This is easily the greatest SFM video I've seen since the program started. Well written, original, wonderfully animated, choreographed, and best off all, it takes that hideous Dumpster Diver set and makes it into easily the Baddest Bad Thing ever. I won't go as murder-house crazy as one poster (who threatened to eat a stew made of his own pubes if it didn't win a Saxxy), but seriously, if this doesn't win a Saxxy it will be because the world was destroyed by horrible fun-hating creatures from beyond the stars.
Something about this video lead me to start thinking about how voice acting is used in SFM. The way he mutes Merasmus and the Soldier's conversation not only sells the idea that you're eavesdropping, but it also breaks up the audio so that the fact that it's going to be recycled lines that are pitch-for-pitch identical to the stuff in the game is not as distracting.
The voice acting in TF2, while comedy gold, isn't really performed to be conversational, which means that even sentences that grammatically work as dialog sound
off. These aren't even really meant to be dialog--they're background noise. Hilarious, well-written background noise, but mostly it's stuff to give TF2's combat a little sonic texture. When they're used in Source Filmmaker videos, there is often an uncanny valley effect: the words don't
quite match up with the situation. This, of course, gets worse for TF2 fans; we've heard all this audio a billion times, so we know exactly where every line comes from and it tends to really remind me that you don't have access to the original voice actors.
Of course, it's not really that bad of a problem, and I cannot say that it genuinely detracts from a movie's overall quality. But it's something to be aware of, I guess. Listen to your audio really closely when you add it.
Ask yourself some questions:
"What was the VO intended for--does it match the emotional relationship with my usage?"
For example, although two lines may be written down as "Help me!" One may be frustrated, while the other is desperate. The Engineer shouting "I need some doggone help!" sounds angry, as though he's tired of being the only one on the point. The Spy shouting "I require assistance!" sounds a little more needy, but it's such a long sentence compared to "Help!" it diminishes his desperation.
"Can I edit this VO to make it fit better?"
Use editing software to change up dialog lines. Minor changes are usually better than major ones--add a tenth of a second to simulate a pause here, slightly change the pitch to alter the inflection there. Sometimes you can make Frankenlines by editing two together, but I don't know if that's going to sound great every time
"Do I need this audio?"
People tend to overuse audio because they have access to it. But watch these videos:
The Mac promotional video, the
Mann Vs. Machine promotional video, the
Engineer Update promotional video. Three videos, and each one has one VO part in it, and none of them uses anything more than incidental audio.
The community's familiarity with the voice acting means that unless you use that audio in a really, really novel way, it's going to sound robotic to them. These are jokes they've already heard, so unless it's absolutely necessary to the scene, it's probably better to limit yourself to one, or let your acting do the talking.
"Can I get someone else to do it?"
Write some original dialog for your scene and see if you can't get someone else to perform it. Even if the actor is completely terrible, the novelty of original dialog might bring your video up! And sometimes, you might get lucky with some great material or something. Who knows?
