actual bad idea at worst.

Would everyone who "wins" live in California (doubtful), so employment laws, and difficulties etc would apply.
They can't just take our voices (even if we tell them it's okay), without employing us, and that's a WHOLE lot of hassle.

Why would they do that, when they have companies that specialize in representing voice work talent, and they have a number of people already, from both in House (Borticus is the voice of Kurland) and voice actors hey obviously have good working relationships with already. (Voice of Shon, Obisek, etc)

It seems totally counter productive to try and fill the game with untrained voices from the community when it would cost them far more $$ Money than is reasonable.

That's my opinion.

imadoctornota · June 2013

hippiejon wrote: »

Would everyone who "wins" live in California (doubtful), so employment laws, and difficulties etc would apply.
They can't just take our voices (even if we tell them it's okay), without employing us, and that's a WHOLE lot of hassle.

You wouldn't need to live in California. The recording would have to be perfect (not a demo/audition) and of sufficient quality (which would be stipulated in the rules for entry) and they would use that alone.

As for the "employment" issue, that's not true. Does anybody remember this? The contest winner could even be a child.

imadoctornota · June 2013

hippiejon wrote: »

It seems totally counter productive to try and fill the game with untrained voices from the community when it would cost them far more $$ Money than is reasonable.

It wouldn't cost much at all and they could get everything voiced. No doubt many of the entries would be pretty bad, but that's why it's a contest, the ones that aren't good you throw back!

Besides, the average person is 3 times better a voice actor than the average Anime cartoon voice actor lol!!

vimzul · June 2013

I am surprised a major developer hasn't coded a proper speech synthesizer which could emulate any type of voice or even accent, it is something current technology can emulate.

Then you could just convert text to voices, with control codes in there to express emotion or emphasis. Then you could save a particular voice type based on the parameters and you could just convert it into audio files.

There are some very good quality text to speech programs but are not designed to reproduce thousands of different voices. I think game developers would save a fortune if they didn't need to hire voice actors for the work.

sirannataan3 · June 2013

I think it's a bad idea because it cheapens the work of people who train for years to do this professionally. I hold to this idea as consistently as I can--the Dallas Mavericks are having fans submit designs for their alternate jersey, with no remuneration, and that cheapens the work of professional designers. Equally bad.

ladydarkchild · June 2013

sirannataan3 wrote: »

I think it's a bad idea because it cheapens the work of people who train for years to do this professionally. I hold to this idea as consistently as I can--the Dallas Mavericks are having fans submit designs for their alternate jersey, with no remuneration, and that cheapens the work of professional designers. Equally bad.

Train for years?? You mean.. as in learning how to speak and read???

We'll... if that's the case, I've got over 30 years of experience!!!!

On another note: I LOVE the OP's idea. The problem is that, in all likely-hood, VO work is Unionized, like the actors guild, which means Cryptic would 'have' to pay them.

That being said, Maybe Cryptic could add a VO feature to Foundry missions, since these are user created.

Also: The biggest hurdle when it comes to fans doing VO work is decent recording software and a really good microphone, otherwise recording quality, bit rate..etc..etc.. would be all over the map, making the editor pull their hair out.

sirannataan3 · June 2013

I don't know, maybe you don't have actor friends who have to scrounge for every dime. Maybe you don't have designer friends who are constantly hounded by their "friends" to have them make a website or a logo for free. Maybe you've not had the chance to get sick and tired of the entire creative class being asked to do every freaking thing for free.

I'm done.

dalmacius · June 2013

The idea is not a bad one. I wouldn't mind recording my voice reading a few paragraphs, and if they use it, all I ask is that they place credits. Anything to improve the game I play. I'm sure that with all the different voices that represent the playing public there would be voice overs in almost all areas where we have to read. Listening is much easier than reading. I can get the info while taking a swig of beer.

Now, the professional who did the voice of Horacio (not sure about the name) the guy who tried to sound like an Indian from Calcutta took cryptic for a ride. That was bad. Maybe, if he shook his head fast sideways...maybe.

imadoctornota · June 2013

ladydarkchild wrote: »

Train for years?? You mean.. as in learning how to speak and read???

We'll... if that's the case, I've got over 30 years of experience!!!!

lol! I agree with that assessment.

ladydarkchild wrote: »

On another note: I LOVE the OP's idea. The problem is that, in all likely-hood, VO work is Unionized, like the actors guild, which means Cryptic would 'have' to pay them.

That being said, Maybe Cryptic could add a VO feature to Foundry missions, since these are user created.

That is a possibility, but wouldn't that only apply to those in the union? I would think, being a contest it could be worded right to where that wouldn't be an issue. Lawyers are good at one thing, finding loopholes! lol

ladydarkchild wrote: »

Also: The biggest hurdle when it comes to fans doing VO work is decent recording software and a really good microphone, otherwise recording quality, bit rate..etc..etc.. would be all over the map, making the editor pull their hair out.

It's true that most people wouldn't have the equipment to record at the required quality that would be stipulated by the contest rules, but I know several people that record music as hobby, and I imagine a lot of other people do too, so I think there would still be a good amount of entries.

imadoctornota · June 2013

sirannataan3 wrote: »

I don't know, maybe you don't have actor friends who have to scrounge for every dime.

You mean those people that I yell "get a real job" at? lol I'm just kidding, really.

dalmacius wrote: »

Listening is much easier than reading. I can get the info while taking a swig of beer.

Here, here!!

kyeto13 · June 2013

This is the silliest idea ever... in so many ways

You need professional equipment and programming in order to record studio quality audio. Otherwise you will have really poor level audio recordings that an editor can't do anything with besides a mercy deletion. There is also the fact that casting requires alot of decision making and sometimes moving actors into roles they themselves may not originally consider. So there needs to be some feedback between the directors and the auctioneers in order to get the right mix.

YES.. it takes alot of work and training in order to do acting, even voice acting. You have to know how to breath, how to move air between your nose, throat, and mouth in order to make the maximum range of sounds, subsounds, and inflections in order to make any type of sound, accents, or voices possible. Not to mention putting in the emotional context into the words.

After that, there is the legal issue with everything in this.

This idea is overly complicated and possibly MORE expensive than simply hiring a VO company to do the voice over work, with professionals, with professional equipment, who will do a professional quality job, with a professional quality audio codex.

timelord79 · June 2013

Well, they could definitely use more voice overs. but a contents like this is the wrong way to go about it.

Daniel Stahl mentioned they spent their VO budget on LoR, so it will be a while until we get anything new in any way.

But a possibility would be for them to do an official audition where everyone can go in and sign a basic contract to do x line for x money if chosen.
Not sure what US law has to say about that, if anyone hired would need an agent to represent him or not.

That way you could get good natural voice actors without using some of their less talented (no offense, devs) employees and don't have to go to expensive professionals either.

imadoctornota · June 2013

kyeto13 wrote: »

You need professional equipment and programming in order to record studio quality audio. Otherwise you will have really poor level audio recordings that an editor can't do anything with besides a mercy deletion.

Equipment that is not hard to come by at all. I have the stuff for it and so do a few of my friends. Besides, I already said they'd have to stipulate a precise quality minimum.

kyeto13 wrote: »

YES.. it takes alot of work and training in order to do acting, even voice acting. You have to know how to breath, how to move air between your nose, throat, and mouth in order to make the maximum range of sounds, subsounds, and inflections in order to make any type of sound, accents, or voices possible. Not to mention putting in the emotional context into the words.

What about Winters? You think the guy who did that guy trained? You'd be surprised how many ordinary people have natural ability greater than that (or, if you listen to his dialogue again, perhaps you wouldn't). My brother and I made shows with our video camera and action figures throughout our childhood. Some of them were really clever and high-quality (others were rubbish, but hey, we were kids!).

Acting is not like being an Engineer, it is something that a lot of people can simply put there minds to and at least get a few good lines. You can't throw a rock in the air without hitting someone who's twice as good at acting as Megan Fox :rolleyes:

Voice Over Contest

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