Brian Cox sure as hell did for Manhunt. Whatever they paid him, it was absolutely worth it – was the only thing that kept me playing beyond the first level or two. He made the game. (well, “made the game” enough that I actually played a good chunk of the way through, instead of 20 minutes)
They should be paid on how well they did or sucked.
This isn’t really about games. It’s just posturing by SAG to make up for the fact that the union folded on DVD residuals. A lot of union members were pretty upset about that. I believe all this stuff about standing up to producers and threatening to strike is just bunk designed to make those union members feel like their union is doing something for them.
“Why don’t you just join the union? We’ll go upstairs together and cap daddy.”
-Amanpour
Don’t forget the millions of times when the company slams out a fortune to buy the actor, then gets the sound guy with no experience of VO direction to actually record the lines, turning in flat performances cut between blatantly different recording sessions. If they’re going to splash out cash hire celebrities, I’d much rather they hire experienced voiceover types specifically - the guys used to acting with their voices, and putting the necessary energy into the performance to make it work - the likes of John diMaggio, even if their names inspire shouts of ‘Doesn’t he play baseball?’ Just look at the superb voicework in Vampire.
(And lest we forget, for every ‘Starring Samuel L. Jackson’, there’s an Under A Killing Moon boasting ‘Starring Margot Kidder’)
So basically this means we’ll get David Lucas instead of Stephen Blum doing game voices, right?
Yes, and we’ll get Jimmy Flinders instead of Cam “I’m Cam Clarke!” Clarke; which will make all the difference.
I admit to playing Spot The VA in games (“Jennifer Hale, take two drinks”), but really, all I care about is that the voice fits the character. Razputin may have been about one line from screaming ‘VICTORY FOR ZIM!’, but that was fine - unlike the Lesser Snake, his voice works great for both of them. Likewise, Rob Paulson may have read Morte like Yakko Warner and more or less every other voice, but hey, no matter.
Lucasarts always got this bang on - I don’t know anything about the guy who played Manny Calavera, and I wouldn’t want to listen to the one who played Max reciting War and Peace, but the voices fit so perfectly. You could tell that they hadn’t just rushed to do it at the last minute, and it had a huge, huge impact on the atmosphere, humour, narrative…
…by contrast, there is no excuse for this, for this, for for this, or for the many other awful clips I’ve got saved around the place. Brrr. Lishping Death Knights, atonal songs, grotesque translation…
Horrible.
And if it always worked that way, that would be awesome for them. But it seems unlikely. Freelancing is nowhere near that predictable, in any field. I’ll bet there are plenty of weeks where voice actors spend 50 hours doing legwork and are paid for 0 hours. This is why you see so many actors working second jobs in restaurants in LA; if you aren’t big-name talent, then it’s tough to make ends meet with acting alone.
This work isn’t just lying around waiting for any slob to do it. Look at how many games come out during a given month, and also keep in mind that many of them don’t have an VO other than “Time extended”
For giggles, I did an IMDB search on the guy who played Glotis in Grim Fandango. Since the 1998 release, he’s worked on 13 projects. That means he’s averaged 2.1 acting gigs a year since then (counting his other credited work). And he’s one of the better actors in the biz.
Just one further side note.
Tom has done a pretty good job of explaining that actors aren’t a bunch of greedy bastards. I know a fair number of folks who are “in the biz,” or at least trying to be in the biz. Many have a number of successful projects under their belts.
Almost none are full time actors, because you just can’t count on the work. There’s an old joke in LA, where you meet someone at a party, ask them what they do, and they respond that they’re an actor. The retort on the quick is “and where do you wait tables?”
It’s a cut throat business, and while a few people make truly sick money, most do not.
Tom, does SAG work out contracts such that your social security and all that is taken care of, too, or do you get to pay that out of your own pocket?
You’re just not getting it.
Besides, there are a lot of professions where outsiders say, “They don’t need to work much to make a lot of money.” How about musicians? Or baseball players (minimum wage: 300,000, even if you’re a reliever that sits in the bullpen and pitches to one lefty every three games)? Or computer technicians; they get paid WAY too much to remove spyware and crap like that. Anyone can do that.
Westwood College Online needs to offer a voice acting for games course, then SAG/AFTRA can go suck it!
Hahaha an online class for voice acting. Thats like taking an online class for public speaking.
OK let’s compare me the average joe worker making about half as much per year with Mr. Voice actor making that 70k.
First off I don’t have a manager and an agent each taking 10% off the top of all my gigs. so I’m already looking better. Secondly at work I’m not a contractor so I get benefits through my work such as health insurance, a pension and a 401k with a match. All these benefits are probably available through the union except the 401k match. Problem is that the match adds 15% to my salary with profit sharing and match and my employer pays 75% of my insurance, they also pay half of my social security while Mr. Voice actor is responsible for the whole shebang.
To top it all off to make $35K a year I can live anywhere I want if I have a resonable skill set and a degree while the voice actor has to live either in LA or New York. There’s no one looking for voice work in Hopalong Texas where you can rent a place for $500 a month and eat at restaurants all day for 20 bucks.
If you do a little math you’ll see that the programmers look like they’re doing pretty well for themselves compared to the voice actors.
Wow…
Thats insanely retarded.
I now want to be a voice actor. Talk about a great part time gig.
This is what I kept thinking while reading through this thread. If you want to use their services, you have to pay the rates a particular profession demands. I’m sure the game companies pay their lawyers more than they pay their programmers, and I’ll bet the lawyers don’t have crunch times months on end. If you want a lawyer, you pay the rate they demand. If you want a professional voice actor, you pay the rate they demand.
“I’m sure I can arrange a nice little honorarium from the Student Fund.”
How much of the gaming press gave free publicity to GTA SA because of Mr. Jackson’s work? Console mags and TV shows were falling all over themselves to give this game an award for the voice work and it’s mostly because of him.
I don’t think that was at all responsible for the success of the game.
A friend of mine is a huge fan of SLJ (I’d go as far as calling him an almost-fanboy), and even he wouldn’t go buy a game solely because it has SLJ’s voicework in it. Case in point: He doesn’t have GTA:SA, even though he’s well aware that it features the work of big fuckin’ Sam.
Shrug.
Exactly. And as you know, all lawyers do is snort coke off the stomachs of hookers all day, and occasionally write a cease and desist letter. Which they download from Google and change the names around.
And here I thought Sharpe was just friendly when we were playing Planetside–turns out he was high! Man, I picked the wrong field.
Yes, it’s fun to take a poke at lawyers.
Lawyer at the Pearly Gates: There must be a mistake St. Peter. I’m too young to die!
St. Peter: According to your billable hours, you’re 93.
Okay, back to the voice actors. I don’t see why the game companies would want to agree to demands for residuals. It seems like they will just open up a can of worms with respect to residuals for other members of the development team.
Realistically…no. EA could say “Okay, we’re paying residuals to SAG voice actors” and absolutely nothing would happen except some anonymous blogs. Things are so shitty in terms of work environment at most development houses that I highly doubt a little bit of jealousy at some faceless (literally) entities would really cause any more strife.
It’s not like a bunch of developers are going to unass themselves and start in with “Well, we’re underpaid, overworked, get shit credit, are treated like dirt…but, DAMMIT, THIS IS THE LAST STRAW, EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN’T AFFECT US!!”