Chapter 20 - Evidently some Explorers were wanted,... or at least thier voices were.

Bioware, the creators of the massively popular series, Mass Effect, put out a call for fans and people with some interest and capability in voice over work. The call was for #ExplorersWanted. And it was an opportunity to voice one or both of two minor roles that could be a part of the upcoming release, Andromeda.

The one I thought I could pull off and have the most fun with was "the Tough Mercenary" role. But I also wanted to give the Vidmaker "Jordan Tate" a good shot as well.

I perused over the official rules to make sure I was on board with what the people who'd be judging it at Bioware wanted.

I didn't add in any extra stuff, no superfluous self explanatory info, no accents, and no reading/secondary partners. For those of you that have never done voice over, auditions are your time to shine. To show that you are invested in that bit of copy, that you've managed to carve out a characterization from what you've been given, and bring it to life.

Which is also why the rules they posted up said to not get dressed up, not to go overboard with fake accents, or makeup, or vid effects. Voice over, at it's heart, is ACTING. Probably why they urged people to use their own voice as opposed to hamming it up.

I've listened to probably 200 of the entries myself, just to see what sort of variety is out there from the ones that were submitted under the hashtag ExplorersWanted. But I didn't do that until after I made time, to practice and read the lines until I didn't need to read them.

That was about 4 days, 3 hours each, reciting, reconfiguring, and attempting to find the characters that were essentially variations of myself in the Mass Effect world. I listened to youtube reels with many of the esteemed and skilled actors playing the major roles, just to get a gravitas and emotion for what they endure, feel, emote, and speak like.

I came up with these two final auditions. First up, the Tough Mercenary.

This one was really pulled from the years I spent as a security guard, I used to video blog those long nights after work (for a whole other separate project), and recently, I heard how world weary my voice sounded. How indifferent it was at that point and time working late nights and dealing with people.

To switch gear to the role of Jordan Tate, I thought back to my younger and more energetic years, especially when I was back in art school. I wanted a bit more of an aggressive edge, a little paparazzi infused sort of audible nosiness, but still irritably honest at heart.

Of the two I was surprised how much more comfortable I felt doing Jordan Tate. But that's probably more because there was an energy and vitality to bounce off of in my mental picture of him. Which in contrast to how I was picturing the Tough Mercenary, I didn't see him as being a man of many words unless he was pressed into replying.

But to get to this point, one has to warm up... like this.

Every bit of that video was all recorded one right after another. That is an average warm up session for me. I get voices out, play around, make the mistakes early. Experiment, play back, record again. I try things all the time to find new voices, to find new methods of expression. No one cares what you look like, you can be anything in voice acting. So do that.

I have no idea how many people are going to enter this, nor what the competition will pan out being like. In the end, I just had to remember that "the audition is the job", and do my best with what I had.

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue