Gamesutra Interviews Yours Truly

“We started with a few mandates: an isolated town that takes drugs and wears masks; Britain in the early '60s; no kids. From there, we retro-engineered the story. Why are they taking drugs and wearing masks? Probably to deal with a trauma. What sort of trauma? Why not something to do with the kids? If it’s Britain 1964, it probably is a trauma associated with World War II.”

Each piece led to others. After roughing out some ideas about the setting and the time period, more details started to fit naturally into place. “Given the drugs, it made sense that the characters all have individual traumas in their past, in addition to the overall ‘original sin’ of the town.”

Alan Bradley asked me a few questions about how Early Access shaped (or didn't shape) the narrative in We Happy Few. Check out the interview.

Q. How do I be a voice actor

A. Get a demo reel together, get an agent, audition for roles, get a better reel.

This is my current casting proecess

1. Post a breakdown on Breakdown Services (North America) or Spotlight (UK). Generally I will only send it to agents, because those actors are already “curated.”
   
2. They send me submissions of people with demo reels.
   
3. I listen to the demo reel. My #1 criterion is “do I believe this performance?” Does the actor sound like they’re reading lines, or do they sound like a person in a situation.
   
4. My #2 criterion is vocal charisma. Does their voice “pop”? Some actors sound a bit generic. Some have a distinct voice I want to hear more.
   
5. I ask some of the submitted actors, through their agents, for an MP3 of them performing sides - a scene I’ve written for the audition. Here’s where having a home studio is better than just having a phone to record the audition, but so long as I can clearly hear the performance I don’t care about sound quality.
   
6. I listen to those. Same criterion. Obviously, are they right for the part? Do I believe the performance? Do they have charisma?
   
7. I direct (and record) an audition over Skype / Facetime / Google Meet. I see how well they take direction.
   
8. I pick an actor.

To give you a sense of the scope, I just got 200 submissions for a role, listened to maybe 50 demo reels (I was pressed for time), asked 8-10 people for MP3's, and called back about 4. I have no idea what other people do, but I think I spend more time on casting than other voice directors.