CALL KINKO’S AND MAKE SURE THEY’RE OPEN
Preparing to record the inhabitants of Cyrodiil

As you’re no doubt already aware, spoken dialog was to be one of the many massive changes that went into making Oblivion, and spoken dialog manifest in a world as large as an Elder Scrolls game is going to be a great deal of dialog indeed. With heavyweights like Patrick Stewart, Terence Stamp, and Sean Bean already on board, the next step was to cast the races that inhabit the lands in Tamriel and our featured province of Cyrodiil. Local voice actors were brought in for auditions right here at Bethesda Softworks, and after a couple of weeks and a lot of listening and feedback from team leads, we had our races ready to go. Estimates were made, sessions were booked, and in mid-July recording began at Absolute Pitch Studios in Bethesda, Maryland.

But before this could all take place, the script itself had to be finalized and prepared for the voice talent. This meant exporting all dialog that had been written in the editor by our designers (a process that had to literally run through the night because of the sheer amount of data), then getting that all organized and into some useful form, printed, and separated into three copies – one for the voice talent in the recording booth, one for the recording engineer so they could make notes as to which take on which line we wanted to keep, and one for myself and two other designers to read from as we directed the voice talent in different studios. Starting the formatting and organization work on the exported script at noon on a Sunday, I finally had the script copies back from the printers, assembled, and organized by 4am the next morning. I enjoyed a three hour snooze before waking myself up to load up all the scripts in their three separate boxes, load them into the trunk of my car, and head down to the studio to meet everyone for the first day of recording. The first conversation I had with the recording engineer was to ask if they had a dolly cart that I could borrow for a few minutes. “Sure. What do you need it for?” he asks. “To bring in the script,” I replied. Below are some of the pictures I took while assembling the script as it came back from the printers at some wee hour of the morning.

Voice recording gets me excited. It’s a big departure and often a welcome break from sound design. While I do need to sometimes keep in mind the context of the game in which some lines will be heard as far as other sound effects that might be playing at the time, it’s a chance for me to focus on a fresh aspect of the game’s audio. A big part of the enjoyment comes from the human element – working with different people who are very enthusiastic about working on the project and each have their own special perspective that they’ll bring to it. When dialog is written, the person doing the writing usually hears it in their own head a certain way (particularly if the voice talent has not yet been cast, as there’s no reference point yet). I myself, upon reading through the script, hear it in my head another way. The point being, everyone might have their own idea of how a line should be delivered in its context, and the voice actors are no different.

WHAT’S THAT IN THE ROAD? A HEAD?
Directing the voice recordings

When directing the voice actors in the recording studio, each line can be a surprise since this is the first time you’re hearing it as interpreted by this new person, the actor. I prefer to not be too heavy-handed in directing, rather letting them take a crack at it and just see how it sounds. If casting was done right then there’s often very little to comment on or to correct. If a line is flubbed, misspoken, or mispronounced, I punch the “talkback” button to communicate with the talent in the recording booth and we go through the line again. The recording engineer makes an additional second hash mark on his copy of the script so he’ll know to throw out the first take when he does his editing pass after the session. Most of the time, the first take is the keeper. Sometimes it sounds just like I expected it to and sometimes it’s an unexpected but pleasant surprise. That’s the part I like best … someone bringing their own approach to our work, and that approach really being the thing we were looking for, but perhaps couldn’t quite put our finger on.

In those times where I do want to step in and direct the talent in another way, it’s often most useful to them to be given an objective to work toward, rather than the intended result itself. In other words, if I tell them, “Try it more angry,” then I’m still the only one who knows how angry I’m really talking about. So let’s say this line is intended to be read as if the speaker is just mildly annoyed, such as if the player continually tries to speak with them repeatedly, but they have nothing more to say and only wish to be left alone. Going with that previous vague direction, the voice talent might just take a guess and end up taking things way too far, screaming the line with clenched fists and wild gestures (the best ones always let their body get into it, just as if they were actually going through that emotion toward a person standing directly in front of them in the recording booth). But now I’ve got to back them up a bit because it was only supposed to be mildly annoyed, not fuming mad! Still being too vague in my direction, I punch the talkback and say, “No, no. Less angry than that.” Well, this time they go too far in the opposite direction and now hardly seem bothered at all. What we need is a situation, or motivation, for them to work from.

At the risk of sounding cliché, I want to stress that ‘motivation’ is actually a pretty good word to describe what good direction should deliver. If I say, “Do it more angry!”, they’re likely to ask me, “Why?” Motivation is the ‘why’ that will get you the result you’re after when given to a talented actor.

So this time I explain the situation properly and in as few words as possible (we’ve got several weeks of material to record … there’s no time for a long-winded story). “I keep walking up to you in the tavern and tapping your shoulder each time you go back to your ale! Doesn’t that bother you?” Now the line comes out just as the writer intended … annoyed, maybe even hinting at anger, but certainly not pulling a dagger out of a sheath just yet. And the actors like it, too. They’re having fun because I’m feeding them these situations that they can now relate to and picture themselves in. I address them directly rather than talking in the third person about the character they’re speaking for because it gets right to the point and is clear. They have a motive to work from. It’s the same reason that big Hollywood animation flicks, like those you see from Pixar, will do voice sessions with all the lead voice actors in separate recording booths partitioned by soundproof glass. They can see one another and the emotion is far more likely to be genuine and spontaneous when it’s delivered right to the face of the other actors. The audience will know the difference when they hear it.

The other part of having a director present during these voice recordings is that this is not the easiest script in the world. The two designers, Mark Nelson and Ken Rolston, and myself often played the part of quality control. The world of Tamriel and the province of Cyrodiil have a rich history and culture, and that means a wealth of fictional names, places, creatures, and artifacts being thrown around in the script’s text. Context and emphasis suddenly become these very important, but difficult to wrangle things if everyone isn’t on the same page, so to speak (making fun of misinterpreted context and emphasis is the essence of the title for this section of my team diary).

KEEP YOUR EARS SHARP AND YOUR SWORD SHARPER
The dawn of your next Elder Scrolls adventure draws near

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is now in the fifty-eighth minute of the eleventh hour of its development cycle here at Bethesda Softworks. We’re almost done with our masterpiece and the mood around the office reflects this as everyone gets more and more excited about having all of you out there experiencing the world we’ve created. I know I can’t wait.

When I stroll into the kitchen to fix another cup of tea, I can hear the various sounds of the game echoing around the office. Clank, clank, clank of the hammer on the anvil as someone makes armor repairs. Smashing, crashing, and yelling as someone else finds themselves in a fierce battle in the streets outside the local tavern. And seemingly from another world entirely, the gentle crunch of footsteps through tall grass while (yet another) lone adventurer takes a scenic stroll through the windswept meadows of the West Weald. Sccccchiiing … as the sword comes out of its scabbard … it sounds as though this peaceful walk has just been interrupted by a waiting troll who thought he was being sneaky by hiding behind a large rock a ways up the road.

Their gurgling groans always give them away.