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Neera's Voice

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  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    edited December 2012
    A certain original voice actor from BG and BG 2 is in this trailer. See if you can guess who it is...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP4pF31OwlM
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    edited December 2012
    @LadyRhian I'm kind of hit or miss with voices. Knowing BG though, it is probably the voice of something like 1-5 really major characters, 5-15 major charactes, 20-50 characters people will remember if reminded, and about 500-1000 random NPC's. My problem is that a lot of these people are so talented that they can change their voice in all kinds of ways normal people can't. I certainly hope it isn't Jim Cummings. I would have to double the above numbers if it is. That guy is a voice wizard.
    Post edited by Tresset on
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    edited December 2012
    @LadyRhian It is isn't it? Jim Cummings. Ugh, I think it is. I could have sworn I heard him... Yeah. That's got to be him.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    Yes. It's Jim Cummings. You win a No-Prize! (shades of old Marvel Comics for the win!)
  • MoomintrollMoomintroll Member Posts: 1,498
    Still only having the sound clips to go by, I think she sounds great.

    Discussing American accents sounding out of place is absurd!
    Imoen, Ajantis, Flaming fist, Alora, Kivan, all have American accents, at least to my ear, I am sure there are others but my memory won't reveal them.
  • RiolathelRiolathel Member Posts: 330
    Well i had respect for him.. but doing work for kungfu pandas makes me disappointed..

    I guess a paycheck is a paycheck though
  • RiolathelRiolathel Member Posts: 330
    edited December 2012
    Elendar said:

    I don't find her sounding anachronistic a valid criticism, when the original NPCs make pop culture references (looking at you, Tzar) and break the fourth wall with lines like, "One day, Tiax will point and click!"

    Whats a Tzar?
    @elendar
    Whats a paladin?
    http://youtu.be/Otf9Bnm48Kk
  • TalonfireTalonfire Member Posts: 17

    Still only having the sound clips to go by, I think she sounds great.

    Discussing American accents sounding out of place is absurd!
    Imoen, Ajantis, Flaming fist, Alora, Kivan, all have American accents, at least to my ear, I am sure there are others but my memory won't reveal them.

    There's a score of others, and some of them are quite important too - like Sarevok.

    Of course, the people complaining about her accent might have originally played a localized version of BG1 and don't realize that American accents were quite prevalent in the original English version.
  • XriahXriah Member Posts: 25
    GoodSteve said:


    No I've never participated in a vocal session but everything you just said me and my 5 year old niece know from watching extras on her Pixar DVD's.

    ...and this gives you equal perspective to 6 years of actually producing audio productions how? DVD extras will give you a very rough idea of how something gets done, but those extras are for entertainment purposes. They're not going to go into great detail, especially about the difficulties.
    GoodSteve said:


    Let's look at what we know about the voice acting so far with BG:EE.

    1) The rest of the voice acting, while not stellar, is far above the level of Neera's.

    2) Neera's voice acting isn't good.

    So, since we know these two things how does one come to the conclusion that it is the voice directors fault that only 1 out of 3 voice acting jobs suck? Wouldn't it be more logical to assume that Jessica Elbro did a bad job than to say the voice acting director, who did a fair job with the other two voice actors, did a poor job?

    From an outsider's perspective, I could understand how you would draw the conclusion. However, there's more to it than this.

    First, you're assuming Neera's dailogue was written by the same person which may or may not be the case. You're also assuming she was directed by the same director. This is also not always the case.

    Second, you're assuming that because a director has good judgement regarding a certain character personality, that he's going to have good judgement with all character types. This isn't always the case either.

    Third, the director still made the choice to go live with this performance. At the very least, the director thought the performance was acceptible enough to go live, making him/her just as guilty as the actress. Like I said before, if it comes down to the actor or actress being incapable of giving the performance needed to convey the character, it is the director's responsibility to recast.
    agris said:

    I've always thought that RPGs would benefit from hiring voice actors from the theatre or radio performance world (AFTRA?).

    Funny you should say that. Voice actors very often overlap with theatre and other types of media. They're usually looking for work since once you finish lines on a project, you move on. Most of the actors and actresses that worked with us would be involved in live theatre productions and other projects on the side. In fact, since our audiobook company was based in Bethesda, we share a lot of actors with Bethesda Softworks. It was always a treat hearing people I'd worked with in Oblivion and Fallout 3.
    agris said:


    There is definitely something about the way the lines are delivered in BG1/2, and perhaps it is a theatrical quality, that is missing in the new NPCs. Do you know if the original BG voices were recorded in that radio drama style (together, in joint sessions)?

    I don't know for sure, but I highly doubt it. Voiced characters so rarely talk to one another in this game. I can't see a good reason why they would have bothered to do it.
    agris said:


    Also the production of the new voices is different than the old. I think they compressed / normalized the hell out of them so that the dynamic range is killed, something that gives voice a lot of life.

    Dynamic range is very tricky. I agree it can be nice in some performances, but little hurts a performance more than when you can't hear the actor. The game has a lot of ambient noise (rain, wind, town bustle) , and it's not always certain what sounds are going to be playing behind the dialogue. Compressing a voice ensures levels are stable, and I think it's the better choice than risking having lines getting drowned out with ambient noise.

    Also, it's going to sound different just based on the equipment used to record. Tech evolves over time, and different microphones have different sounds. I doubt there was much they could do except for tweaking it with equalization, and even then so few people would notice it that it wouldn't be worth the hassle.
  • MoomintrollMoomintroll Member Posts: 1,498
    Tangentially then.
    Some of my favourite out of place accents..

    Aragorn turning Irish, outside the gates to Mordor.

    Russel Crowe's rainbow of colloquial English accents in Robin Hood, somehow weirder than Kevin Costner just being himself.

    Sarah Polley in Beowulf and Grendel.

    Anyone else got any favourites?
  • LordRumfishLordRumfish Member Posts: 937
    edited December 2012
    One of my friends likes to poke fun of Cate Blanchett's russian accent in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
  • GoodSteveGoodSteve Member Posts: 607
    edited December 2012

    I've never understood how people can think they know anything about acting from watching movies. Do you think you're an engineer because you drive over bridges? When your criticism merely amounts to, "I don't like it, so it is shitty" your arguments don't carry much weight. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not liking something doesn't make it objectively bad.

    I didn't say I knew things about acting from watching movies I said I knew things about how voices were recorded in a recording studip from watching DVD extras.

    No, when I drive over bridges I think I'm a motorist.

    My opinion was "I don't like it, so its shitty" not my argument. There's no real arguing in a topic like this since it's all based on opinion. You either like it or you don't. That's really the only time the word "shitty" will ever get any use, when someone is stating their opinion. Unless of course you're speaking about something literally covered in fecal matter then I could see someone arguing over the inherent shittyness of somethiing.

    "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not liking something doesn't make it objectively bad."

    Liking something doesn't make it objectively good either. I'm not sure what your point is? Are you trying to say it's not good or bad simply based on how people feel about it? If so, I agree.
    Xriah said:

    ...and this gives you equal perspective to 6 years of actually producing audio productions how? DVD extras will give you a very rough idea of how something gets done, but those extras are for entertainment purposes. They're not going to go into great detail, especially about the difficulties.

    Never said that. I said that through that means I knew everything you had said in your previous post. Also, any amount of industy experience doesn't give you insight into what actually happened with this particular recording. Like you and I have both said it could have been due to a number of things. We're only assuming and you haven't proved that your 6 years of "actually producing audio productions" has given you any answers.
    Xriah said:

    From an outsider's perspective, I could understand how you would draw the conclusion. However, there's more to it than this.

    First, you're assuming Neera's dailogue was written by the same person which may or may not be the case. You're also assuming she was directed by the same director. This is also not always the case.

    I don't have a problem with the dialogue I have a problem with the voice acting. Moot point.
    Xriah said:

    Second, you're assuming that because a director has good judgement regarding a certain character personality, that he's going to have good judgement with all character types. This isn't always the case either.

    True but since we have no evidence to support this besides that the voice acting was terrible you cannot prove it was the directors fault any more than the actors in this particular case. However, as was proven with the other two voice acting jobs he had some success where Nicola Elbro had none. Therefore it is more feasible to come to the conclusion that it was her that did the bad job. Deductive reasoning points to her, do you have any proof that would suggest otherwise?
    Xriah said:

    Third, the director still made the choice to go live with this performance. At the very least, the director thought the performance was acceptible enough to go live, making him/her just as guilty as the actress. Like I said before, if it comes down to the actor or actress being incapable of giving the performance needed to convey the character, it is the director's responsibility to recast.

    The directors thought that those were the best deliveries she was capable of and went live with them. And they sucked. I find it speaks volumes about her as a voice actor. We also don't know how things were running there at Overhaul. They may have been under contract (boy that comes up a lot) to use her. As in, she was already paid and they didn't have the money to recast it after she was already paid. This seems likely since Trent often said many of the team members were working with no pay during the development of the game.
  • XriahXriah Member Posts: 25
    GoodSteve said:

    Also, any amount of industy experience doesn't give you insight into what actually happened with this particular recording. Like you and I have both said it could have been due to a number of things. We're only assuming and you haven't proved that your 6 years of "actually producing audio productions" has given you any answers.

    No, producing audio does not make me omnipotent. However, when your having chest pains and you want someone to try and diagnose the problem, do you go to the doctor, or the guy that's watched a DVD with a doctor in it?
    GoodSteve said:

    I don't have a problem with the dialogue I have a problem with the voice acting. Moot point.

    The material and the acting go hand in hand. There are very very VERY few actors that can pull off awkward writing convincingly. In this case, the writing just doesn't fit the Baldur's Gate style well, hence, neither does the acting. Besides, I mentioned the director might have been different as well.
    GoodSteve said:


    True but since we have no evidence to support this besides that the voice acting was terrible you cannot prove it was the directors fault any more than the actors in this particular case. However, as was proven with the other two voice acting jobs he had some success where Nicola Elbro had none. Therefore it is more feasible to come to the conclusion that it was her that did the bad job. Deductive reasoning points to her, do you have any proof that would suggest otherwise?

    As much proof as you do. However, I have a better base on which to reason with. Nicola was cast by the director. I'm assuming that the director didn't just pull her off of the street and say "Hey, come read this major role in my game." She would had to have given SOME example of her performance work. If she's as bad as you seem to think, the director would have known beforehand.
    She also isn't "terrible". She's just awkward and out of place. Again, director's job for context.
    GoodSteve said:


    The directors thought that those were the best deliveries she was capable of and went live with them. And they sucked. I find it speaks volumes about her as a voice actor. We also don't know how things were running there at Overhaul. They may have been under contract (boy that comes up a lot) to use her. As in, she was already paid and they didn't have the money to recast it after she was already paid. This seems likely since Trent often said many of the team members were working with no pay during the development of the game.

    Oh look, more baseless conjecture!
  • GoodSteveGoodSteve Member Posts: 607
    Xriah said:

    No, producing audio does not make me omnipotent. However, when your having chest pains and you want someone to try and diagnose the problem, do you go to the doctor, or the guy that's watched a DVD with a doctor in it?

    Wait, so you were a voice acting director now?

    My point, which you didn't address, stands. You have provided no proof that your illustrious career as someone who "worked in a recording studio," apparently as a director, has divined any more insight into this than I have.
    Xriah said:

    The material and the acting go hand in hand. There are very very VERY few actors that can pull off awkward writing convincingly. In this case, the writing just doesn't fit the Baldur's Gate style well, hence, neither does the acting.

    Indeed but one can be bad without the other also being bad. You can take the crappiest dialogue and make it great with the right voice actor and you can take shakespeare and turn it into garbage with a terrible actor. I have no problem with the dialogue and never said that I did, thus: moot point.
    Xriah said:

    Besides, I mentioned the director might have been different as well.

    Oh look, more baseless conjecture!
    Xriah said:

    As much proof as you do. However, I have a better base on which to reason with.

    Proof?
    Xriah said:

    Nicola was cast by the director. I'm assuming that the director didn't just pull her off of the street and say "Hey, come read this major role in my game."

    Oh look, more baseless conjecture!

    You don't know any of that. Nicola could have been casted by someone doing a casting call that the director wasn't involved with. Or any other number of scenarios.
    Xriah said:

    She would had to have given SOME example of her performance work. If she's as bad as you seem to think, the director would have known beforehand.
    She also isn't "terrible". She's just awkward and out of place. Again, director's job for context.

    This line of reasoning is rediculous. It's akin to saying that a good actor can never have a terrible performance.

    Kobe Bryant makes a lot of free throws therefore he cannot ever miss a free throw. And if he does it's the coachs fault for playing him since he should have known that Kobe wasn't the man for the job, since he is, you know, human and might fuck up from time to time.
  • KolonKuKolonKu Member Posts: 87
    @GoodSteve, I find it embarrassing that you're trying to argue with an experienced audio producer based on what you've seen in DVD-extras.
  • XriahXriah Member Posts: 25
    GoodSteve said:

    Wait, so you were a voice acting director now?

    I worked as a sound designer, vocal engineer, voice actor, and occasional performance direction. I've worked on over 100 audiobooks equating to over 500 hours of audio production at a company called GraphicAudio. My specialty was in the sound effects design and scoring, but everything overlaps there and I did my fair share of each part of the creative process, including pulling actors and actresses into studio and directing retakes if I needed them to redo a line or scene that wasn't fitting well. No, I didn't do any full blown project direction, but I witnessed first hand good acting, bad acting, good directing, and bad directing and I have a good basis for judging which is which.
    GoodSteve said:

    You can take the crappiest dialogue and make it great with the right voice actor and you can take shakespeare and turn it into garbage with a terrible actor. I have no problem with the dialogue and never said that I did.

    I have a problem with the dialogue. It just doesn't fit. A great actress could have tweaked her performance in such a way as to make it passable, but that was beyond her capability.
    Xriah said:

    As much proof as you do. However, I have a better base on which to reason with.

    GoodSteve said:


    Proof?

    My experience gives me a more in depth perspective.
    Xriah said:

    Nicola was cast by the director. I'm assuming that the director didn't just pull her off of the street and say "Hey, come read this major role in my game."

    GoodSteve said:


    You don't know any of that. Nicola could have been casted by someone doing a casting call that the director wasn't involved with. Or any other number of scenarios.

    It's incredibly unlikely that they had someone doing a casting call on a project this small. I doubt the director didn't cast her. No proof, but my senario is much mroe likely.
    Xriah said:

    She would had to have given SOME example of her performance work. If she's as bad as you seem to think, the director would have known beforehand.
    She also isn't "terrible". She's just awkward and out of place. Again, director's job for context.

    GoodSteve said:


    This line of reasoning is rediculous. It's akin to saying that a good actor can never have a terrible performance.

    Kobe Bryant makes a lot of free throws therefore he cannot ever miss a free throw. And if he does it's the coachs fault for playing him since he should have known that Kobe wasn't the man for the job, since he is, you know, human and might fuck up from time to time.

    This analogy is completely flawed. In voice acting, you only have to get the read right once. You can keep trying until you get it right. I've watched several good directors "brute force" a great performance out of an actor by giving them each line read and having them take it 5 or 6 times until they get it right. It's tedious, but the result is great.
    The best actors give a bad read now and then. It's the director's job to go, "Hey, that was a bad read. Take it again."

    Kobe Bryant will miss a free throw now and then, but he won't miss every free throw. He's going to make one eventually. And in this case, you only need one.


    I don't think that Neera's performance is terrible, just misplaced. You feel different. That's fine. I'm trying to educate you on the fact that when you see or hear a bad vocal performance on any recorded medium, it's not just the actors fault. At the very least, the director allowed the performance to go live. There are very rare exceptions to that rule, usually involving a meddling producer, but I highly doubt that occured here.
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    @Riolathel You wouldn't be far off if you said Jim Cummings has done work for just about every animated feature and video game out there. He has done A LOT of roles (I believe his website said over 600 or something like that). I seriously doubt that kung fu pandas for WOW is the most embarrassing role he's ever had...
  • XriahXriah Member Posts: 25
    Tresset said:

    @Riolathel You wouldn't be far off if you said Jim Cummings has done work for just about every animated feature and video game out there. He has done A LOT of roles (I believe his website said over 600 or something like that). I seriously doubt that kung fu pandas for WOW is the most embarrassing role he's ever had...

    People who choose that profession take whatever work they can get. It is a very lucky and rare actor that has the luxury of picking and choosing.
  • QuartzQuartz Member Posts: 3,853

    Discussing American accents sounding out of place is absurd!
    Imoen, Ajantis, Flaming fist, Alora, Kivan, all have American accents, at least to my ear, I am sure there are others but my memory won't reveal them.

    Don't bother me.
  • GoodSteveGoodSteve Member Posts: 607
    KolonKu said:

    @GoodSteve, I find it embarrassing that you're trying to argue with an experienced audio producer based on what you've seen in DVD-extras.

    Maybe you should actually read the conversation before commenting. What you said makes no sense and isn't even remotely close to what has ocurred.
    Xriah said:

    I worked as a sound designer, vocal engineer, voice actor, and occasional performance direction. I've worked on over 100 audiobooks equating to over 500 hours of audio production at a company called GraphicAudio. My specialty was in the sound effects design and scoring, but everything overlaps there and I did my fair share of each part of the creative process, including pulling actors and actresses into studio and directing retakes if I needed them to redo a line or scene that wasn't fitting well.

    Any proof of any of that? I could say I'm a flying space donkey on the internet too and without any proof to the contrary you'd have to take me at my word.

    I AM a flying space donkey by the way.

    All that aside your experience doesn't give you any insight into the actual recording session, so your credentials are pointless. Like you said, you're not omnipotent (the word you were looking for is omniscient by the way) and have no way of knowing it was due to incompetence on the part of the actor, director, or a combination of both. I could be the most experienced gun fighter in the west but it wont mean I knew who shot the sheriff. I do know, whomever it was, that they did not shoot the deputy, however.
    Xriah said:

    No, I didn't do any full blown project direction, but I witnessed first hand good acting, bad acting, good directing, and bad directing and I have a good basis for judging which is which.

    I have also "witnessed" all those things countless times. I watch far too many movies.
    Xriah said:

    I have a problem with the dialogue. It just doesn't fit. A great actress could have tweaked her performance in such a way as to make it passable, but that was beyond her capability.

    Uh, ok. So you also think she is a shitty voice actor? So what exactly are we arguing here? You admit she sucks but then try and tell me it's not because she sucks that the performance suffers its because the director MAY have shit the bed. Uh huh.
    Xriah said:

    My experience gives me a more in depth perspective.

    No, it doesn't. We've established you're not omnipotent (omniscient).
    Xriah said:

    It's incredibly unlikely that they had someone doing a casting call on a project this small. I doubt the director didn't cast her. No proof, but my senario is much mroe likely.

    Hey now, didn't you already establish that deductive reasoning was pointless conjecture?
    Xriah said:

    This analogy is completely flawed. In voice acting, you only have to get the read right once. You can keep trying until you get it right. I've watched several good directors "brute force" a great performance out of an actor by giving them each line read and having them take it 5 or 6 times until they get it right. It's tedious, but the result is great.
    The best actors give a bad read now and then. It's the director's job to go, "Hey, that was a bad read. Take it again."

    So, actors are incapable of giving a terrible performance then? Hmm, I wonder what happened to all those Nicolas Cage movies recently? Strange.

    I guess it's just infeasible that an actor has a range of what they can do and sometimes the role may require them to do something outside of said range, thus making it impossible for a director to direct the actor into doing it the way they want them to.
    Xriah said:

    I don't think that Neera's performance is terrible, just misplaced. You feel different. That's fine.

    Really? That's not what you said earlier.... you said: "It just doesn't fit. A great actress could have tweaked her performance in such a way as to make it passable, but that was beyond her capability."

    So, you admit she isn't a good actress and that her performance was not "passable" and was therefore a failure. But it was simply "misplaced"... are you sure you know what your opinion on the matter is?

    You admit she is a bad actor, that the job was a failure but then hold fast to your ASSUMPTION that it was the directors fault aswell, with no actual backing whatsoever. DAFUQ?
    Xriah said:

    I'm trying to educate you on the fact that when you see or hear a bad vocal performance on any recorded medium, it's not just the actors fault. At the very least, the director allowed the performance to go live. There are very rare exceptions to that rule, usually involving a meddling producer, but I highly doubt that occured here.

    Well, thanks for the education. I always assumed that the actor just muscled their way into the studio, recorded the lines and inserted them into the game themselves. What an eye opener.

    Yep, there's a lot of things that could have arised that we can't be sure of. At least we both agree it was the actors fault though. I'll concede that the director MIGHT have had something to do with it, sure. Since, we don't know.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited December 2012
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • KolonKuKolonKu Member Posts: 87
    @GoodSteve, I read the whole thread. You are desperately trying to win a discussion against someone who argues better than you, and has more knowledge based on experience. It's become pretty childish, especially by looking at some of your more recent replies. I wrote here because I became increasingly pissed for every one of your posts.

    Proof that he works as a sound engineer? What do you want, scanned paperwork signed by his boss?!

  • agrisagris Member Posts: 581
    edited December 2012
    If he's not interested in learning, it's just going to go nowhere. @Xriah I like reading your insights, but at this point, the line-by-line rebuttals to GoodSteve are akin to an accomplished fisherman dropping dynamite into a lake.

    And condenser mic tech hasn't really changed much in 15 - 20 years, right? everything is miniaturized but the hardware is essential the same.
  • CalmarCalmar Member Posts: 688
    Even if Neera's lines *were* bad... she still sounds better than most of the voices in the original BG1. :/
  • GoodSteveGoodSteve Member Posts: 607
    KolonKu said:

    @GoodSteve, I read the whole thread. You are desperately trying to win a discussion against someone who argues better than you, and has more knowledge based on experience. It's become pretty childish, especially by looking at some of your more recent replies. I wrote here because I became increasingly pissed for every one of your posts.

    Proof that he works as a sound engineer? What do you want, scanned paperwork signed by his boss?!

    Well, that's your opinion thanks for sharing it.

    None of the argument was about whether or not I had more knowledge than him because I watched DVD extras, which is why I responded to you in the first place. If you had read the thread, as you claim, you'd know that.

    As for proof, anyone can say they're anyone on the internet. Have you never heard the phrase "pics or it didn't happen"? No? Well I'm not the first one to call someone out on that. Welcome to the internet.
  • XriahXriah Member Posts: 25
    edited December 2012
    GoodSteve said:



    Any proof of any of that? I could say I'm a flying space donkey on the internet too and without any proof to the contrary you'd have to take me at my word.

    I AM a flying space donkey by the way.

    All that aside your experience doesn't give you any insight into the actual recording session, so your credentials are pointless. Like you said, you're not omnipotent (the word you were looking for is omniscient by the way) and have no way of knowing it was due to incompetence on the part of the actor, director, or a combination of both. I could be the most experienced gun fighter in the west but it wont mean I knew who shot the sheriff. I do know, whomever it was, that they did not shoot the deputy, however.

    First off, can you suggest a way to prove it without having me give out personal information on a public forumn? If you can suggest something safe, I'll prove it.

    Second, I have, literally, hundreds of recording session hours logged. It was my full time job for six years. I think that might give me just a WEE bit of insight as to how vocal sessions work. Does a detective know for sure how a crime was committed? No. But based on his knowledge of crimes and the evidence left over, he can make a very very good estimate.
    Xriah said:

    No, I didn't do any full blown project direction, but I witnessed first hand good acting, bad acting, good directing, and bad directing and I have a good basis for judging which is which.

    GoodSteve said:


    I have also "witnessed" all those things countless times. I watch far too many movies.

    You have seen the result. That's not seeing the creative process.
    Xriah said:

    I have a problem with the dialogue. It just doesn't fit. A great actress could have tweaked her performance in such a way as to make it passable, but that was beyond her capability.

    GoodSteve said:


    Uh, ok. So you also think she is a shitty voice actor? So what exactly are we arguing here? You admit she sucks but then try and tell me it's not because she sucks that the performance suffers its because the director MAY have shit the bed. Uh huh.

    I like how you give me crap about the difference between omniscient and omnipotent and fail to realize that someone that isn't great might not necessairly be bad. I'm talking great like Harrison Ford great.
    Xriah said:

    It's incredibly unlikely that they had someone doing a casting call on a project this small. I doubt the director didn't cast her. No proof, but my senario is much mroe likely.

    GoodSteve said:


    Hey now, didn't you already establish that deductive reasoning was pointless conjecture?

    There's a difference between a likely senario and just guessing what might have happened. I've given you several logical reasons why I'm most likely right. You've dismissed them because I can't prove it.
    Xriah said:

    This analogy is completely flawed. In voice acting, you only have to get the read right once. You can keep trying until you get it right. I've watched several good directors "brute force" a great performance out of an actor by giving them each line read and having them take it 5 or 6 times until they get it right. It's tedious, but the result is great.
    The best actors give a bad read now and then. It's the director's job to go, "Hey, that was a bad read. Take it again."

    GoodSteve said:


    So, actors are incapable of giving a terrible performance then? Hmm, I wonder what happened to all those Nicolas Cage movies recently? Strange.

    I guess it's just infeasible that an actor has a range of what they can do and sometimes the role may require them to do something outside of said range, thus making it impossible for a director to direct the actor into doing it the way they want them to.

    Actually, I'd say Nicolas Cage is taking whatever role he can get his hands on because of his money issues. Producers go nuts because of the star name, and then the director doesn't know how to get a good performance out of em.

    Actors give bad performances. Directors fail when a bad performance goes live.
    Xriah said:

    I don't think that Neera's performance is terrible, just misplaced. You feel different. That's fine.

    GoodSteve said:


    Really? That's not what you said earlier.... you said: "It just doesn't fit. A great actress could have tweaked her performance in such a way as to make it passable, but that was beyond her capability."

    So, you admit she isn't a good actress.

    Haha...again, good and great are two different concepts.
    Xriah said:

    I'm trying to educate you on the fact that when you see or hear a bad vocal performance on any recorded medium, it's not just the actors fault. At the very least, the director allowed the performance to go live. There are very rare exceptions to that rule, usually involving a meddling producer, but I highly doubt that occured here.

    GoodSteve said:


    Well, thanks for the education. I always assumed that the actor just muscled their way into the studio, recorded the lines and inserted them into the game themselves. What an eye opener.

    Yep, there's a lot of things that could have arised that we can't be sure of. At least we both agree it was the actors fault though. I'll concede that the director MIGHT have had something to do with it, sure. Since, we don't know.

    A stellar actor could have gone above and beyond the call of duty and really sold the performace. She didn't. However, her performance isn't so bad as to say she couldn't have done it.
    agris said:

    at this point, the line-by-line rebuttals to GoodSteve are akin to an accomplished fisherman dropping dynamite into a lake.

    @agris, pass me another stick of dynamite. I think there's still a few chunks that haven't disintegrated.
    GoodSteve said:


    And condenser mic tech hasn't really changed much in 15 - 20 years, right? everything is miniaturized but the hardware is essential the same.

    Not too much, but different brands with different materials just produce different qualities of sound. Some are a little more base heavy. Some can be more tinny.

    We actually had an issue with studio scheduling because of this. We had to ensure any performance that started in a certain booth ended there as well because if we started in studio I and ended in studio J then you'd hear an audible change of quality. Studio J was pretty old and had a different mic than I.

  • ArcalianArcalian Member Posts: 359
    Internet arguments.

    Gotta love em.
  • The_CheesemanThe_Cheeseman Member Posts: 175
    Hi, I am a stage actor with over a decade of experience with a wide variety if different companies, both professional and amateur. Though I have only done a little voice work here and there, I can tell that @Xriah has some experience in the field, and will vouch for the quality of his arguments. I have no intention of providing any proof of my credentials, but I am confident that anyone reading this thread is well aware which participants know what they're talking about, and which don't.
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    edited December 2012
    Congrats @Xriah & @Goodsteve ! You have made one forum page as long as 5 normal ones here...
    Yay for quote trees.
    @LadyRhian Me want a not no prize! :(
  • SilverstarSilverstar Member Posts: 2,207
    edited December 2012
    Wow. This thing is still going? Thought it had reached the pinnacle of ridiculousness when it was stated as apparent facts that all other voiceacting is better than Neera's, that hers is just plain bad and that this was something we all know
    GoodSteve said:

    Let's look at what we know about the voice acting so far with BG:EE.

    1) The rest of the voice acting, while not stellar, is far above the level of Neera's.

    2) Neera's voice acting isn't good.

    So, since we know these two things...

    but looking at the extensive line-by-line response posts here on page 3, it seems things can always get even more silly.
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