Finding Character Voice With Your Voice

[Music] thank you I trust everyone's GDC is treating them wonderfully I hope you took some time off work this week to actually digest all the stuff you're learning um so you're here for finding character voice with your voice and lucky you this talk is virtual back when I planned on doing it in person there was going to be some audience participation so uh yeah you dodged a bullet anyway if people still hashtag you can use the hashtag vocalwriting all right so what are we learning today well there's only one point I'm really here to make and that's that adding vocal performance in the writer's room can add depth to your characters whether they're voiced or not I mean just look at Gordon Freeman here he doesn't have a lot to say vocally but uh he says things with his face that at least that's how I interpret it so why are you even

listening to me well my name is Cyrus nemati and at one point here at GDC not too long ago I was probably begging you for voice acting jobs some of you said yes and so I've had a lot of fun doing voice acting for games you can see some of the titles I've been in you may have heard me in Hades last year it was yeah that was that was a good game it was a good game um I've owned the voices now but perhaps I can be convinced uh I've since translated sorry I've since transitioned into writing full-time because there is such a thing as a guaranteed full-time writer the hustle is tough as a voice actor so so please hug your voice actors they work hard I'm a lead writer for June's journey and tropicats at wuga where we developed narratively driven mobile games done pretty well for us as it happens because a good story and good characters surprisingly well not surprisingly at all keep the audience coming

so most of us are here to make characters it's kind of daunting isn't it creating a fully fleshed out believable sentient being from absolutely nothing but our own imaginations that's uh that's intense it sounds really impressive when I put it like that so how do we do it well there are a few basic neces necessities to understanding a character you can give a gist from a description some keywords and imagery this is a character from tropicats we've got some basic descriptors a minor bit of backstory and the character art that we settled on from there we can get a start on writing dialogue from this character's perspective but this isn't a lot of information there is so much about this cat that we don't know we want to give our characters depth but how can we possibly create something with a real personality and history without knowing their life story

or lore for lack of a better word and you may ask yourself does my character just need more Laura well no lore is not the only solution to giving your character a strong background the reason your character doesn't necessarily need more lore is that you will never ever ever be able to turn them into a complete three-dimensional character with all the memories and history of a sentient being without living out their entire lifetime you couldn't even write the full lore for a baby because its life is going on at the same rate as yours you can you can try but I I I don't know how much fun you're gonna have or how much fun your audience will have so let's just not write for babies anyway this is a screenshot from Batman Arkham City with a bio for one of Batman's most timely foes calendar man we will never know enough about calendar man though the messes May beg for more of him

now we could get together and give him loads and loads of backstory and it might please a few hardcore calendar man fans raise your hands if you're in that group but very few people are actually going to dig into that lore you might find it important and maybe it is maybe it's vital information for this character's backstory but how does your audience know that you're just telling them facts facts in this case about calendar man I mean the guy based his identity upon calendars is Laura going to do much for this poor lost soul so you can convey lore without telling lore provides explicit characterization but the often easier and more rewarding route is through implicit characterization so what is implicit characterization you ask well it's basically any context that we can pick up without being explicitly told we can get implicit characterization most clearly through visuals through character art we can

pick up an incredible amount of information this is a character from muga's Hit game June's Journey without reading a line of text you can tell me probably a good amount about this character without seeing her character brief you can tell me about her General attitude her social class her age where she might be from and how her moods manifest themselves this is all right here on the page in the form of her how she dresses the Expressions on her face her General style and her body positioning but we can learn similar things from voices and they can help us with our dialogue just like visuals but my dialogue is already pretty good you say well how do you know that your dialogue is good have you heard it out of your character's mouth I came across this tweet a while ago by Mike Bethel of Thomas Was Alone Fame and I had to save it it resonated with me he wrote my writing gets 10 times better

once I've settled on my dream casting for the character I'm working on it's a good tweet it's actually a really good point too mentally assembling a cast of actors who could play your character is already providing characterization imagine you're struggling with a character on making their dialogue sound consistent and iconic and you realize huh you know kind of sounds like this and the dialogue starts to flow naturally well you know at least as naturally as Sylvester Stallone's dialogue does because you know what he sounds like that's the point a character is much easier to solidify when you know how they sound let's talk about Super Mario you look at him now and you know what he sounds like but it wasn't always this way Mario Brothers was Mario's first self-titled game but back in 1983 he didn't look anything like the Mario we're familiar with only with the release of Super Mario Brothers 2 in

1988 did we start to get closer to the idea of Mario that we have today with the big eyes the bulbous nose and the squat figure that he's had ever since and that was the extent of our understanding of Mario's character which continued with 1988's Super Mario Brothers 3 and 1990s Super Mario World now I want you to erase everything you know about Mario and just focus on these images and the explicit lore that we knew at the time he's a plumber he's Italian he jumps around a lot um uh he uses pipes so what does this guy sound like based on Purely what we see hey I'm Mario hey I'm flying I'm riding on a dinosaur I I don't know something like that uh I mean this visual was all that we knew about Mario uh unless you watched the Super Mario Brothers Super Show which is maybe where I'm getting this kind of voice from but that's all we knew at the time man that is indeed

all we knew about Mario until 1996. when Mario 64 came out it shocked the industry Not only was Mario in 3D for the first time with a huge array of animations but he actually spoke and that gave him instant characterization that not even an army of writers could provide let's listen thank you so much for playing my game it's me Mario here we go okay all right sorry whoops let me go back Mario quiet down okay this guy is ridiculous what is that the

guy who defeated a fire-breathing dinosaur sounds like this well he does because he does and suddenly we know an incredible amount about Super Mario's character he's a maniac he is absolutely thrilled just to be alive hopping with every jump he's never known true sadness only surprise or temporary dismay thanks to all the lives he's got as he falls down a pit screaming oh and thank you so much we're not here for you anymore okay so there's not a serious bone in Mario's Body and it has been a part of his characterization ever since we heard his voice even when Mario games are more narratively driven such as in the Mario and Luigi series Mario still expresses himself in the same way we've picked up an incredible amount of information just by hearing him speak and you may say ah I don't need that I'm

not making Mario well why aren't you Mario is as iconic a character as video games have ever made and his voice is part of what makes him iconic here's another extreme example of how performance can positively affect your game this is one of the most iconic characters to come out of a video game in the last decade and you probably have no clue who he is well how about now do you recognize him yeah that's the same guy Vos from Far Cry 3 was originally your typical big old angry brute of the character but when Michael Mandel Michael Mando simply auditioned for the role the character changed dramatically the depth that the actor provided gave us Nuance that he didn't have a reason for his rage that not only improved the character but altered the identity for the entire game if you haven't played it minor spoiler Vos isn't even the main villain but look

who's on the cover art he became the identity of the game through a strong unsettling nuanced performance that changed the writing for the character and then Far Cry 4 came out with another charismatic memorable villain driving the action and it happened again in Far Cry 5 and it will happen once more well probably not once more a in Far Cry 6. so it wasn't only one game but an entire franchise that was uplifted by a performance that changed the way a studio viewed character building Michael Mando my man I really hope you're getting royalties because damn but this is all big budget craziness you say my game doesn't even have voiced characters so what good is all this going to do me well surprise you don't even need to have voiced characters for performance to make a big difference at Wooga we do mobile games and as many of you know the number of people playing

mobile games with sound on is really really low weather sound is worth having on during a typical mobile game is another GDC talk that I'm not qualified to give but the fact remains that the day players will routinely hear the sound of their mobile games is still quite far away but we still weave performance into our process at Wooga on June's Journey this is our standard simplified process of course we plot our overarching scenes we write our story we test our dialogue and we implement it but the testing is where we can get a lot of hints about characters and have some fun this is my team they're going to do a typical scene reading don't worry it's short uh yeah let's just play it is [Music] work work you'll never understand but I'm sure we can arrange something take a look at the schedule

[Music] [Music] I can give you all the rest you need I can just cross off all your shifts and you can put up those filthy little feet okay you get the point uh that's not that great when you're just reading you get maybe flubs in your dialogue you may have heard that there was a little bit of a typo that was corrected but that's kind of all we get um but you don't need to have actors in The Writer's room to be able to put forth a performance I want to start with a writer's bit sorry I want to start with a writer's biggest strength and that is empathy think about how your character feels on a very basic level line by line how

would they react to the situation that they're facing don't be afraid to get physical I'm not saying punch your colleagues in the face if that's what your character is doing but go ahead and punch the air if it helps slam the table actually laugh because this physicality gets put into character slow down this isn't a script reading anymore the objective isn't to get it over with give your characters the same respect you give them in dialogue writing finally just have fun you are being paid hopefully to do creative things for a living life is good this is a Justified part of the process so don't feel bad about enjoying it I want to play that same clip again and this time turn on a little bit of character and whenever you're ready it's a hard work work you never

understand but I'm sure we can arrange something take a look at this schedule I've got some shifts that need covering let's bump you up to what 20 hours a day I can't I need friends I already work all day and taking care of my grandmother like oh you poor thing I'll make you a deal with it I can give you all the rest you need I'll just cross off all your shifts and you can put those filthy little feet up so I need those hours how would I pay the rent that's your problem you see now get out there's nothing I can't stand more than a video no all right so we got a few benefits out of this more characterful meeting uh or after this more characterful run-through of our dialogue first we are hearing the lines as if a human delivered them which is always a good start it helps us avoid unnatural dialogue we've gotten a tonal check on our work does a line sound angry enough does the character feel

insulted hurt hangry well we we know now third we have a possible hint at our character's background you heard some accents that we can use for characterization we might also pick up an appropriate age maybe there's a little grit in their voice that speaks to a troubled childhood or a drinking problem or maybe they smoke who knows maybe they sound like Gilbert Gottfried with all of the challenges that that entails forth through this characterization we have some idea about how our characters Express themselves we can almost see in our Mind's Eye how they'll move when they speak if you've ever seen old clips of Disney animators they'd keep a mirror at their desks so that they could act out scenes to ensure that characters were making the right faces what this all amounts to is that vocal performance gives character depth at a very slight cost of putting ourselves out there and getting into character as a result of characterful readings we regularly change the direction of our characters especially early on in the writing process they grow in complexity

and personality and end up with more depth than they would in a vacuum if you've been here at GDC before you've probably met Sarah O'Malley she's been an incredible Champion for collaboration between voice actors and game developers and I think she's got a fantastic example of how performance changed character for the better in Gears 5. I was getting worried he didn't report back radio died and these guys pulled me out of a jam I was brought in to play Lizzie Carmen in Gears five she started very tough and she was always meant to be very tough very like durable and kind of intimidating and cool and as I was recording her for the single player she got a bit Wilder she kind of had more gusto the writers took that and ran with it and it took on this like feedback loop feeling of affirmation as I was wild in these sessions and they added to her wildness and made her funnier and I was like yes and so it was this feeling like you're building off of each other and and

finding it a truer purer more instinctive more elevated version of this character that just takes on a life of its own one of the things I really like about Sarah's approach is that it is truly collaborative writers are fueled by her perspective and her understanding of character from a vocal performance perspective and that Bond creates a better end product oops let me uh okay there we go so I want to talk a little bit more about that bonding aspect most of us can recognize when writing is uninspired or when it's done just to fulfill some sort of narrative checkbox if your studio acts as though writing is just the thing one must do to push the player along it is up to you to bring that enthusiasm for writing and the best way to do that is really to have fun with it this is my team again this time reading a scene where a parrot holds the answer to a mystery that's my mind foreign [Laughter]

[Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is just us having a good time but that good time helps us Bond as a team which is certainly a good thing to have in your writer's room the comfort that comes with a strong bond allows you to explore and find a character's unique voice and voice makes your characters unique uh my Holy Grail for written dialogue is for the reader to know exactly who is speaking without a name tag Crea from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 is one of my favorite written characters in all of video games her dialogue is impressive and nuanced and most importantly there's no line that she

speaks that could be said by any other character in the game she's expertly voiced by Sarah kestelman whom you will know from absolutely nothing unless you're an avid fan of the royal National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare company and although I can't confirm that her performance influenced the writing it's hard to imagine it didn't let's hear a clip you've seen what what are you doing get out of my head [Music] [Applause] [Music] stop stop ah with the fear is mingled guilt it squams in you like a worm and the why [Music] feel it before your feelings are a powerful Shield

indeed oh man she is so good that that character just holds so much weight she is deliberate careful even despite the very obvious power that she holds and this we can tell from her voice and it's got to influence our writing one of the things that we pick up certainly from this performance is that we probably can't write this particular character a fart joke now you may hear this and think oh dang I can't summon up this kind of performance yeah I hear you admittedly I'm not sure I can although I definitely like to make an attempt and yes I am open for voice over work but still I recommend that you still give it a try but if you're saying no I want Hollywood quality or nothing I've actually got some really interesting news now for you um if you plan on hiring Union actors you can make use of the help Network's SWAT team

I was kindly pointing out to pointed out to the existence of SWAT by the immensely talented and friendly Susie Jones who you see here you probably know her from firewatch with SWAT you can get skilled professional Union actors to do a couple of table reads of pre-production material at a grand cost of nothing because you won't be recording those sessions but this is an opportunity to get the chance to help your characters become fully realized much earlier in the writing process which I think is worth a lot more than zero dollars and your product owners probably do too so what's the point use your voice perform have fun there is absolutely no reason not to do this in your writer's rooms it costs you nothing and the benefits are massive even if you're the only writer on your team perform your dialogue grab somebody from marketing grab somebody from facilities whatever like just get those voices out there they will help you and if you are

that uncomfortable hire a voice actor consider it part of your pre-production process it's way cheaper than a million Pages full of lore and can reveal depth to your character that you wouldn't expect so thank you for listening I hope you had a little fun and came away with some renewed excitement for your writers rooms if you'd like to get more insights into writing and vocal performance I strongly recommend you check out Greg cassavin and Darren corbus talk breathing life into Greek myth the dialogue of Hades I swear I'm not biased man [Music]