Caruu - Voice actor

Allo allo, so its been awhile since last post, sue me… Been busy with the voice acting for Unbroken and several other projects. I’ve also been putting together a small tutorial for the sound design of Acolyte, the biggest problem I’ve come across is trying to explain the programs and how to explain them without spending hours on end, elaborating on functions and mechanics that might not be as interesting as the actual design in its completion. Therefore, I’ve decided not to post a tutorial for it. I am actually going to wait until I do it for Unbroken. The reason for it is because I be doing both the sound design AND mixing. Which means that I will level the music, voice and sound design to where they belong.
Also, if you are a surround-guy\girl then rejoice, for I will be putting it in surround. That means that voices are where they belong as well as other ongoing sounds. Music will not deafen the soundscape as they always do in machinimas, sound elements will not destroy your speakers and voices will actually be heard and understood.
I have though posted two videos of the acolyte sound design, there is no music, no subtitles and no voices saying any lines. This is also the original sound design before Johan added some sounds in the final movie of acolyte. I only kept the parts I designed. Keep in mind that Youtube movies are very treble which means that sounds might seem sharp at times.
Here are the links:

First Part
Second Part

In Other News:

Long back in the days, there was a guy who I auditioned for, as a hovering-nagging-robot. I didn’t realize that it was released awhile ago until I found it. This is a flash movie, my voice is low in volume for some reason too so keep your volume up.
You can watch it HERE

Farinar came with a sad news about his movie, after many complications with his computer, he gave up doing his machinima. He is now working on a different one, hopefully I will voice act in it :). But it is sad to see that it came down to this. Was looking forward to seeing it. Oh well, good luck dude. And visit his blog and woot him forward.

Khandy is (as I mentioned earlier) still working on the second episode of the order. I am doing a third voice and it is for a guy that reminds me of Moroes, so I based my voice of him. I do realize that he is slightly more insane and less epic loot drop; but I still find him to be close to Moroes as it could be. Not sure if Khandy intended that or not, but fun was it nonetheless. Personally, I can’t wait. I will post some screens and stuff when Khandy gets to it. Until then, go to her blog and “harass” her (or her other VO’s)forward.

Caruu’s Corner

Recently, I’ve been voicing my ass off for Unbroken. There are over 100 lines for the main character alone and I still ain’t done yet with narrowing all the lines down into individual files. So far, there are 286 files total. These are takes of the lines. Like take 1 and take 2. Also, I am only on line 52 on scene four when I am writing this!
If that was not enough, I am also voicing 6 other characters in the movie. So far, the guards are my favorite sub-characters. They are funny and you are going to laugh your head off with them. The thing that will be noted is accents, draenei got Russian-Yugoslavian accents, the reason for Nobundo not having that accent is cos he got so many lines, and it is very disturbing to listen to someone with that accent for so long. If that wasn’t contradicting the idea enough, it is also funny which is bad because the machinima is aiming to be dramatic and sad. So doing the voice for him, it was an easy choice to say americanish. But I get to do the accents for the guards so they will be genuine. It is been long since I played a main character in a machinima, so it’s very nice to be given the opportunity to do so.

Johan gave me the green light for go instead of the bird for no, to show you all the characters I am voicing: Here are they are in folder format, oh and click the image to get a bigger view:

Before I take my leave for this time, I wanna share with you all, that I’ve recently sent an audition for Smaug to New line, for their upcoming The hobbit movie. Thanks to Johan for the heads up. Anyway, until next time kids. Take care.

GxG

*Several of the things in the blog got a link, make sure to keep your eyes vigilant, they might appear Greyish*

Allo allo, so finally it was released, the machinima we’ve been waiting for: Acolyte 1.5

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You can also watch it HERE
It was fun to voice act the crazy Davil ‘Lightfire’ Crokford that arrives mounted on a horse in the middle of the movie. He was a character I actually didn’t want to do at first cos I knew nothing about him. After doing some research I took the voice acting job and it as great to see the result in the end. I also redid my lines afterwards cos of microphone changes(quality in other words) It was recorded originally back when I first started to do free VO for machinima, good times.

I also did the sound design for acolyte where none of the original overused sounds of WoW is present, if you listen carefully, there is foley in it too, like armor movements, different footsteps for the characters. Here are some of the foley and sound design I did in detail explanation :

The troll got a heavy armor movement when he talks and walk, he got no shoes so he makes a different sound when he walks in gravel and sand than a person with shoes would.
The Ethereal character, Shae’el; walks with cloth movement as well as a fire in movement, he floats at one scene which is steam gone through several filters.

I voice foley’d a bunch of characters in it, just the trash being killed or attacking.
My favorite part is the transformation part, if you listen, the sound is very close to the transformers sound, as I felt it would be kinda cool.
My least favorite part was all the talking parts, they are boring to design for and you gotta be careful to not bring in too loud noises because of the voices.

10 Notable points:

1, There is a homage to Blizzard in the world of warcraft logo part, the voice there is from the burning crusade trailer.
2, I only sound designed until the sea part, the comedy end part was done by someone else, sadly I don’t remember who, also, I did not sound design the new looking logo from Blizzard, Johan wanted it to be the original sound.
3, The chanting by the soldiers are a protest group pitched, duplicated, reverbed and time stretched.
4, There is a silent whisper, every time you see Marduk.
5, The gun sound is a mixture of a deagle, a Benelli Nova, a musket, two fireworks, a torch movement and various metal click sounds made with toying around with a belt buckle. One part, they are slowed down and pitched to sound different as the camera goes around.
6, None of the spell sounds are in world of warcraft, they were done originally, the hardest part was the spell block by a Ghoul and the easiest was the healing spell done by the lead character, Joseph Redpath.
7,There is a giant monster in the movie, that is seen during the second part of the attack, the scream is a silver-back gorilla. Obviously, there are none of those in my country, so I had to use a sound Lib for that.
8, Last part I fixed, was on the volley, the sound of the arrows are a mixture of over 20 sounds, whoosh sounds are a stick being swing around quickly and rope thrown around like a lasso, the impact sounds are infact just one arrow multiplied several times, also there is a sub-bass part that is multiplied many times to give that extra push, you only heard the whoosh sounds the first time I went over that part, and they were really bad.
9, The character screaming “fire” during the volley, is a homage to the Dwarf Rifleman in Warcraft 3.
10, During the first comedy moment with Olibith, when the war ain’t there yet, there is a harbor noise, the original sound had a boat horn in it, when the sound is left in, it plays the moment he opens his mouth, though it is funny, it makes far too much noise and also sounds too distant, not to mention how unfitting it is for the time-esque-zone.

So there some of the info of the sound design as well as voice acting, I am still working on the tutorial and I am trying to make it seem as little boring as possible, it was fun to do the design, the mix in the end though didn’t come out as good as I had hoped, but I can’t blame Johan for that as he knows nothing of that, the music is way too loud at some parts and voice too low at others, but I think it was well done in the end no matter, besides, I will post the entire sound design up for you to listen to it clearly.
I will not sound design in your movie, unless you can show movies you’ve done before, I go with movies that show passion and detail. If there is a time limit, I will be using Sound Libraries.
I will voice act for free in any kind of movie, cos it takes less time.

I will release a SFX package later on as well so keep and eye out for that.

In other news:

The Director of the first machinima WoW movie I voice acted in; Garthd V - Who Am I (Arena PvP)

, now retires from world of warcraft, I was due to voice act in an upcoming “story” movie he was gonna do. He will now be found in AoC. He has already piqued me with the opportunity to voice act in any machinimas he will hopefully make. I think he did a great job on the GarthD movies, even though it was pvp.

Khandy is already in the work on the second The Order movie.
Interestingly, I am voice acting several characters for her movie, in the first one, I was an ogre, it was very fun to be big and bad, ogres are my favorite characters as they remind me of a guy who I went in school with, he constantly argued with himself about everything, and he was a big guy too - poor guy.
I actually don’t know how many characters I’m playing, far as I know, it might grow. I don’t mind it as she knows how to write and be critical with the lines I give her.
Oh and khandy, where is the directors cut of the first one?

Johan, (damn swede is parading all over my blog today ) is, as I mentioned earlier, working on the upcoming movie, Unbroken. I am now finally done with all of Nobundo’s lines and holy crap there are many of them, it was fun but I actually had to do it in several days apart, because the voice is so raspy and gritty, that my voice felt like it was burning after each take. I am glad there are other parts of his dialog that ain’t, what do I mean by that? Well wait and see
I don’t think the movie will be done this month, *watches swede fall on the floor laughing - kicks swede* Yes I get it, it is a long shot.
And it is good, you don’t wanna rush something beautiful.
Same about the voice acting; there are some parts that had to be done up to 9 takes - because emotional parts requires to be as sensitive as possible, to bring out the the character and to let you the viewer(listener!), not cringe cos it sounded bad. It is challenging, but worth every minute of it.
Hopefully, the other voice actors\actress’s and myself, can bring the bad stereotype of machinima voice overs to an end with this movie.
I am also playing a bunch of other characters, as well as doing a homage voice to one of the characters I do in Lucas’s upcoming movie: Legends( Legends - Trailer

)

I will also sound design for the movie. I am taking my sweet ass time when I get it though, just fill it with detail.

Caruu’s Corner

Yeah the little corner where I go on about something I am\have - doing\done by myself,
this time it is about the credit logo that I ask those I sound design for, to put in their movies either in the credits or before. Only cos it is fair consider I do it for free. Also, a link to the blog is very welcome. Anyway, you can find the movie up on youtube here, enjoy it!

Now that you have seen and heard it, welcome back. It shows several wide range of sounds I do, the first sound is a machine door opening the movie, second, is a man fighting with a staff, third, is a flickering light coming on and thereby hum, fourth, is an elevator with steam, fifth, is an explosion, sixth, is a voice foley, seventh, is a rubber duck squeek noise, eight, is a microphone feedback, ninth, is a light flickering and being turned off and tenth and last, is also a voice foley.
It is a mixture of sound design and foley in ten seperated sections.

There is also music behind it, made by Immediate music.
The panda is not made by me, I have no idea who made it but thanks, it is excellent.
It was inspried by pixar’s animated short: Luxo jr.
Might not seem so but it is

Okay so that’s it for now until I get the tutorial up. Until then, have fun!
Loong blog post this time!

PS! There is an anagram lured in one of the links Tag-Titles, arrange the letters and you’ll get an old internet joke.

Allo allo, been awhile since last post. There is little to really report on as I haven’t had many voice acting requests lately from wide range of makers, but that’s okay. Some shut-eye is great too.
But that doesn’t mean I got little to do. On the contrary:

In other news:

Lately, it was semi-announced by Johan Vågstedt, that he will make a machinima edition of the Unbroken novel - Blizzard had Mickey Neilson make. The fun part is that I will be voice acting the main character Nobundo, as well as several others. This is a movie to look out for, as it will be one of the big things to hit the mighty server, I read the entire script (finished dialog) and I am really impressed on how the conversion is from the book to the movie. It is sad, mystic and very philosophical. In other words, not a brain-dead pvp movie.
Ps! Johan needs voice overs for some parts, go HERE and check out how to audition and for which part, and good luck!

The progress of Acolyte; which is also a movie made by Johan, where I voice act and did original sound design for, is on its way to finish. I’ve already seen it and it’s awesome. Music is being composed for it, looking forward to see it with music.
Some of the sound design in the movie was inspired by Transformers and lord of the rings, and I think when you see it (hear it!) you will notice parts that is quite both. I can’t reveal much as I don’t want no Swedish viking, knocking on my door with newly sharpened axes.
Oskar’s progress on his own machinima which I voice act all the male parts, is seeming to go forward again (oh hurrah!), this is great news as I’m anxious to see it.
You should too

Khandy just released a movie called What else is on?
I don’t voice act in What Else is On! 2

but I like it, my name seems to be sneaked in it, which I’m kinda proud of. I think I’m sneaked in between two characters o.O

Caruu’s Corner:

I wanted to show case some of the sound design I’ve done as well as designs that I’m currently working on, these designs are from Acolyte and upcoming stuff, it shouldn’t reveal anything about the story :D, they are super heavy “water marked” and in mono here.

When acolyte is done, there will be a movie upload from my side with only the sound design and narration of their creation if you are interested in that kind of thing, also if you would like any of the sound design in your own movie, I will eventually release a design package you can use in exchange for credits where credit is due. In case you wanna know how sound design is done - wait for that movie, I will include suggestions, what programs to use. etc.
If you are not into sound and hate it, try watch a movie without music and sound and I am sure you will be bored
Keep in mind that none of the sounds are from warcraft, if I so should choose to take a sound from warcraft, it would work as a template or a process of the overall design, and not left soley unedited as that would be uncool. I also sometimes use sound libraries to include in the design as that take less time than going out recording things.
Anyway, here are some of the designs, the designs are as follows: Stealth, Stealth Vibrations, Stealth movements, Super Lightning bolt attack, Undead super spell, Transformation, Spellcasting with channel voice: (ps! They are heavy watermarked so that they won’t be taken yet, it can be annoying but watermarking is suppose to be annoying, any comments that is directed to that will be deleted, and as I mentioned earlier they are in mono and 24 kbps, they are reduced from their original stereo channel and 320kbps.)

SoundDesign_HeavyWaterMarked_24Kb/_MonoChanneled

Though cued with bad kbps and mono, plus some annoying watermark I hope that it was somewhat intriguing. There are lots more (lots) but I only took some of them randomly.

That is all I got for now, next update won’t be before someone got a movie done for me to boast about.