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Voice Actors and the Screen Actors Guild

Writers: Teri

At the Austin GDC, Trina and I had a chance to sit down with New Media Director Mark Friedlander, and SAG members David Anthony Pizzuto, and David Sobolov. We discussed their experiences with SAG and their experiences with the gaming industry.

Both Davids are voice actors and our first questions fell on them.

Trina: Is voice acting for TV shows and movies different than voice acting for video games?

Sobolov: Video game acting is evolving because it started out very stereotypical scream and die, scream and die, scream and die. Now the characters are more nuanced, the stories are more complex, so it's becoming more cinematic all the time.

Pizzuto: More of the human element is coming out. These characters are developing more and they're actual people. They have lives. They have relationships. If you don't have human relationships in the game, you can't really have a whole lot of story because that is where the motivation comes from. And just by a simple element of having a human relationship involved with the main character, warrior, pilot, dancer, whatever it is, whoever it is, just having that element adds so much and it also engages audience which is something that I've known with theater and song and movies forever. Now that's happening more in games. All you have to do is have somebody that sees their love as another entity and remove it. There's the conflict. Everything in between, that's the game.

Trina: Do [the producers] ask you to come up with the idea for the voice yourself?

Sobolov: Yeah, oftentimes they'll hand the script to us at the session and we usually make it up on the spot.

Pizzuto: Our real job is to take the creator's idea and breathe life into it and put it inside their head in the studio. They got the dream in their head that they've been living with and we've got to try and get to that.

Teri: Do you get to have any contact with the design teams of the games?

Sobolov: It really depends. Sometimes they'll share their info with us. Sometimes it's just straight script.

Pizzuto: Sometimes they're there. It depends.

Trina: Do you get to see models or artwork of the characters?

Pizzuto: [Most of the time] we'll get a frame of the character which is hugely helpful and a description of some element of what they do in the game and about their personality. The information, by and large, is good and getting better. That's hugely important because we inhabit the characters and everything about them is an outlet. It's really helpful and we get that early on before the audition. Then [the design team] will see what their information with your idea and talent brought to it brings up.

Sobolov: You're in isolation. You don't often see the other people with you [during] game play so of course you really need to know what's happening.

Trina: How much creative license do you have when you read over what a character would say and you think, "I don't know if they would say that?"

Sobolov: That's happened to me once. I do realize I'm acting so I'm not David Sobolov anymore, I'm this other character and that other character has a whole other set of circumstances that he's dealing with and that's ok within context. I have gone away from some sessions needing to take a shower because this person is just too far away from who I am, but it's a character and that's ok. Believe me, they can hear it right away if there's something wrong with the text.

Pizzuto: You've got to be careful because you don't want to insult somebody's baby. A lot of times there's been a lot of time and effort and work put into this. We're there to serve the producer and part of what, if you hire us, we bring for you is we totally have your back. We're watching out for your best interest, but I'm not going to try to take over your project and start directing it.

Teri: Do you ever get to see the finished product? Do you play the games you work on or does someone play them for you?

Pizzuto: We don't really have time, but most companies are really good about getting us the games. I've given a couple away to kids and stuff like that.

Teri: I was just curious to see if you got to see your voice with your character moving around the world that was created.

Sobolov: Sometimes I'll get a DVD or, if I'm in for several sessions, they'll show me something that's been rendered.

David P. then goes on to tell us what he and other voice actors are doing. They are collecting the games given to them and trying to get the people who worked on them, from cast members to designers, to autograph them. Then auction them off, raising money for a children's charity that the gaming community can agree on.

Pizzuto: Because gaming is a real deal now. Memorabilia is powerful. [This is] an avenue for the whole community to come together to give back.

At this time, we ask Mark a few questions about the Screen Actors Guild. Trina: Your [division] is new?

Mark: SAG has been around for 75 years and we’ve been involved with the video game business since the early 1990's.

Trina: How do you go about to the companies and say, "Hey, use our talent versus finding someone off the street?"

Mark: That's why we're here. What I've found is just a lot of people don't think to look and they're just not that aware or they are aware and they're really scared. They think we're like some big, evil [union].

Sobolov: Or they think we cost $100,000 and we really don't. We're there to work. We're career performers. I think that's the difference that you get when you get performers through the Screen Actors Guild than just off the street somewhere. We're in it for the long haul. We care about the product and we're going to see it through to the end.

Pizzuto: One of the things we're doing now is to inform and open the doors to developers and people who just don't know the facts about the Screen Actors Guild. The monetary costs are very reasonable with the basic interactive agreement.

Mark: There is a real community in gaming and we want to be a part of it.

Trina: Online media is changing so rapidly. How does SAG keep up?

Mark: Honestly, we're trying to learn as much as we can because the media and the business models that surround them are changing every day. We're trying to hear what's going on in the marketplace and trying to figure out how we can best adapt the way we function to match that. The only thing we're really trying to do is make sure that producers can make their art, whatever the form is, and that our performers are well compensated. We're not trying to hinder anyone from being able to create whatever it is their heart desires or whatever it is that technology allows.

Sobolov: But we're also a business. We really want to work in win-win situations with producers.

Mark: Because we can't effectively protect the performers if they're not making a living because producers cannot hire them. We have to find a way to balance that.

Trina: What are some things you've heard from developers at this conference [in regards to voice actors]?

Mark: We're beginning to see producers talk about [multi-]million dollar video productions, but we're also beginning to hear people talk about one-million dollar video game productions. We have similar experiences in the film space. Independent film has seen an explosion in the last 10-15 years. I think we'll begin to see some more changes in the video game space like that.

Teri: Can an actor use their video game experience to joining SAG?

Mark: Yes, you can. Essentially, any professional-level work after a certain [point] can qualify you to be a SAG performer.

Sobolov: It's really good to get that ground-level experience before you try to get your Screen Actors Guild card because once you're in the guild, you've made a commitment to be a part of it. There's not a lot of turning back. You're deciding that you're going to be pursuing this as a professional career and I think it's a serious decision that you make.

Due to legal reasons, they were not able to comment on the impending strike by the Writers Guild of America. However, David P. summed up his personal feelings of strikes in general by saying, "As a performer, it makes people in the town nervous. Even the mention of the "S" word makes people crazy. You see production ramp up and you see a lot of emotional reaction as opposed to appropriate response." Mark concluded, "Consumers don't want that, producers don't want that, actors don't want that. Everybody wants to do business and play games and watch movies and see TV shows. The world's a happy place when that happens."

We'll have Part 2 of our interview with Davids and Mark posted later in the week.