Herding Voice Actors: A Producer’s Perspective

First things first: I am not a voice director, but as a Lead Producer and a generalist within this industry, I am damn good at herding voices. Producers are the cogs of the games world, and a good one does a bit of everything.

I’ve seen countless job applications in the games industry, and so when I got the opportunity to work on voice production for our gothic horror game Eyes of Hellfire, i.e. creating a streamlined voice actor process, it was very much an “Ok then, let’s get cracking”.

Using my skills in this way was also new to me, and I had a lot to learn, but I figured that was nothing a good spreadsheet could handle, right?

It ended up being four separate spreadsheets and about 10 other essential documents.

We, Gambrinous, are an Irish studio based in Ireland with a small indie team, and I’ve made it a mantra not to be precious about my work. For tight-knit indies like us with just nine core team members, collaboration is key. So was my method perfect? Noooope. Did I ask for help? Absolutely.

Important to mention: I wouldn’t even be writing this post if it were not for Director, Casting Director and Producer Kirsty Gilmore of Sounds Wilde, who took me under her wing and taught me the ropes. Not everyone would do that, and she has always been so incredibly kind with her time, sharing her expert knowledge and answering my questions.

This was the chance to learn, experiment and tackle all the bumps along the way with her guidance and my gut instincts. Nothing could be perfect, but I was determined. I started this process from scratch, working with my colleagues, Gary Keane (Sound Designer) and Len Cunningham (Lead Writer and Narrative Designer), and to kick things off, I had to consider quite a few things:

1. Budget
   • How much did I have to work with, and how should I plan my contingency?
   • What exactly did I have to budget for?
     • Voice Actor (hourly fees and buyouts that varied)
     • Studio hire (if the actors didn’t have home studios)
     • Software tools for remote direction (e.g. Cleanfeed, Zoom, etc.)
     • Travel (if necessary)
2. Divvying out work
   • What kind of documents did we need?
   • Who was in charge of what documents/spreadsheets and how were they updated?
   • How to keep us all on the same page and on deadline
3. Hiring voice actors
   • Opening the audition process
   • What agents/companies to approach?
   • Who to approach directly?
   • Character specs for the actors and audition lines
   • All the legal and nitty-gritty stuff, ready to go

Listed out like that, it sounds all pretty straightforward, right? Oh, my sweet summer child. As a Producer juggling the rest of the project, let me tell you, it was quite the challenge.

For things to do with lore and voice lines, the best thing to do is source your information from the most knowledgeable person of the story and characters of the game, and that, of course, was Len, our writer. It was Len who brought together all the background info and sample barks I needed to create our audition blurb.

For the uninitiated, barks are short lines of repeatable dialogue often used in game backgrounds and are often suitably vague depending on context.

Audition Time

We faced a few challenges in searching for actors for our game for a few reasons:

1. We sought voice actors who could do convincing, natural Irish accents
2. We sought voice actors who, apart from the accent, ideally had video game/animation experience
3. We sought those who understood that voice acting is an art and a profession (Oh my word, you’d be surprised…)

While we did reach out to agents and companies, I also decided to take an unconventional route, given my reach: TikTok. I did it for a few reasons:

• Firstly, it would help spread the word about us being an Irish studio working on a game based in Ireland.
• Secondly, if people knew of voice actors (or were themselves), they could spread the word further afield.
• Thirdly, I worked with what I had, which was socials!

The responses were interesting, to say the least, and somewhat annoying as well.

While my plan of sorts worked – I got plenty of reach – I had countless comments from amateurs chancing their arm, saying that they would give it a go even though they had no experience.

We also got auditions on terrible mics. Remember, this is our first impression of you, and the games industry in Ireland is particularly small. Would you hire a voice actor with a terrible mic?!

I suspected something like this would happen, but not to the extent that people were saying that because we were an indie studio, we shouldn’t be looking for professionals and should be grateful for any help (no, seriously).

We also had many comments from folks who wanted to exchange services, e.g. “Let me be in your game and I’ll introduce you to my large audience”. Yep. The mind boggles.

Some tips on a personal level from someone who’s received a lot of job applications across different game disciplines:

1. Saying you’re a gamer does not equate to actual discipline experience – actually, being honest, I don’t care if you are a gamer or not. There’s a massive difference between being a gamer and understanding how games are made. Instead, tell me how you’d rock the role you’re applying for.
2. Saying that you have a ‘recognisable voice’ also does not equate to skill in voice acting for games (or animation). Instead, show me what you can do with a fantastic audition.
3. Speaking of showing off your talents, you need a portfolio or something to show what you’re capable of doing. Saying, “take a chance on me”, isn’t good enough. As computer scientist and author, Cal Newport says, you need to be “so good that they can’t ignore you” (this is my other mantra and has also got me HIRED!).
4. If you claim you can do an Irish accent, you’d better be able to deliver on it. Twee is very tough on the ear. Take some time to digest how modern Irish folks actually speak. And no, we’re not Scottish.
5. For the love of god, please read audition notes.

Choosing our Cast

We received over 100 voice actor auditions for our roles, which was solid for what we needed and enough for us to secure our main cast. But we did consider a few things when choosing our actors, i.e. whether they had a home studio or access to one, and whether they could give us fear in their performance (it is a grounded, horror game after all).

Then came the hardcore stuff, of course. The legal stuff, which is obviously essential to have in place, so that everything is signed off and double-checked with the talent’s solicitors. We spoke with each of the voice actors, confirming their fees and availability to record, and then we waited until their agreements were signed.

All done, right? Wrong!

With everyone booked in, Andrew Hynes (Senior Programmer) continued ploughing ahead with getting all of our voice systems built and in place. You can’t just simply record voice actors and be done; you need to have somewhere to plug everything into. How else could you insert them into the game?

For this, Gary and Andrew worked together with FMOD and Unity to get everything ready to rock. And a shout-out to our FMOD Consultant Ryan Sim, who helped them out with all the tricks of the trade.

There was also one other thing that was happening in the background; we were trying to gauge where lines were playing and how frequently they were playing. For that, we had stand-ins and Len, and I recorded full character voice lines that sat in-game for months. Just goes to show that having random skills, like for me, a background in theatre, is handy at times!

We plopped my voice onto all characters (which was somewhat amusing and jarring when I was playing), and from playtesting ourselves, we were able to really hone in on what was too much and what was too little. Have a gawk/listen to my voice on all characters:

Signed, Sealed, Recorded

Companies differ on how they approach all of this, but it’s worth noting that it’s not common at all in the games industry to send voice lines in advance. A lot of Voice Actors practice cold reading because in the games industry, it’s rare to have lines finalised by the time of recording (they can even change on the day if something just doesn’t sound quite right).

You’ve got to remember as well that in small studios like ours, the team is working on a variety of tasks, and their discipline can spread across other departments as well. Sure, we’re agile, quick at iteration and do multiple different things, but we also have a never-ending list of things ‘to-do’. Things change quickly.

For those who auditioned and didn’t get the role, we offered feedback (if they wanted it) – many took us up on it, and many didn’t. This surprised me. Feedback is both essential and crucial to your craft. I really recommend you take up offers like this; it’s such a rare thing to get.

Gary and Len were in every recording session with our voice actors. From a tech and voice direction perspective, that’s all we needed, but because everyone was online, I was able to pop in too.

Once everyone was recorded, we ensured that all actors were paid and the audio was expertly edited and cleaned up by Gary and labelled for FMOD (and Andrew) to implement. Of course, we did more in-house testing, but aside from that, that was the home stretch before Early Access launch.

We were so impressed with all of our voice actors. They really captured exactly what we were looking for in their auditions because they clearly had read it through. Watching them perform live as well as during recordings was both intense and incredible. What a treat!

Our final cast:

The Host: Liam Cunningham
Patrick Whaley: Brendan McDonald
Laura Shaw: Michele Moran
Orla Fitzpatrick: Lisa Cuthbert
Fionn Delaney: Alexander Hanly
Cat Kavanagh: Michelle Heffernan
Seán: Charlie McCullagh
Richard: Darragh Ó Broin

If you have any further questions, let me know. Otherwise, I hope this was insightful for you as it was for me, writing out how we got to where we are today!