Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1470109
productions followed suit. And as the technology has improved with being able to add more talent in a volume, this setup is ideal. If we then have to record ADR, we do try to mimic the same setup, so instead of the HMC, if they're not doing any additional facial capture in the studio, we'll just use the mocap beanies and put the two mics on there like a regular setup on the stage. There have been times with creature recordings where we've collaborated with the sound designers where they've asked to use a different mic either as a main or backup, especially if they want to capture a distinct quality that another mic may provide. We might even record those lines at 96k because we know that they're going to further process the assets, so they want to have that at a higher quality. We've used shotguns like a KMR81, or other mics like the Sanken CO-100k. But in general, we maintain continuity from what we captured on the stage. EM: In your career, what have been some keys to you in trying to balance the creative and technical necessities of your job? LR: I find that the creative and the technical expectations kind of merge together in many ways like a relationship. They complement and also challenge one another. There are typical creative and technical aspects of the job where the foundations have already been established. But as game development progresses, you end up finding that the technical needs tend to drive the creative and vice versa. For instance, how dialogue is going to be triggered in the game to help with pacing, and what lines need to be played when a specific event must be fired. That's the technical having to drive the creative. We might need certain types of tech where we need proper audio software engineers to help us with that—even for basic integration. We usually need additional assistance to help make our integration process more streamlined and efficient. But then there's the other side where the creative will drive the technical. We might want a vocal effect to happen when the player goes into a specific state—like when the player is about to die and they want to do some kind of weird audio effect on that to happen in runtime, as opposed to baking it in. For those instances, we think about what we can do technically for that to creatively happen. In addition, our team will not only assess what the tools are capable of doing, but what does the hardware provide that would further accentuate the player's experience? With the PlayStation 5, we considered the improvements of 3D audio and how we could then take advantage of that to use ambisonics within our sound and dialogue design. That's what makes it a fun challenge for our teams—we have to think outside of the box and recognize what an amazing playground we have to design our soundscapes. EM: How is dialogue editing different when working on a cutscene compared to in-game dialogue? LR: Dialogue editing for a cut scene is similar to film and TV. It's linear since most of that material we've captured on the mocap stages. We have timecode, syncing to picture, working with the animators to make sure that's as close to being locked as possible. We usually have dialogue stems and work with our sound designers and music team to mix those scenes. Compared to in- game dialogue, it's simpler. There was a project that we were working on where we had some people from the film industry, and they were trying to understand how we function on that front. The transition isn't easy because they're so used to working off of each other, so that's why the cinematic experience is easier, especially when it comes to performance. In terms of the recording and editorial of in-game dialogue, we're taking a script and having them read a number of lines and/or doing efforts. Sometimes they are able to reference picture so that they understand the setting and see the scenes that they're recording their dialogue for. Other times we've been able to get two people in the same space so that they can work off of each other—that's what we did From left to right: Supervising Dialogue Designer Jodie Kupsco, Dialogue Designer Tyler Held, Dialogue Designer Brianna Villarreal, Senior Manager of Dialogue Leilani Ramirez, House Engineer Jeremy Underwood, and Dialogue Designer Heather Plunkard-Serge