“Horrendous” Voice Acting to be Replaced by Professionals in Two Worlds : The Temptation

Reality Pump knows that most of you were disappointed by the utter mess that was its first RPG, Two Worlds, but hopes it’ll a second chance to win you over with the sequel, Two Worlds: The Temptation.

Two Worlds caught flak from reviewers for its lousy graphics, horrendous voice acting, and clumsy interface. The Xbox 360 version was also particularly buggy, locking up with frustrating regularity.

Reality Pump acknowledges the problems, chalking it up to being overly ambitious.

“We tried to fit in every idea we had, even the ones that came late in the process,” the developer told OXM.

The same mistake will not be made with The Temptation. “We clearly delineated the game’s components at the start, and we’re sticking to this target so the end result will be a more finely polished game,” said Reality Pump.

Fans of Two World’s bad Renaissance Fair-style dialog (lots of “forsooth!”ing in that game), will be disappointed to learn that The Temptation’s “script is being written by someone that’s worked on plenty of game dialog in the past, and is getting many more passes and edits so it will read much better,” according to Reality Pump.

The overly hammy voice acting should be gone, too. The voice work for Two Worlds was actually performed by Reality Pump staff, “which I’m proud we accomplished but the end results show that it’s not exactly our forte,” said the developer. The sequel will feature professional voice actors.

Two Worlds was an absolute train wreck, but did have some genuinely fun and interesting ideas hidden beneath its broken exterior. If Reality Pump has, as it claims, learned the lesson of restraint, and can build off the experience it acquired making Two Worlds, then The Temptation may very well be worth a look.

Source: Wired.com

Voice Talent Tony Pasquale Announces Live at the Georgia Dome

Voice Talent Tony Pasquale is the live announcer for this year’s DECA International Career Development Conference in Atlanta.

High energy voice talent Tony Pasquale has been contracted to perform as the live announcer in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome during DECA’s International Career Development Conference. The annual conference, with nationally recognized entertainment, has an expected attendance of over 14,000.

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Your Call is Important; On Hold Gold

When calling everything from airlines and hotels to hospitals and newspaper offices, holding the line is an oft-repeated reality. But the idle moments waiting to talk to someone in this time-is-money world don’t have to be a total loss. At least Chris Weeg doesn’t think so.

“They’re silly things that don’t necessarily have to do with marketing,” says Weeg, who fashions outside-the-box audio for the Medford advertising agency. “We’ve done some off-the-wall things and even had some people request to be put back on hold after we’ve wrapped up the situation.”

While humor may go a long way in calming callers, most clients want to simply inform their captive audience of services and products, even sales or monthly specials.

“That’s a pretty standard fare,” Weeg says.

In 1989, years before going to work for Radio Medford, talk show host Garth Harrington formed a company called Inpho to provide on-hold messages. He built a clientele of 250 over a seven-year period before selling to Robert Vigil.

“If people are sitting there on hold and don’t know that much about your company, it’s a great opportunity,” Harrington says. “A person can’t buy something from you, it they don’t know you have it.”

Maentz keeps voice talent — whose voices, if not faces, are familiar to Rogue Valley residents — on retainer.

Brad Douglas, who splits time between Palm Springs and Central Oregon, has a portable audio booth that allows him to quickly turn around a voice-over for the agency, Weeg says. “We can call him in the morning and he can give us what we need in a few hours.”

Traci Ann Swensgaard works out of her own in-house studio in Ashland.

Source: MailTribune.com

Talking Menus Now in Restaurants

Mo and Carol Sattar, owners of Boca Raton’s Original Pancake House, face problems common to restaurant owners everywhere — customers that don’t speak English, an aging population with
less-than-perfect vision, and an active blind community that sees no reason to stay at home.

What these groups have in common is their taste for Original Pancake House fare. But finding experienced servers who are bilingual and don’t mind spending extra time with customers is proving to be a challenge.

“South Florida is a cultural crossroads,” said owner Mohammed Sattar. “Not only do we get visitors who don’t speak English, but we’ve got a large retired population. We had to find a way to serve them.”

They turned to Menus That Talk(TM), a Miami company that manufactures a line of talking menus for restaurants, cruise ships, museums and other public places. The menus are compact — about the size of a DVD case, portable and multilingual.

What co-owner Carol Sattar likes is their ruggedness and ease of use. “Customers simply select a language they prefer, then press a button like Omelettes, Crepes or Senior Specials,” she said. A voice responds, describing the dishes and their prices. When they’re ready to order, a Service button summons a waiter.

Preparation for the Pancake House was quick and easy. They sent their printed menu to Menus That Talk who organized it to work with the menu’s buttons, then translated it into Spanish. With an approved script, English and Spanish voice actors recorded the menu. A “face plate” was designed, and in less than a week a set of bilingual talking menus was delivered to The Original Pancake House.

“Customers appreciate the practical side,” says Ms. Sattar. “This gives them access to the full menu without needing to ask for help.”

Menus That Talk can deliver much more information than a Braille menu, and as Miami Lighthouse President Virginia Jacko points out, only one in ten blind persons actually reads Braille.

Beginnings: Menus That Talk CEO Susan Perry was having lunch with her niece, a young woman with advanced macular degeneration who cannot read a menu from any distance. “When my niece asked if I would read the menu specials to her, I realized I had forgotten my glasses, and we had a good laugh,” said Perry, “but the incident begged the question, why can’t menus talk to customers?” After nearly a year of development she and partner Richard Herbst showed the first completed menus to restaurant owners.

“Restaurants face some unique challenges,” says Herbst. “They are serving more diverse customers with shrinking wait staffs. Managers are under pressure to get food choices and cuisine descriptions in front of customers. We’re filling those needs with a device that anyone can use. And,” he added, “Menus That Talk satisfies basic Americans With Disabilities requirements.”

The Menu currently supports two languages simultaneously; the company offers English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Russian. A version that will offer up to six languages will be ready shortly. A detachable external earpiece provides privacy, also interfacing with modern Telecoil(R)-equipped hearing aids for added service to the elderly and hearing-impaired.

Source: PRNewswire.com

Spider-man Web of Shadows Game Swoops in August 2008

Activision has officially announced the next Spider-man game. It will be called Spider-man: Web of Shadows and appear on virtually every console ever including DS, PSP, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, and 360. This should come as no great surprise as there had already been rumors swirling, but to hear it’s official is calming.They haven’t said much about what the game will entail except that it’s a restructuring of the open-world New York gameplay that allows for more vertical battling up in the sky and lets the player make choices on which missions to follow, and which to ignore.No word yet on if the game will suck like 3, but we’re holding our hearts in our hands for a good Spider-man game. We feel we deserve it.The game is set for release in August of this year and if you’re going to be at the New York Comic-con this week, you’ll be able to audition for voice over jobs on the game. Videos of the auditions are going to be posted on the Web of Shadow’s web site where users can vote on who they like. Nice.Source: G4TV.com

Butcher Swaps Meat Cleaver for Microphone

The dulcet Tyke tones of a Bradford butcher have won him the chance to swap his meat cleaver for a microphone as the new voice of Yorkshire Water.

Kevin Carroll, 52, won a competition to find a friendly Yorkshire twang to greet customers when they contact the firm’s call centre.

He and more than 100 others recorded their own versions of the Yorkshire phrase: “Hear all, see all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt and if tha ever does owt for nowt allus do it for thi sen.”

Five finalists were chosen and the contest was put to an online poll, which Kevin, of Gregory Crescent, Horton Bank Top, won with more than two thirds of the vote.

He said: “I’ve been told my voice isn’t bad so when I saw the competition in the Telegraph & Argus I thought I’d give it a go.

“I’m proud that so many people voted for me.

“I think they just wanted a friendly Yorkshire voice, although strangely, I was in America last year and everyone thought I was Australian.”

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Bettye Zoller Advises Caution When Impersonating Celebrity Voices

Voice actors who are asked to impersonate a celebrity voice in a commercial or other type of voice project should approach that job with caution, advises Bettye Zoller - a top voice talent, trainer and producer.

Her new article entitled, “Celebrity Voice-Over Impersonations: Be Cautious! Words to the Wise,” is located in the Voice Acting section of VoiceOverXtra.com.

Based on her experiences, research and opinions (but not legal advice), Zoller writes that celebrities with recognizable voices are keen to protect the use of their voice and income derived from it.

“It is illegal to impersonate living people in commercials without their permission,” she warns. Thus, voice actors who are asked to impersonate the voice of a living or deceased person should ensure that copyright permission has been obtained.

Celebrities have another reason to protect use of their voice, Zoller notes: contract clauses often prohibit them from doing voice-over endorsements, or from endorsing competing products.

Parodies are different from impersonations, she notes. She advises obtaining legal advice when in doubt about such projects.

Source: OpenPR.com

Kristine Oller Helps Voice Actors Get Organized

Most performing artists want only one thing… to be a performing artist as a full-time gig.

In pursuit of the dream, many unconsciously let it slip away from them and find that in order to make their dream a reality, they need to overcome several obstacles, often self-imposed, before they can achieve their goal of a solid and stable career doing what they love.

That’s where people like Kristine Oller come in.

Kristine is a professional organizer and career strategist who consults people, works with them on plans to make the most their situations, and then frees up precious time, space and financial resources liberating her clients from their ruts and the baggage that holds them back from success.

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Morgan Freeman Lends His Voice to Pro Golf

Morgan Freeman will do voice-overs for six historical vignettes and tournament public-service announcements that will air during The Golf Channel and NBC broadcasts.

The vignettes will feature historical Players moments involving Jacksonville native David Duval, St. Simons Island, Ga., resident Davis Love III, Ponte Vedra Beach resident Vijay Singh and former Tour commissioner Deane Beman.

Source: Jacksonville.com

Image via EOnline.com

Jackie Chan Wants to Slow Down, Scoping out Voice Acting

Popular martial-arts and action-film star Jackie Chan says now that he is in his mid fifties he would like to slow down a bit on-screen. The actor says he would prefer to do movies involving fewer stunts and do more voice-over work like his role in the upcoming animated feature Kung-Fu Panda.

“I just finished a movie called The Shinjuku Incident,” Chan told a news conference in Los Angeles over the weekend. “It’s just maybe 1 percent action. It’s heavy, heavy drama.”

“I want a change. I want to be a real actor, not [an] action star. An action star’s life is very short. I’m the myth,” Chan said. [”The action star] Jackie Chan is a myth. I’m still surviving right now, but in 30 years, I’m the only one [left]. How long am I going to keep fighting? I have to change, change and change. I’ve been encouraged.”

Chan recently turned 54. His most recent big-screen role was in the upcoming The Forbidden Kingdom, where he played a martial-arts master.

In The Forbidden Kingdom, Chan plays dual roles as Old Hop the pawnshop owner and as the Drunken Master, a role he first played several decades earlier. “I now realize that Drunken Master was 30 years ago,” Chan said. “My master already passed away, so now I’m the master. It feels funny, really funny. What can you do?”

Source: SliceOfSciFi.com

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