Let's hear your VA talent!

When the first trailer hit for "A Realm Reborn" I was very excited. It seemed like there was something off with the narration just a touch though. I felt the same way about XI's "Adoulin" trailer as well.

So as I usually do, I lurked the Lodestone forums to see if my internal opinions were resonating with the community. Sure enough they were. A thread criticizing the narration was made and a majority of the responses in that thread praised the trailer (despite no gameplay footage) but were apprehensive about the voice. Some disliked it greatly, some felt off about it, while others had no qualms with it.

In general the community seemed to think there was something wrong.

As I was nodding in agreeance with the majority of the posts I found one that stuck out the most.

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Originally Posted by Doho

... you know what, better yet.. to all the people that don't like the voice over. mute it and do your own voiceover, record that, upload it. and let us hear [how] that sounds.

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I thought this was brilliant! Unfortunately no one took him up on his offer.

Well I've decided to change that.

You can find my recorded alternate narration here. It's not perfect, and going through the process humbled me greatly. I'm more excited to see some of the more "creative" versions others will be able to come up with like a female voice, a young child, or even a rewrite.

So let's hear what you've got!

Alternate narrations by:

Rhomagus Asclepiot (Video)
Punainen Drak
Roukiz Sorejn
Doho Fiasco
---> Bane
---> James (from Team Rocket)
---> Timon
Griss
Alfortis
Fleurette Luluya
Rex Skyborn
---> for the lulz
---> for the jigglez
Saieno
Renshi Hyatsuki
OneUp (Video)
---> Gollum (Version 2.0)
Obsy Jhyan
---> Louisoix
Lolita Lollipop
Shougou
Mamakat's Two year old son
ZakarnRosewood

I tried to include it with the footage of the actual trailer but I couldn't figure out a method to "overwrite" the original narration with mine while keeping the background audio and sound effects present. I may make a new one with some of the background music suggested in the other thread.

Any critique's are welcome. If you'd like me to record it in a different tone let me know. I had a few bouncing around in my head but decided to stay as close to the original intent as I could.

when i hear your voice, all i can think of is "Winter is coming."

But half way in, you did pretty good, but kind of fell apart near the end. Not that I could do any better.

The guy at the very end, who does the "Final Fantasy fouteen..." part is decent. He sounds very natural. I think he gets a lot of work for game commercials.

But the dude doing the narration, man, trying way too hard.

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Originally Posted by Rau

when i hear your voice, all i can think of is "Winter is coming."

But half way in, you did pretty good, but kind of fell apart near the end. Not that I could do any better.

The guy at the very end, who does the "Final Fantasy fouteen..." part is decent. He sounds very natural. I think he gets a lot of work for game commercials.

But the dude doing the narration, man, trying way too hard.

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I'm pretty sure it's the same guy. He just goes back to a Standard American English accent in the end.

I can't do accents but I tried to maintain the same one(?) throughout.

In my opinion your narration sounds better than the original, but it sounded a bit too generic, like the sound of an old man you would normally hear in trailers for western RPGs. I suggest to make the voice sound a little younger and more smooth, if that makes sense. If I can find a reference of a similar voice I'll show you.

I want to make a narration myself, but for some reason my voice sounds much deeper in audio devices than it does in real life, so my narration would sound worse. :-/.

Edit: Corrected spelling mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Baldur

I'm my opinion your narration sounds better than the original, but it sounded a bit too generic, like the sound of an old man you would normally hear in trailers for western RPGs. I suggest to make the voice sound a little younger and more smooth, if that makes sense. If I can find a reference of a similar voice I'll show you.

I want to make a narration myself, but for some reason my voice sounds much deeper in audio devices than it does in real life, so my narration would sound worse. :-/.

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The more generic old man is what I was attempting. It seemed to me that SE was trying to appeal to a Western audience. Putting the Warrior at the focus (Skyrim style helmet and all) with the grizzled voice present in the original narration gave me that feeling. The main character even seems to have aged a little less than gracefully as well.

That is actually where I feel the original narration did better. They took the same character, put him through a war, and aged him a bit. Doesn't have that super low tone you get from a grayed out male, but you can hear something is different. That is if you assume the narrator is the same person depicted in both trailers.

I imagine the original narrator to be speaking to a crowd of soldiers while I went for a more person to person tone. I imagined speaking to a small group of trusted companions while simultaneously reliving the events as the character spoke of them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Baldur

I'm my opinion your narration sounds better than the original, but it sounded a bit too generic, like the sound of an old man you would normally hear in trailers for western RPGs. I suggest to make the voice sound a little younger and more smooth, if that makes sense. If I can find a reference of a similar voice I'll show you.

I want to make a narration myself, but for some reason my voice sounds much deeper in audio devices than it does in real life, so my narration would sound worse. :-/.

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Well a NATURALLY deep voice may well be excellent.

I might consider trying a VO, (I have a very child-like voice, so I'd have to drop the 'dark, foreboding' tone and go with something more light/sad), except my mic is pretty poor quality, and I don't think I could get the timing right. But if people would like to hear it anyway, I might do it.

(I guess it would be like a Lalafell doing the narrating, lol)

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Originally Posted by Punainen

Well a NATURALLY deep voice may well be excellent.

I might consider trying a VO, (I have a very child-like voice, so I'd have to drop the 'dark, foreboding' tone and go with something more light/sad), except my mic is pretty poor quality, and I don't think I could get the timing right. But if people would like to hear it anyway, I might do it.

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I'd like to hear it anyway. Like I said in the OP, I'm more excited to here narrations that deviate more from the original. If you make the file downloadable I might be able to clean up the sound a bit in Audacity.

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Originally Posted by Rhomagus

I'd like to hear it anyway. Like I said in the OP, I'm more excited to here narrations that deviate more from the original. If you make the file downloadable I might be able to clean up the sound a bit in Audacity.

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Might try that then...provided my cat with stop meowing really loudly long enough for me to do it, lol. I don't think cat-meows fit with the theme, lol.

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Originally Posted by Punainen

Might try that then...provided my cat with stop meowing really loudly long enough for me to do it, lol. I don't think cat-meows fit with the theme, lol.

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FINAL FANTASY XIV... Coming soon on PS3 and PC! ♪ meoooow ♫ （ミ●ω●ミ）




Sounds good actually.