Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470109
60 I m ps e . o rg understanding of the fundamentals of audio—ascertaining the knowledge and skills to record good audio and then produce great audio thereafter by learning how to edit and master dialogue to our PlayStation sound standards. Those basics are still fundamental within our craft, too. EM: What are the differences between being a dialogue editor in- house at a game studio compared to working for a third-party company that delivers files to the game team? LR: There's an advantage when you're in-house where we work to create a closer relationship to the narrative teams, the creative directors and the producers. We try to find a way to be immersed and to be a partner with the game development team. Our sound team at PlayStation Studios is in essence an in-house post-production group. So, there's a lot of similarities in terms of us functioning like a third-party company, like a Formosa Group, but we're also partnering with them on a larger scale of responsibilities. When I was a freelancer and I worked for Formosa Group, my job was just a dialogue editor, where I would receive audio assets for a project, clean the clicks and pops, name and deliver. Then I'd wait on the next round of material for either the same title or a different one. The projects would vary, but the job was straightforward and defined. On our side, a dialogue editor not only edits dialogue but edits the technical aspects as well. We might have to make changes within the integration of material or how we're technically designing aspects of the dialogue, such as how specific lines are triggered. Cinematic lines may be triggered differently than systematic lines, such as combat lines, in a game. The latter may need more programming logic for it to fire correctly in game. And since many of our team members have originated from a game development studio, me included, our knowledge of the tools and implementation work is a stronger advantage. The largest difference between the two is the knowledge base and usage of tools and development that we use in game audio, as opposed to being a master in one aspect of the craft. EM: How often have your teams used multiple mics when recording dialogue? Is that a common way of working for game dialogue? LR: Yeah, when we're capturing cinematic material on the mocap stages, we have their head-mounted cameras (the HMCs), and then on the helmets we'll put two microphones. Currently, we're using DPA 4060 and 4061 microphones. The latest 4061s are the main mics, and then the 4060s are the safety mics with a 10db pad on them. That's the foundation of what we do for the performance capture shoots, and it has worked really well. We've been running with that for over 10 years. It's very similar to theater with the mics on the head, as opposed to a boom mic and a lav. I remember getting into performance capture at EA, and we used the boom mics. We were trying to explore the best way to record, and at that time we could only fit two people in a mocap volume, therefore using a boom mic was OK. Now, it's a much easier setup—it's a known factor for us to do this. It was adopted and used extensively by the Naughty Dog team, where I was first exposed to it. From then on, other The PlayStation Audio Engineering team on a motion capture stage. From left to right: Audio Engineer Edgar Maldonado, Audio Engineer Alexandria Kiser, Senior Manager of Dialogue Leilani Ramirez, House Engineer Jeremy Underwood, and Audio Engineer Nikki Weinberg