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PEOPLE Dave Fennoy Chats About Voicing Video Games ... And Interactive Zombies In The Walking Dead  By Rebecca MichaelsVoice Actor Dave Fennoy is a preeminent VO actor in Los Angeles, providing voices for commercials, narrations, award shows, animation and games. He is known by over 30 million Hulu viewers as "The Hulu Guy." However, he may soon also be known as one of the heroes of a new video game The Walking Dead - as the character Lee Everett.  Dave has many other
credits as a spokes-voice for
many, including Lexus and McDonald's, as narrator for programs on National Geographic and
Discovery channels, as well as film and TV, including Ghost Rider, Happy Feet, Kim Possible, Ben 10 and many more. My Love That Voice Over series of podcasts recently caught up with Dave for a fascinating interview. A transcript of Episode 2 of that interview, focusing on voicing video games is below. You can also listen to this podcast by clicking here. LoveThatRebecca Ladies and gentleman, welcome back to episode two with Dave Fennoy. We are going to jump in to video games and your extensive experience. I found at least 31 titles. Some of the big names that people enjoy your work on are Starcraft 2, Metal Gear, That's So Raven, Ultimate Spiderman, Delta Force, Star Wars, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider and many others. Now, the latest, of course, is The Walking Dead. What can you tell us about that? Dave Fennoy  It's a very different kind of
video game. It's not the "chase them
down and shoot them up" kind of game.
You get your chance to battle zombies - that's for doggone sure, but there is lots and lots of dialogue, lots of interaction between the characters in the game. And as a player, you have to make decisions about what my character says and does. Like, your group is out and about, and some zombies show up and you have to save somebody - but you can only save one person. Who do you save? LoveThatRebecca Oh my god. Dave Fennoy People in the game ask you questions, you have a choice of several answers. What do you answer? And based on what you do, or actually what you have my character do and have my character say, this has repercussions later on in the game. LoveThatRebecca OK. Zombies are really the cool
new thing, right? Dave
Fennoy Zombies are (dramatic pause) the
new vampires! LoveThatRebecca Now, how did you become involved
with this project? Dave
Fennoy Well you know, it came to the normal circles.
I got an email with an audition for
the part of Lee Everett in a game
called The Walking Dead and I went, "Oh wow, so it's like
the TV show in a graphic novel, OK." And (the audition specs said) we want it
very natural and we really just
want your voice. This is not an odd character. This is a real guy. So we are looking for just a good actor. LoveThatRebecca And what kind of audition did you have to do? Was it a long scene? Was it a couple of sentences? Because video games can be very different in that approach, right? Dave
Fennoy Yeah. Usually with the video
game, you will get a picture of the
character because a lot of times you are playing some creature from another planet or you are
playing some warrior. And you will get an image or drawing of the character, what his psychological make-up is, the things that motivate him, and then some lines. One where he is
just kind of regular, normal and greeting
somebody. One where he might be fighting, you know,
a few different examples of this character in different mindsets. This was not that dissimilar, except they wanted a real person. LoveThatRebecca Which is dissimilar for
your experience in the games that you have been in, right?
Dave
Fennoy Yeah (heavy British accent) because so often
you are playing one of these.
LoveThatRebecca Or a monster?
Dave
Fennoy (Boris Karloff-type voice) Or a monster. (Back to normal voice) You know, just
all kinds of strange voices. LoveThatRebecca Yeah (laughing). Or, you
know, somebody Rastafarian? Dave
Fennoy (Rastafarian dialect) Rastafarian man, you do be doing that t'ing, now, where everythin' is comin' from the
island. (Changes to African accent) You
might be an African man.
(English dialect) You might be English. Or (French) bonjour, you might be the French man. You could be almost anything. LoveThatRebecca Fantastic! Dave
Fennoy So this was just really a
character much closer to me. He is a
former college professor who - for some reason, we don't know exactly why when the game starts - is on his way to jail when the zombie apocalypse hits. LoveThatRebecca OK. So you got the part and now we are going to speed ahead. How did they piece together the game? Because you have mentioned there will be all these different choices for the player to choose for you in that moment. And there would be moment, after moment, after moment of decision making. That's a lot of lines and variations in the actual game play that have to all be scripted. Dave
Fennoy Oh yes. Telltale Games and the people who work for them are all
graduates of LucasArts. LoveThatRebecca Oh wow! So some real creative folks. Dave
Fennoy They are up with Marin County and ... LoveThatRebecca Because you are based in L.A. you didn't go up there to go and record this, did you? Dave
Fennoy Actually (dramatic pause) I
did! LoveThatRebecca You did? Dave
Fennoy I did. They have flown me up several times to record and
there are five episodes and we are still recording. LoveThatRebecca Nice! So this is episodic in terms
of what the levels the gamer
can get to? Dave
Fennoy
Think of it kind of like the TV
show. You are in this zombie world
and we have an episode where Lee Everett and the people that he has met, the little girl Clementine that he has kind of adopted because her parents died in the zombie apocalypse, they all have to go through something. There is some adventure. LoveThatRebecca They have to achieve something. They have to get somewhere and
pass through ...
Dave
Fennoy They have to achieve something. They have to get something. They
are going to come
into contact with other survivors. Do they trust these people? Are these people going to help them or not help
them? LoveThatRebecca Just like a great zombie movie.
Dave
Fennoy It is. LoveThatRebecca And like the Walking Dead, the graphic novel, I am assuming that most of this follows in the spirit of that and the television show? Dave
Fennoy Absolutely. So you have got this black, former college professor who was on his way to jail for murder. And now it has been thrown into a group of survivors including a little nine-year-old girl that he is protecting, and a very racist guy and his grown daughter and several other people. So you have people that in any other time of life would not have been thrown together, but here we are! Zombie apocalypse, what are you
going to do? LoveThatRebecca Let's go behind the scenes, and tell us about the arrival at the recording studio. Dave
Fennoy Actually, they have a studio up
there in Fairfax in Northern California. A nice
little town where all the hippies go to die. LoveThatRebecca
Fairfax is it, man.
People don't know that I have lived out there. I lived in Marin
County for a year and I grew up in the Bay Area, so I am familiar with
Fairfax. It's totally a hippie town even still. It is like a
little Berkeley. Dave
Fennoy Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Four, five
blocks long, a bunch of great
little restaurants and night clubs that have music in them, five to six
nights a week. All of them in
this three block stretch,
it's like, "How did this get here?" LoveThatRebecca Yeah, it's true. But
tell us about your experience. So you arrived in Fairfax and you are
tripping out, because have you ever been to Fairfax before? Dave
Fennoy I have never been to Fairfax, although I had spent 10 years of my life living in the Bay Area in
Oakland and Berkeley. I never went to
Fairfax. That's up the road.
LoveThatRebecca OK. Well, it's a really small town, considering all of Marin County and
that's all north of the Golden Gate, north of San
Francisco for folks who don't know the area. And Oakland is on the east side of the bay and this is all north. And they really feel
different too, because this area is much more countryside. And
Oakland is more urban and
so is Berkeley, even though they
had the kind of hippie ... Dave
Fennoy (Interrupting in a hippie stoner voice) The people's republic of Berkeley, man. LoveThatRebecca Excellent! And also the Haight-Ashbury was
the hippie-ville in the '70s. Dave
Fennoy I think the hippies from Haight-Ashbury all moved to Fairfax. LoveThatRebecca I think you are right. (Both laugh) Dave
Fennoy But a very artistic community - I really like it. I really like
Fairfax a lot. LoveThatRebecca Yes, they are very chill, too. Dave
Fennoy Yeah, so we record in a
little studio run by a guy named Jory Prurim. It's basically set up just to do games. LoveThatRebecca Oh wow! OK. Dave
Fennoy That is what he specializes in. LoveThatRebecca Can
you give us a mental image? Dave
Fennoy There was a control room, one big recording room, a microphone sitting
there in the room. He has got
an iPad set up in front of his
microphone, which I think is very cool, I mean no paper, just all off the iPad. LoveThatRebecca Yeah. All electronic. Dave
Fennoy And you go through line by line by line by line by line by
line by line. I mean there are
hundreds and hundreds of lines,
which is very different
than most games. Most games, yes, you are going line by line and you are
doing it by yourself, but you do not
have so many lines. I have recorded more for these first two episodes - more hours - I have never recorded for so many hours. LoveThatRebecca Wow. And that is because of the interactive conversational nature. Dave
Fennoy Exactly. LoveThatRebecca Because most of the
time (in standard video games) it is action oriented, and so you have fewer lines because the character has to do things instead. Dave
Fennoy Right. You are spending a
lot of time with your battle sounds
(Dave makes some sample ooh, eh, aah sounds). With a lot of those! This
(game) is a lot more acting, which actually, in many ways, is much more gratifying. LoveThatRebecca Good. Can you tell us
a little bit more about that? Dave
Fennoy Yeah. You are interacting with
characters. You have secrets that you are trying to keep.
You have to decide, well you have
lines. The player's actually going to decide if you lie, or
tell the truth, or say nothing, or
just answer but not lying and not telling the truth - obfuscating about
what's been going on. LoveThatRebecca Right. Dave
Fennoy And based on that, is what happens later on down the line. And you are in
conversation with lots and lots of
people. So, I am in conversation with Clementine and I'm in conversation with
all the other characters in the game. LoveThatRebecca But you never, ever record in conversation with that other actor across from you in the studio? Dave
Fennoy Unfortunately, no. We are not. I have done a lot of
animation, and usually when you are doing a cartoon, there are
other actors in the room - at
least the actors you are doing the
scenes with if not the whole cast, each
with their individual microphone and script in front of them on the stand - and you are going
from the beginning to the end and
that's how it goes.
LoveThatRebecca In a linear fashion with each actor speaking their line, yes. So it feels more interactive in terms
of the actors doing it
together, like they are "live" similar to being on the theater stage. Dave
Fennoy
Exactly. LoveThatRebecca Ok, but in this case, when
the game player is playing the game, it feels to them as if everything
flows because they are just
moving through, right? Dave
Fennoy They are, exactly. They are just
moving through. And the only reason that can happen is a) The level of acting ability of the actors that they
have hired and b) The fact that they (TellTale) are very, very careful about making sure you (the actor)
understand the context. LoveThatRebecca Right, and what you mean is they
are framing the scene for you. So when you are saying that line, you know what has happened or is about to happen or what secret you are holding and all of those factors that go into building your whole Lee Everett character and his response when you record each set of lines. Dave
Fennoy Yeah.
Emotionally, who is the person you are talking to? What is your relationship with that person? Do you like that person? Do
you not like that person? Are in
conflict with that person? Are you angry with that person? Are
you desirous of that person? So, you have to know all those. LoveThatRebecca (Playfully teasing voice) What do you mean desirous? Dave
Fennoy (Macho guy voice) You
know, a cute zombie come along - aaay! You never can tell
what a guy might wanna get into. (Both laughing) LoveThatRebecca That is awesome. Well, you have clearly illustrated what was unique about the Walking Dead in this case. What
about the recording sessions for you in terms of the people that you are working with, the people that you do have the ability to work with? Can
you describe that in more detail? Dave
Fennoy Typically, a session is: I show up at the studio and the voice director, Julian, is
there and probably a couple
of writers as well as Jory, the engineer. So, I will be working with
three or four people in the control room and
me in the booth. LoveThatRebecca Right. Dave
Fennoy What they are trying to make sure is that context is correct and technically that it's recorded well. So, what did the person
I am talking to sound like
when he said his line, so that I am not shouting at this person who is two feet away from me and vice versa. LoveThatRebecca Right. Excellent. So they give you a lot of technical framework
so that ... Dave
Fennoy A lot of technical framework. A lot of times Julian will read me in with the line that came before and context is everything. Context is everything. You gotta know who you are talking to, why you are talking to that person, what is your motivation is. It is really an acting gig and all those same questions that an actor has to ask himself. What do I want in this scene? What is driving me? LoveThatRebecca Excellent. These are really good points because people who
play games don't always think about
it, but more and more in the last
couple of years people are realizing in general how much video games can be interactive. It sounds like Walking Dead is really taking it to that next
level from an emotional context
because certainly on the games that existed before this,
you could play and be interactive and
totally animated. But in this case, your emotions and your
brain really come into play more with the choices that you have to make as the game player.
In a way, player choices have to be made more reflectively or intellectually rather than just intuitively pushing buttons. Would you say that is correct? Dave
Fennoy I would say that is absolutely correct, and I think this is the kind of game that respects the brain power of a
gamer who is little older. Like everything else, games have
evolved. Remember "Pong"? LoveThatRebecca Exactly. Yeah. Dave
Fennoy About '95 or so you started getting some decent interaction games, but
even then it was blow up this stuff, kill that
guy, so forth and so on. I think as gamers have gotten older and more sophisticated, this is the kind of game that they will truly enjoy. And if the critics are correct and the sales are correct, that is exactly what is happening. LoveThatRebecca Ah, OK, cool. Excellent. Any final thoughts on Walking Dead that
you want to leave us with? Dave
Fennoy Yeah. Get it and play it!
LoveThatRebecca Do you need a particular type of PlayStation or something like
that? Dave
Fennoy I think it is available across several different
formats.
LoveThatRebecca OK. So cool.
Dave
Fennoy I should be on the sales staff here and
know all that stuff.
LoveThatRebecca Well, people can find out about it.
Dave
Fennoy You know, I have a confession to
make. LoveThatRebecca
(Excited) Yeah! A confession! Dave
Fennoy I probably shouldn't. I am not
a gamer. I am so not a gamer. I do not
play the games. I do not play any
games. LoveThatRebecca It's cool. Dave
Fennoy But I love being on the
games. LoveThatRebecca Yeah, because you are in the game already. You know what I mean? Dave
Fennoy Yeah. LoveThatRebecca You know, I can give you a break in
however way you want to frame it or I can probably make you feel good. But you're doing a great job and people are loving the work that you have done and they are playing these games. You have been in some terrific
work. I want to find out about
a little bit more about that, but we
are almost out of game time here. Hahah!
(Both laugh, then much more seriously…) But yeah, you know, it is a confession. Alright, you know what? Thirty lashes and you are good. Dave
Fennoy (Making sounds of a whip lashing
him and his reactions with screams of pain)
Aaaahh!
Oooooooh. aaaaaah.
LoveThatRebecca (Deep voice, slowly) I like this. Dave
Fennoy (Meek voice) Can I get the
rest of the lashes later? LoveThatRebecca No, I want more now!
Dave
Fennoy (Continuing with the lashing sound effects and screams) Oooooooh, hoo, hooo, ooohhh.
aaaaah.
LoveThatRebecca
And we will right back after I finish lashing Dave.
Dave
Fennoy (Final whipping, and then a
whimpering) Oow, that
hurts! Mommy!? ABOUT REBECCA ... Rebecca Michaels hails from California but lives some of the time in Italy, currently voicing a variety of English-speaking projects with folks from the U.S. as well as Australia, India, Germany and the Netherlands. She interviews voice over pros in her Love The Voice Over podcast series (see link below), and keeps in touch with friends and fans via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Email: rebecca@LoveThatRebecca.com Web: www.LoveThatRebecca.com Love That Voice Over Podcasts: www.lovethatrebecca.com/podcast_lovethatvoiceover.html |
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I'm on episode 2 on xboxlive. I find this game innovative because you are choosing the reactions to dialogue as the player. I see that Dave had to read reactions several different ways because each choice determines the plot progression..amazing work.
I love the cartoon comic strip style of the game itself, too. Awesome Dave! Really great work!