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Cortana Works For Scale Wages
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting on local theater folks who do voice-work in videogames. One of the article's examples is that of Jen Taylor, who plays the voice of Master Chief's synthetic partner in crime, the AI Cortana. From the article: "Cortana, an artificial intelligence that is pretty much in charge of things in 'Halo' 1 and 2, is played by Book-It Repertory Theatre regular Jen Taylor. Cortana, of course, is a necessary factor in 'Halo 3,' which is in the process of development. Taylor is in Australia working in a Seattle Children's Theatre co-production ... A recurring role commands extra money. For 'Halo 1' Taylor got about $500 for a four-hour session. For 'Halo 2' she got twice that. "But the technicians had gotten so good at what they were doing," Taylor notes with some regret, 'that they got twice the amount of work done in half the time. So my actual pay was about the same.' When actors do voiceover work, they are represented by AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). The union contract stipulates a fee of $600 for most four-hour recording sessions."
Makes you wonder how long it will be until they can eliminate most voice actors altogether by using good voice synthesizers. And even if they can't, it would be funny to hear voice acting done by Dr. Sbaitso.
Nah. I'm sure they're pinching their pennies so that they can properly reward their programming team. Like all the other giant game companies. That savings will definitely end up in the pockets of the little guy.
Interesting timing. I'm currently about halfway through cleaning up and chopping into bits the product of two four hour voiceover sessions. It is amazing how much of a difference good voiceover talent can make. Our primary female voice talent (we alternate between male and female voices throughout each lesson) is a local morning DJ who is simply awesome. It is just astounding what she can get right on a single take, and we deal with some rather technical tongue-twisters with all sorts of little-known jargon. In general, these people don't get paid well enough (although the male whose work I am attempting to salvage was paid entirely too much, seeing as how he can’t correctly pronounce the word “oxygen”).
But as to the yawning chasm between the wages of on-camera and voiceover talent, are the vocal artists paid too little or are the folks with the perfect teeth paid too much? I lean toward the latter. I’m not saying Sean Connery shouldn’t make more than I do, but should he make fifty times what I do? Five hundred? Ten thousand times my salary? (And before you respond with something involving the words “what the market will bear,” look at everything going on with Hollywood and see how well the market seems to be bearing such cost structures.)
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
further updates as this shocking story progresses!
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Presumably, she can refuse to do the work for Halo 3 and ask them to raise her wage (and quite frankly she should). However, if they refuse to pay her the amount she thinks she's worth .. they can get an alternate (and suffer the consequences?). Just because they are making millions "off her voice" doesnt mean they ripped her off. That's like saying an olympic athlete is ripping off the grocery store by paying 75 cents for a banana when he's getting paid millions in endorsements of the nutrition provided by the banana.
Ok, I confess I made this entire posting cause I wanted to make a banana analogy.
"I did the voice acting for Road Runner"
"you mean 'Meep, meep'?"
"Actually they just paid for one 'meep' and doubled it up on the soundtrack. Cheap bastards."
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Well a good actor can sometimes come up with a brilliant adlib and turn a mediocre part of a screenplay into a memorable scene.
= world-wide
But the Hollywood bosses are definitely overpaid. Whoever it was that kept making those crappy Kevin Costner movies was overpaid.
The fact that Hollywood intentionally makes violent movies AND then tries to chop them up so that they get "ok for kids" ratings shows to me that their primary agenda is not profit (at least for the companies they work for), and thus they shouldn't be paid so much.
It's like a whisky maker making whisky and then watering it down till the law says the result can be served to minors without parental supervision. The result sure isn't going to make the whisky drinkers happy. And you think it makes parents happy?
Whenever they try that sort of crap the movie doesn't do that well, and then they blame "piracy", P2P and everyone else but themselves.
Also for some reason Hollywood (not everyone else) seems a bit surprised when stuff like "Finding Nemo" becomes a hit. If Hollywood was really interested in profit and making money, they'd be making more movies genuinely suitable or even targeted at children and families, just like McDonalds targets children and families.
Sure many of us might barf at that sort of stuff, but it sells - the evidence is there. You don't have to enjoy something to know it sells.
Just a look at:
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross
and:
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region
And then when you look at:
http://www.imdb.com/chart/
Which of those movies in the chart would be enjoyed by the people who enjoyed any of the top boxoffice hits? Go see later (total takings) if there's a correlation.
Also why bother making: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" AND then water it down?
"According to producer Brad Fuller, the film was given an NC-17 by the MPAA, and a total of 17 scenes had to be edited in order to get an R rating."
So either Hollywood is incompetent or they are up to no good.
This is how economics works. Something is only worth what somebody else is prepared to pay for it.
You may think that her vocal talent was worth more, but her fee represents two things:
- Bungie were more than happy to use a different actor should they need to but were polite enough to ask her to repeat the performance.
- The actor believes that she was fairly compensated as nobody forced her to take the job. She may have wanted more (don't we all?) but she understood the weakness of her bargaining power.
If you feel that she deserved more money, maybe you could hire her yourself? Get a group of your friends together and contact her agent and offer her a gig - just think of the cool ring tones you could get for just a $500.
Personally I think $500 to $1000 is more than adequate for what was essentially half a days work. The programmers wouldn't have been on anything like that rate, nor would the script writers or the technitions. As an owner of Halo 1 and 2 I can say with some confidence that if the voice of Cortana, Master Chief or in fact any of the voices my reaction would have been similar to when I realised the the covenant would be speaking English and not their own languages throughout Halo 2, regardless of difficulty: "Hey, thats lame. Oh well", and then keep on playing. I don't think I'm alone.
Of all the people on the pay role at Bungie, why would you think that its the voice actors that need more compensation?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
What voice actors? Unfortunately Hollywood only hires "real" actors for their animated features. If they just hired actual voice talent, the casting would be cheaper, and the product would be better.
+0 Meh
Good luck getting 40 hours a week of paid work as a voice-actor, let alone 100. Saying '$125/hr' is VERY misleading, as she very possibly didn't have any other gigs that week.
Performance work is VERY inconsistent, and the big numbers aren't so big when you look at it over time.
and on The Simpsons, Castellaneta provides the voices for Homer Simpson (he has to tilt his chin into his neck to do Homer's voice correctly , Grandpa Abraham Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Joe Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, Kodos, Arnie Pie, Scott Christian and other characters
I figured all videogame voice talent would be normal Joes and Janes that work for the companies, but I guess it stands to reason that they would use real actors in the a-list titles. But after RTFA I think I've suddenly started to like Cortana a lot more...
v oice_over_jen_taylor_06.jpg
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20061023/450
Just because I rock, doesn't mean I'm made of stone...