Any auditions with REVERB, ECHO, or any other negative aspects that indicate a bad recording environment, will NOT be considered. In that same vein, any microphones of lesser quality than a Yeti, including Snowballs, headsets and phone mics, will not be considered either, unless you are a god tier audio engineer with an amazing studio setup that can make them sound flawless, but if you're recording on one of those, the chances of that are minimal.
Hello everyone! This project is a bit of a doozy, and I am going to need a lot of committed and talented voice actors. This project is a mod for the first game in the Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky series that will provide a full English voiceover for the game. The series developer, Falcom, released remasters for the Trails in the Sky games that added full Japanese voice acting, but these remasters were never localized in America. However, some highly dedicated individuals were able to create a mod that extracted the Japanese voice acting from the remasters and applied it to the original games. Essentially, adding English voice acting to the game will be as simple as replacing the Japanese voice files for this same mod. I have tested this and know it will work. The size of the game has been a hindrance as far as scripting, but at the pace I am advancing I will be done before the deadline on this casting call. Now the only issue that remains is the number of unique and talented voice actors I need. That's where you guys come in.
As it stands, I need 48 additional unique voice actors to play the roles that I have not already filled internally. These voice types range from serious and deep, to squeaky and lovable, to old and raspy, and everything in between, for both men and women alike. A few of these characters have over 1000 lines, while others have less than 50. That is to say, there is something for everyone to audition for, and also that I will not be casting anyone as multiple characters listed below. This casting call doesn't even include the hundreds of minor NPCs in the game that, while I would love to have a unique voice for each, is certainly something I'm more flexible with. One thing I want to stress is that while I only have concrete plans to dub the first game at the moment, as soon as I finish the game's script I will begin working on the second game to see if it is feasible to continue. With that in mind, almost all of these roles will return and have much more to do in the second game, so even if a character is a minor one in the first game, they could eventually become a main character in the second one and I would like all the voice actors to return for that potential project should it come to fruition.
If you've made it this far and are still interested, allow me to fill you in on the premise for the game. The game follows Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua as they travel through the kingdom of Liberl to become Bracers, a private peacekeeping organization that does everything from solving major crimes to finding lost trinkets. As the story progresses, Estelle, Joshua and the friends they make along the way all find themselves swept up in a military coup by the Intelligence Division of Liberl's army, and set out to stop the overthrow of their kingdom.
*SPOILERS* will follow throughout the casting call from here on out, so if you have not played the game and want to remain unspoiled, this will be a project you'll need to avoid.
Other important things to note:
1. Perhaps the most important thing to stress is that good to great mic quality is a necessity, not a preference. Any microphones of lesser quality than a Yeti, including Snowballs, headsets and phone mics, will not be considered unless you are a god tier audio engineer with an amazing studio setup that can make them sound flawless, but if you're recording on one of those, the chances of that are minimal. It should go without saying, but any auditions with reverb, echo or any other negative aspects that indicate of a bad recording environment, will not be considered either. I shouldn't need to type this twice, but apparently I do.
2. As most of these characters have no official English voice, and most of the ones that do only have short battle lines, I am NOT looking for imitations of any kind. I want original takes on these characters.
3. I will not be able to direct each and every person for every line, as there are over 30,000 lines of dialogue in the first game alone, 50+ important characters and hundreds more NPCs. I would however like to direct everyone on the first script or two for their character, so we can find a good voice for them and give you guys something to listen to during later recordings to keep the voice consistent. Should anyone require live direction for later emotional scenes, or just the occassional troublesome reads and lines, I will of course be able to help then.
4. Upon being cast in this project, I will turn you all loose with your designated scripts and you will each be given separate deadlines relative to the amount of lines you have to record. Some of you won't need more than two weeks, while others may need two months. The separate deadlines for supporting characters are just so I can have an influx of lines to edit and work on implementing into the game while the major characters finish their more sizeable workloads. Upon getting your lines and listening to them, I will provide another, smaller deadline (again on an individual basis) for you to get me retakes, should they be needed.
5. Even if I don't need you guys to worry about the second game from the outset, the first game alone is still a sizable commitment. I feel that with the individual deadlines I provide each of you that there should be no issues as far as getting lines turned in on time, but if you have a character with 500+ lines, PLEASE DO NOT WAIT UNTIL A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE LINES ARE DUE TO START RECORDING. This is especially true for main characters with hundreds of lines, and even more true for the role of Estelle who has several thousand lines. Forgive me if I sound like your highschool teacher/college professor telling you to get a headstart, but I really do mean it. Not only will I be able to tell if you recorded all 500+ lines in a day, so will the people who will hopefully play this mod. The amount of time I'm giving you is so you can spread out the sizeable workload into something more manageable, not so you can calculate how many days you can wait before you have to start. If delays are needed, just talk to me. You may not realize it judging from all the rules I've already laid out (with more to follow), but I'm a pretty understanding guy if you just talk to me.
6. I will be communicating to you all through Discord, so if you don't have an account then you'll need to make one, but I trust that won't be too much of an issue. Upon casting you'll get a link to the server where you will find the scripts and reference files.
7. This game is heavy on lore based terms, names and locations, so there will be a fair amount of strange and unfamiliar words to pronounce. I will be providing an audio pronunciation guide that everyone will have to listen to and reference should you come across a term you are not sure how to pronounce. Better to check the guide while you record instead of just guessing, because if it's wrong it'll be just one more thing you'll have to retake. In case it wasn't obvious, pronunciation is not important for the casting call. I'm just looking for good reads on the characters right now.
(Trails in the Sky fans will notice that the roles of Joshua Bright, Agate Crosner, Josette Capua, Lorence Belgar (Loewe), Professor Alba (Weissmann), Mrs. Mao and Elnan are not listed in this casting call. This is because they have already been filled internally by individuals I know to be reliable.)
