I'm not going to do a review on the documentary. I find the whole art of voice acting entertaining and that's reason enough to like these folks. I will point out a quote that did stand out for me (which I will now paraphrase terribly because I can't find that part of the movie)
"There's so much dialogue in a video game that it's impossible to follow the story fully..."
This kind of plays to an important theme in where the voice actor really fits into the big picture of video games. The point above is extremely valid when you think about the amount of readings that have to go into a particular character in a big triple-A game.
Jump to the GTA V Comic Con at New York last year, where Ned Luke and Steven Ogg (Michael DeSanta and Trevor Phillips) insist that they were actually 'acting' and not just 'voice acting' their characters. Everything in each cutscene they had to do was motion captured, and the main three characters were all performed by real actors in body suits, which is very impressive when you look at the characters side-by-side with their actors.
This speaks more to the technology, where motion capture is getting better and better, allowing video game motion to be done by real performers instead of hand-animated.
But what of the actors? How do they feel about the medium they performed in?
At ComicCon, Steven and Ned revealed really early on that they have not been into video games since the arcade days of Pacman. When asked about what video game characters they would like to play as, Ned Luke said that he could probably do a good Mario. Ned actually has a good point, if you consider that Mario had a typical Italian-American Brooklyn accent before many years later, when Charles Martinet put his own high pitched pure Italian spin on it.
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| Pictured: The voice of every character in the current Mario games, except maybe Peach, but I'm not 100% certain |
Not entirely. I don't really believe that they're completely out of touch. I think more that it's very difficult for them to be in touch and continue to act. Acting and voice acting are very time consuming professions, and require a lot of time, most of it spent outside of acting and just trying to get a job.
Michael Mando ("Vaas" in Far Cry 3) once said in an interview that he was doing a lot of auditions at the time of the audition for the game, and that the part he was auditioning for was so against his physique and abilities that he decided to do the exact opposite of what was asked for. Ironically, this was the best move because Ubisoft turned around and invented a character just from that audition just to get him into the project. However, it's notable that he had to tell no one that he couldn't tell anyone about this work he did and that his friends had to guess that he was involved in it only after the E3 trailer for Far Cry 3 was revealed. It's not likely that Michael will get to reprise the role either, given the death of his character.
Most of the voice actors for the game Team Fortress 2 are regularly unavailable to record, usually busy on other projects. This is most notable in promotional videos for the game, where some characters will have new dialogue, but most will only have recycled dialogue from the game itself, very strongly indicating that Valve couldn't get the actor behind them.
Given the busy schedule that most actors and voice actors have, it's impossible to assume that they can be in tune with the entirety of the games industry, or sometimes even the game that they star in.
But it doesn't mean they hate the medium or don't care.
Ned Luke in the same GTA V panel said that he has gone on to play GTA V with his son after it was released and that he was about 60% in as of the time of recording. He says he's terrible at the game, but I really don't blame him. I suck at certain games too but also enjoy them. Steven Ogg says that he hasn't played it and he may never play it, but Shawn Fonteno has, and Nathan Vetterlein (voice of the "Scout" in Team Fortress 2) plays TF2 (and prefers the Heavy).
But what am I really saying about acting, voice acting, and the actors behind video games?
I'm saying that they provide a very important role in bringing a video game to life and that they should be commended for helping bring the medium to the level of movie quality in less than a decade. I'm saying that they care so much about their craft, their work, and their livelihood, that they don't have the time to be completely passionate about the video games you or I enjoy. Their insights into the game they were in may not be insightful, but you should be impressed by the work that they did if you enjoyed their character, and never disappointed when it turns out they aren't actually the person they portrayed.
If anything, that should be the most impressive aspect of their performance.
...and Ned Luke would make a great Mario.
(This blog post may be full of mistakes from things I've overlooked. If I did make a mistake, don't hesitate to call it out and I'll fix it with an edit in the future.)
