Graha Voice Actor Change?

[CosmosNovaRose]

Voice acting for a one-off game? Yeah, it's possible to see a 2 year contract - you'd expect Ben Starr might have had a longer contract for FF16 because they knew the scope was going to run into the hundreds of hours.

But for something like this, the contract will be for the exact amount of studio time. So they'll know it's roughly 4 sessions of 4hrs for that character in X Expansion, for example, and they'll make a contract for that for the, say, one week those four sessions will take place. There'd usually be some stipulation for additional time, with a per hour rate, but we're talking a single extra session or running over by an hour or something. If they need the actor again, they'll set up a new contract when it's time.

A rolling contract would be considered too restrictive if it was challenged in court, because it would prevent the actor from taking other work (non-compete clauses are largely meaningless here, as are overly restrictive contracts that could prevent someone working) - being tied in to some maybe-date in 18 months' time for a single VO session preventing them from taking a six-month gig filming for TV or being in a play, for example.

Anyway that's probably far more detail than anybody needs, I just either know nothing about a subject or everything

This is super insightful! Do you believe that it could have been a missed contract deadline for 7.4? Would this also mean that (assuming it's not Bailey) whoever voiced G'raha in 7.4 is going to voice him in 7.55? And would it be possible for Bailey to return for 8.0? Would it be possible for Bailey to send in re-recordings for 7.4 assuming they want to keep him and not the (hypothetical) new actor? Or is it the new actor's gig now?

[shoebilldreams]

This is super insightful! Do you believe that it could have been a missed contract deadline for 7.4? Would this also mean that (assuming it's not Bailey) whoever voiced G'raha in 7.4 is going to voice him in 7.55? And would it be possible for Bailey to return for 8.0? Would it be possible for Bailey to send in re-recordings for 7.4 assuming they want to keep him and not the (hypothetical) new actor? Or is it the new actor's gig now?

Honestly, if I had to speculate? I'd say recording for the x4-x5 block probably just clashed with him being the busiest man on the planet in the lead up to the Wicked release, so they got someone else to do it. They had all 3 other G'rahas available, so they wouldn't want to write him out - easier to swap the English voice out for the last block of 7.x. I see no reason why he couldn't come back for 8.0 if his schedule allows, assuming this was all just a scheduling issue. I explained in one of my other replies why it's unlikely he's just priced himself out of being in the game or something like that.

As for re-recording, it's possible - they re-recorded some Wuk Lamat lines, and even went back and re-recorded some 3.3 Asahi lines when they had the actor in for the 5.4-5.55 block! So they've got a history of going back to tidy lines up, but I suppose it depends how much he ends up saying in this block.