Interview with actor, director and teacher Jeremy Birchall about his role as voice casting director for Path of Exile

Join me for an in depth chat about the world of character voicing for gaming. What are game casting directors looking for? and how are you expected to perform in a character or gaming session? Jeremy Birchall is a New Zealand based actor, director and teacher and casts and directs VO talent for Path of Exile, which is an award-winning fantasy action role playing game with millions of players worldwide.

Here is a transcript of the interview…

Welcome to vo life my video podcast, which aims to explore the world of voiceover through talking to interesting people doing interesting things. And today's guest does some very interesting things. So I'd like to welcome to the video podcast during the virtual well done. Hello. Hi, Toby. Nice to hear. Absolutely. It's really good. We're pretty close in the world. It as it turns out, and I didn't even know this until I scheduled the interview, but we only live about 100 kilometers apart, which is quite amazing. Yes, it's a stone's throw. Yeah, you and I will probably actually do the trip down to Auckland every once in a while. But, you know, in this wonderful way, age that we've been in and COVID lockdowns we can actually work pretty much from home. Yep. So let's see a bit of a tech setup in the corner there with your microphone and pop filter. Yes, I've got the new Ultron which is the chaotic eyeball. ripoff. Interesting. Yeah, I've got to actually sort of weigh it side by side. But yeah, you can't even compare the price that is actually very cheap compared to exactly. I'm sure that like the Chinese can come up with like a hollowed out ball of foam at a pretty good discount. Yeah. $400 Us versus like $35, New Zealand. Cash and head and you find that kind of works. If you had to play with it so far. Yeah, I've had a really good play with it. Yeah. And I've just obviously I'm using condenser mic. So it's catching a lot of room sound. And I haven't set my my studio up yet properly up here in the North. But it was a good happy medium to find something that would actually just make the room have data. I was I was getting a few auditions coming through. And I was putting like everybody else once we don't have a full setup, I was putting the Dubai over my head, trying to manage the script at the same time. And you're getting that rustling sound. But yeah, this is this is the start of actually building it properly. Now. Brilliant here. And there's so many people I found, you know, doing the constructing home studios, even if they're not on the business end of the microphone, as it were like even for meetings and for, for direction and stuff like that. It's quite distracting having that whole, you know, ambience and rolling, the sound rolling around the rooms, etc. Because houses are very rarely designed for for sound. I've just gone through the process of designing. This is actually the first video podcasts on my brand new studio that I've just built up here at hempcrete, which is also on my channel, that sort of process of building it and the acoustics were a lot more challenging than I thought I kind of thought I could get away with a lot more than I actually ended up getting away with, which you can find out about on that playlist. But yeah, but but isolating from noise is such a tricky thing and just controlling that noise in the room. But it looks like yeah, that's a good temporary fix. Absolutely. And I did see some photos that you sent me of the studio. And I think it's looking pretty sharp. So I think also, because we work in sort of a steroidal, also cerebral but creative business, having a really good vibe that you're in that space is really, really important. Because sometimes it can be a bit stressful. And if you can just sort of momentarily take your eye away from from it and just go Oh, yeah, that's good. I've built this. And I've got this and this is a you know, nice helmet, Himalayan rock salt lamp sitting over there on the corner. That is making me feel good. Yeah, absolutely. It can be like, I remember way back to the actually the first episode of this podcast. And I talked to Susanna Kenton, who's a very talented international status based in Christchurch. And she was talking about how, like having a little sort of trove of objects around you in your studio, that means something to you, because it is like, you know, voiceover has to be an intensely emotional thing at times. And it's quite exhausting emotionally. So to have all those centering objects that kind of like, ground you is actually really important, I think so it's nice to have those little tones. I agree. I think they sort of ground you on a subconscious level as well. Because often we Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of breathwork the boys so you often get into a very heavy space and especially the work that we that I do. Often will we need people have brakes often. So go and walk outside, go and get some natural light in your eyes. You know, if we're doing 10 Page scripts, you know, via source Connect. Make sure we have breaks, make sure you go and get hydrated, come back into your room, let it air properly open the window. So yeah, the environment is really really important. So he was looking very sharp. It's looking very sharp. It's a little bit warm in here because the air conditioning goes in tomorrow. So until then, I'm just like opening the windows every chance I get getting the fans in but it's gonna that'll solve hopefully a lot of my comfort problems. Yeah, clothes optional. Yeah, exactly. So enough about me. Let's talk about your, your career as an actor, teacher, Director. Let's go right back to the to the start. And when did you sort of start performing? Um, yeah. Okay, so, I started I came from Mastodon and the wire wrapper. So that's a small town of about 90 and a half 1000 People never quite made it to a city. But my mum and dad were both in. In the arts. My father was an English drama teacher. My mother was a dance teacher but Back then, in those days, I had what they call a learning disability and undiagnosed dyslexia. But my parents saw, I wasn't great academically, I was okay. I was doing doing okay. But I wasn't really thriving, and you know, striving. But I did everything else outside of it. I did the arts, I did drama, I did dance, they saw how much I lit up. And I believe that my career in the arts is based on nurture over nature. There are things that I've had to understand that might be part of my nature, and they've helped me in the arts, and that we can get into that later on, on which I think finds me as a director now. So after spending many years it was 19. I went to drama school and applied for Unitec. In Auckland, and I did the inaugural year of that 93 And then it moved actually wasn't Carrington, or not Carrington. It was in the old television in New Zealand building off College Hill. And then we moved out in our second year to Unitec. That was an amazing experience, obviously 1920 I'm not quite a man yet. Even just navigating around Auckland City was enough by bus at that point. And I think the things they learnt from the Murray Hutchinson's the Linda Cartwright's, the Michelle Hines, the Sylvia rands, the Ilona Rogers, Raymond Hawkins is amazing people didn't really a sink into well in my 30s until I read, travelled, lived and I was like, Oh, that's right. They said that to me, or I was a child. I was a young man having an experience and but, you know, I still came out and managed to get work out of drama school. After two years, when I did children's theater. I toured the country for a couple of years doing that. I got my first film break in 1998 with a Miramax film called heaven. And that was an international cast that came to New Zealand. And at that point I auditioned for it was a Scott Reynolds film and auditioned for it and myself and another New Zealander, and Carl Oban got into that film. And that was sort of the start of my pure love for acting for camera. I mean, just the good old days when it was 35 millimeter, you know, like, the alone three and a half minute mag and UK okay, we're going to load a new mag and you know, every moment counts and film, it's expensive. And you watch the rushes you watch the rushes the day after they bring you a beautiful film quality in to see yourself. Yeah, isn't it like talking about how the technology influences the art and I like I did my training right at the crossover between like analog audio like working on tape on multitrack tape machines, right when digital audio is coming in, and the cool edit pros and the which is a precursor audition stuff, we're just sort of surfacing and I think like you lose something by not being involved with those arts as well because I also did a summer at a film company and they were shooting 35 million just that I don't know this this something like the smell of it or the feel of it or the vibe of it, but you do lose by shooting straight digital now. Like it was a lot more precious those tapes and stuff like it's just interesting how that affects the performance and affects the vibe of film sets, isn't it? I think also when a cast and crew come together watch the rushes there's a holistic nature to what we're doing at that point we're looking at it from all aspects we're looking at it from what it's going to be looking at looking at look like and post and it's coloring or so it's audio how things are going to come together and now we can just shoot shoot everything so much we can multicam things in HD but I was the same and there's a really interesting journey between digital to HD I mean the ugly digital stuff that that happened in the 90s the DVD and then there were a few people that were trying to still make films and 16 millimeter and even eight millimeter you know trying to actually still afford the I actually made a film an eight millimeter which we had to actually send the the films over to Germany to deliver I mean that will tell he sent me that pack right but that we were worried that was going through X rays Oh yeah, just give us that nice frosty like overexposed look but i digress anyway, so yeah. Like you I've I've had well, I'm I'm 48 now but I've had a very varied career throughout the stage and film and television. And I've had some what perceive as big breaks. And you say you've had your break and what what used to happen in those moments with our man you've had your break and it was like you made the first film. Something comes about. You don't come famous As you might make a little bit of money, I've saved my money, I always put a bit aside, because what was important to me was security, I wanted to be able to have what normal people here, which was maybe at home one day, and, you know, actually just have the ability to still keep doing what I'm doing and have the time to do what I'm doing. So I had the foresight in my 20s, to actually start that process, I bought my first house at 25. So created that security behind me so that now I can still have the time to do what I'm doing. I don't have to work too hard. But I can actually just focus my energy into my craft. And actually, you know, what, say no, there's a thing you know, for many years of my life of 2030 years, I had to say, yes, a hell of a lot. And some of those things I didn't want to have to say yes to, but we did, because we needed to make a buck. And it's hard to break that habit, isn't it? Like, I've definitely found that in the in the sort of latter days of my voiceover career that saying no to something that's like, under your budget nowadays, and you just, you know, it's gonna be trouble. It's more difficult than it should be, you know, you still got the instinct that tips for everything, you could just make this money in five minutes. You know, it's like, it's but it's still it's difficult to do that. I mean, there's a whole conversation we could have digressing into that for hours about the ethics of voiceover and what you might say, Would you do a voice of round up? I don't know, I wouldn't. But you know, if the money was right, some people would. So where's the line in the sand for you? I have got to a point where I'm quite happy to say I don't ethically stand behind that product. Yeah. And it's interesting to fit that, like I tell people to figure out that stuff before it comes up. Before there's $1 sign attached to it. So say like, right, I'm not going to do anything that's unethical, like to this standard, or, you know, whatever, and how granular you want to get and like I for example, I have a personal because I'm not a religious person. So I don't do anything that overtly tries to convert people to, to another religion, or to make people think a certain way. But then stuff comes up where they're like, you know, it's like a YouTube video, and we just want to show how beautiful the Bible is being read. And it's like, wow, but that like the Bible kind of is a piece of art, a very historic piece of art with with an angle, but like, you get into these things, where it's like, I said, I wouldn't be that kind of okay, and are here. It's tricky. Yeah, I think you just keep checking yourself. It got like that also across commercials. When I got the television programs, I was going up for judging things. I don't really care about this piece of art. But am I am I happy doing it. So anyway, I had a side career as a dancer, I danced for many, many years. There was lucky to my mum, my mum had a great philosophy, she said, you'll need as many strings to your bow as you possibly can in this industry. And I can once we get to a point of talking about directing, I can tell you how my dad's work helps me with that. As you as an audio engineer helps you as a voice that is, this is a really big conversation, I believe for up and coming voice artists or people who wake up to the fact of how their life has informed them to get to this point now. So yeah, I got another big break in 2001. And I got a cast in a sci fi sci fi channel's telling movie called riverworld So that one of the forecasts and that and that was signed for six series for that. And it never, I waited for a whole year for it to go to a series I was sort of on a retainer, and never, never went. So it was one of those moments that happened. And it's been burnt into my being as something that was just an amazing moment in my life and a possibility of a direction of going that way. But I went in another direction. And I met amazing people, I have the love of my life. And my you know, as my wife, and I have traveled with her and I might not be exceptionally rich and famous. But I am so grateful to be a working actor, voice artist and a person that feels that, you know, I have something to contribute. So my teaching has helped me with that. So I think bringing that I'm not an exceptionally famous person, to a group of actors and voiceovers and say you don't have to be you can be happy working. You can be a blue collar, working artists. You don't have to shine bright, you can just work and that takes the pressure off in a lot of ways doesn't it and allows you to enjoy the successes that you don't realize that you have as well. Like all those things that you have done, you know exactly, but just because you're not a household name doesn't mean that you haven't been successful in your art and it's not, you know, really rewarding and fulfilling. Absolutely. So tell us about your current role with Grinding Gear games and path So I want to sort of get into the mirror go straight straight to there. Yeah. Well, if there's anything that you think like built up to that, and well, actually, I think I will, because, in truth coming, the reason I mentioned that that 2001 scenario is the reason I got into voice work because it was not on my, on my radar is there I walked into doing an ADR session, that additional dialogue replacement session for that. And I think this is really important for people to understand that you never know who's listening. You never know where your next career might be notch from in that moment, I was just doing silly voices, I was having to do additional dialogue for my character, there was a whole scene, it was a huge scene, I had to reavoice because there was a lot of a lot of atmospheric, you know, artifacts there, there was the sea and then there was planes flying over. So redid the whole thing. But in the in the downtime I was I was there. I was I was playing with microphone, and being you know, and then being in the studio that much I was a young man. And she said, you're really good at that said the coordinator for that film. She goes, I'm just about to go and work on Power Rangers. Why don't you join the loop group? So for honestly, 20 years, I have been part of the loop group for Power Rangers, which is launched my voice career, just fill in some people about what a loop group entails? I assure so yeah, okay. Because I've got I've got lots of analogies for the sense just Well, what I want to choose which this like, four circles of attention, and no, I'm not going to use that analogy. I'll keep it simple. So the group, so if you're watching a film, and you're watching a restaurant scene, and there's a lot of actors in that restaurant scene, there's a lot of people in that restaurant, they have what they call, maybe the extras or the you know, supporting cast, you're shooting the main, the main people, they're having a conversation, we're recording that on the day. And it's very, very important on the day, the supporting actors, the extras are not talking overtop of the main actors. So they're mining. So if we're either working in film or television, we're adding that loop trek in post production. So a group of you know, 610 actors will then do a, sometimes an English or what they call international Waller. Or, we'll do you know, that is that that will deliver that with it. We'll talk in gibberish. Power Rangers specifically talks in gibberish because it goes to multiple countries. And we call that international Waller. And then that gets reversed on to different in different languages. And there's an art form to things can't sound like God, things can't sound like Allah, things can't sounds they listen to him. If it's something like Disney, they'll go through and listen to all the lip tricks. And if if there was someone out there that's going to use some fancy plugin to distill just the hubbub about find something wrong with it. So basically, it's like hubbub creation, isn't it? It's like, it's like custom hubbub. It is the loop group has more than just that. I mean with that when I said my dance career, I didn't realize this so many, many years later. And I said, that must be such a massive leap. Why, why your dance career has helped you as a voice as it's because I used to watch a lot and lots of stunt snake scenes and reavoice them. And time was the essence. So we've watched, you know, a minute and a half of a pure edited final lock scene of fighting. And myself another person, I'll beat him up him. And then we would just go watch it once and then voice the whole thing. Like that it'd be all in there reason I got good at that is because I my dance career can learn all the choreography very, very quickly. So I believe that was the launch of just being so efficient at doing it and saving time and money. Or let's get Jeremy and he's really, really quick. And then that's how I started developing. And I watched and I learned and I think that's really, really important. You just have to watch other actors succeed and fail. And I was going from one TV show Spartacus in the morning doing five hours of loop of pure light that's over then to maybe directing legion of the seeker or Power Rangers. So we were we were working really long days that voice and so two things you need to be very quick and you needed to be able to sustain your voice and that is that is a technique that you can learn. Absolutely. We're gonna work with a bit of voice health stuff a bit later on. Yeah. So yes, so they don't I've had many years of doing voicing and directing and look groups and ADRs. And films need to be at the right place at the right time knowing the right people that the phone call came said, We need a director for Path of Exile. So for those who don't know what Path of Exile is, you want to give us a quick potted summary of what the sort of the game is. Sure, it's been. It's been around since 2006. And it was in its beta form in 2006. It was fine. It was launched online in 2013. It's an RPG game, it's a roleplay a game. So there are seven player characters. And as a play as a player, you can choose a character, and then you go on this Fighting Fantasy kind of world where you are going up and having conversations with NPCs non player characters and getting tasks. And basically, it's killing lots of things and getting lots of loot for it. It's a very, very complicated game in its essence, but it's very simple as the enjoyment is simple. Yeah, the economy that surrounds it is quite like it. And I didn't even realize how much this economy is. But that the trade of like digital stuff in these worlds is unbelievable, isn't it? Unbelievable. And what I want to say also, it's a game. It's a microtransaction game, but you don't need to, you don't need to spend money to win the game. There's other things that are just artifacts in nice things, you can have a nice costume, you can have a pet, you can have all these things. So they started that game 2000 Sitting online that's now on Xbox One, Playstation, the PlayStation platforms. And we have PC year started off in PC. So we have perfect so which was the original game we have in development perfect. So two, which is a whole new game. And as well as puppets on mobile watching So and there's all these packs that come out out there, there's like this like, like, the old game, there's just like, there's a new pack that arrives and you just basically like it sort of upgrades everything and like gives you a new quests to do effectively, which is it's right, so we have a 13 week cycle. And the 13 week cycle is what I mean we've got a massive team and some amazing thing in New Zealand, we've got 160 Plus staff working on this game Summit, some in the studio out in West Auckland, and some from the remote places around the world as well. And so in some is a full time dedicated Path of Exile to and there's a full team dedicated just to Path of Exile. So what what people are playing at the moment is the Path of Exile game. So every 13 weeks, we're creating a whole new what they call league. And the league is basically a whole new adventure where you meet new NPC characters, yeah, you will then of course, embellish it your character and you'll be able to get support packs for that which could mean you know, or mystery box, which could mean you know, you're gonna get an amazing cloak for doing us and we have at one any one particular time that a million people playing the game. Worldwide, incredible that a million people anytime, is playing the game and listening to all these, these voices, because, you know, like with a 13 week cycle, I was just thinking, you know, you're effectively kind of you recasting every, every 313 weeks, so there's like coming new characters, there's a lot of creative stuff going on. It's not just build the game, and people play it. It's like, it's like those titles, like, I want to say like The Last of Us or some of those other big titles where it's like, you play this, this this path. And and that's kind of it like, you know, it's constantly just rolling, which is amazing for the creative industry. It is. And it's it's also creating new challenges. And it's timeline. So, I mean, I've been with the game for four years. So I've seen it, I've seen the technology change, I've seen the industry change, I've seen a lockdown, I've seen a pandemic and the process, and everything has had to sort of just keep evolving through it. So if we can't do one thing, we will find another way to do it. And also when you take 160 people out of the office, to go work at home, managing all those people to hit a deadline is as challenging. So say, Okay, we'll just let the fans know we're not going to release this month. And they can they can do that they're not the big boss, Tencent, which is China, which is owns about 80% of the game, as long as the game is growing, and is is obviously manufacturing a profit of some sort. They happy but we don't have a strict deadline on it has to be 13 weeks. So yeah, I mean, obviously in the first time when I started, everybody was going into the recording studio. We were auditioning in the recording studio, we were recording voices face to face writer myself, you know, facilitating directing and the voice artist in the booth. So from where I am now, we probably the we did probably 90% of that. And now we flipped it, we're almost doing like 90% source Connect, you know, 10% of people who haven't switched over the technology, I sit at home on source Connect Now, the beta version of source connect, and myself or the writer and another place and another writer, another place, and we direct the game, some and usually, our recording studio native will facilitate it, they'll get a really good quality of the recording. And we might have an actor who's in England, who is standing, who's at four o'clock in the morning in the converted wardrobe, screaming their heads off and worrying and the neighbors worrying the neighbors, I'd always check that I said, are you okay to do this sort of type of work right now? But um, yeah, isn't that just an amazing feat of technology and creativity, and go back six years before the pandemic, it wouldn't have happened. Like, it's really only come together in the last, like, people were starting to do home studios as it was, and then suddenly a pandemic just made it, you know, go go crazy. That's right, we recorded 20 actors, actually 19 actors in space of three weeks, all online. And that studio quality, that's amazing, most of you know, and that's, that's just fired out, then to the audio team Grinding Gear games, who then you know, we'll put all the pieces together and drop that into the, into the software. The thing is, also, we have an amazing thing called the randomizer, which means we can call we can take if you have a greeting, like hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, we'll take every single take and use every single tape, right? Yeah, because randomizer technology allows the player to be able to come up to the npc and have a different experience every time they come up to them that play. So the different voice exactly like that, it makes so much sense. Because you know, if you're playing this game a lot, you'd very quickly pick up that it was just they asked us a recording and breaks that spell that you're in a game talking to a real person, which is very, very simple and scary at the same time. Because of course, obviously you might be researching at the moment where technology can be going with deep fake and AI voice, which I think will be covered towards the end. But I want to get your thoughts on where that's going as someone working in that in that space, because you know that there's malware and went all about now. But dynamic AI, especially as they kind of get kind of exciting, as well as a little bit threatening to voice artists. So when you are so you do you are you casting the voices, as well as directing, and you're kind of in charge of voice, my technical sort of position is coordinating and directing. So the process goes like this on a day to day basis, I will get a brief about an NPC character. And then I will break down that brief on paper and take the important piece of information for the voice actor out of it. So a brief brief sort of synopsis about who he is, maybe, maybe the writer hasn't quite given us enough description of what the voice because I mean, if you say it's RP, received pronunciation, you're going to get effect as do their, their, their homework at home, and they go and work on their receipt, consternation, pronunciation, you'll get, you know, 400 of those and and sometimes it's not actually what they're looking for. So I have to keep going backwards back and forth to the writers and say, you have probably written this with someone in mind. You want to Liam Neeson, esque? Or, you know, are we doing a northern accent? Or is it you open for interpretation. So I've got to make sure I relay this to the the agents and the voice actors so that they can have a little bit of a window to sort of narrow that in or a bit of play. And I say, you know, I'll have to take to that. So, that brief has to have the accent, the age, the characterization and sometimes a bit of reference to what is going on in there for that person at that time, and then a very short amount of text. And then I will send that out to the agents and then we will get we will sometimes say we want a limited amount because they don't want to go through that make that much but as I said literally we were getting 400 At one stage and I then will have to be deceived meaning, sometimes, as you would know, something that can sort of disabled somebody's opportunity is the quality that they'll seem to through, because it's an audition of their studio these days, as much as it is an audition of their character. I think it's beautifully put. Because, yeah, I think it's, I'll speak very plainly. And that is that the beauty of actually, when you see somebody in person, and they walk into the studio, and their demeanor, and their professional work ethic comes very, very clear, quite quickly, and sometimes you'll just go, I've got to spend five hours with this person, and we've got 10 pages of script, I can't let this audition go through, because it's going to become very, very difficult for them to be able to sight read a lot of material, because we often will not have the scripts till the day before. And that's really tough. I'm trying always to get scripts out for voice actors early on where they can at least get familiar and they don't have to sight read necessarily. Yes, that's right. And I think there's fear, but it's not always the case and gaming, because the mechanics and the mechanics play a massive, you know, sort of what should I say they actually drive it more. So sometimes, then just what you want to have this narrative, it's like, you can say something, but it won't actually be feasible within the mechanics of the game, because the mechanics just drive, yeah, that everything is written around that sort of law. So I will often say, okay, the scripts change. And here it is, and you're going to the studio and we've got, I booked it out for four hours. So when you start adding up that kind of money, where studio time and my time and everyone's time, we've got to be kind of really efficient. So it's sometimes quite obvious of actors are very, very nervous, and I can tell that they're nervous, and I've worked with them before, then, you know, you can see that they're just not having a great day. And then some people just come through and blitz it, and have done so much work on it. And then on the day, when you get them in, they'd like, this is just not the same sort of work flow. So coming back to now how the mindset has changed into what a package is, as a voice, actor, artists, is the studio quality, the quality that you're outputting from your home studio, is is a huge weight in the decision making because actually tell you the truth. We were actually saying now, if you're based in this town, we will put you in the studio, but we won't often source connect you to another studio because that's going to double our fee. Like we will do it sometimes because we have reoccurring characters that come back, right. And good actors work anywhere from recorded people all over the world because they're working in different parts of the world. I remember trying to find a studio in Bournemouth and like in England, like I managed to find a one, you know, put it out there. And he just said, oh, you know, we've got a little, you know, Studio, you can come in here and he just he went in there and he was really apologetic. Oh, you want me just to we transfer it over? And it was like Yeah, that's cool. When it sounds really, really good. We've got the actor in there. We managed to make it work. But yeah, it's it's incredible. Now that we are just asking, have you got a home studio? Or have you got access now to get to the studio in Auckland, because we don't really want to who know exactly, and then it makes perfect sense as well. So I'm talking about like, the kind of things that people can bring to the role because like, I'd like for people to get from this like to basically make both of your jobs easier. Like people don't necessarily know what they need to do when they're auditioning. And you don't want to listen to a whole lot of stuff that's not useful. So it's like a different interest to kind of agree on like, what the, you know, what are the do's and don'ts of auditions? Because And is it true that you know, when you're casting stuff, you can usually tell within about five seconds. Like it's fairly brutal in terms of like this is either on the money or not on the money and then you'll get like a bunch of on the monies and then go from there, but like how you know, how ruthless is that procedure? And what can people do to improve the chances? It's a good question. Also, I mean, I definitely have an opinion over what's an amazing sometimes interpretation of the voice. I don't I don't ultimately tweet choose that at all that goes through a panel of three people, you know, so a team of people and I'll be really surprised sometimes of the vision and it's got nothing to do with honestly the the ability of the voice actor I'm going well, usually when I'm talking or teaching I try and tell voice actors that it's sometimes don't overcomplicate it by going against the stereotype. Always start working with the bluntest, the bluntest part of a characterization because, subconsciously, what we we do as an audience? If we see the physicality of a big man, if we go and juxtaposition sure, you know, you're going to have a nice little voice or a big man, but a big gravitas. Man bald, who might look, you know, you know, like he's just stepped out of the bush or the jungle or something like that would I think we can pretty much narrow that window down quite quickly with audio. I can't give you an exact example. But when you just go, that just feels right. It just is right. It's, I often find that it's not. It's so archetypal. That's, that is often what is chosen. It's not. It's not to it's actually your first instinct. Do you? I don't know. Do you work from instinct, as I as I've always had active work a lot from instinct. Yeah, absolutely. Like, intuitively, like, there's so much that you, you Intuit, once you have done something for the 10,000 hours, you know, because you've just seen it enough times and see what works to just go there straightaway. What I feel like has changed and is making lots of people nervous in this world. And I've talked about this in a bunch of different interviews is, is like the politics in the identity politics of the world is making like those obvious choices more difficult. Because there's more, there's like, and it's really tricky with audio, especially because you have to rely on certain stereotypes just for people to get things quickly. Like, if you want the sound of what what's, what's a good example. But like sounds have these innate qualities that we just associate with other things, and they become stereotypes, and that becomes the way of doing things. And so we've we've traditionally just so you'll use those in terms of voice casting, too. But like now, now it's it's trickier. Because like, there is all this, you know, we need to be inclusive, absolutely. Like the the industry has got to remain inclusive, and not just cast your friends or people that look like you. And so taking the kind of the person out of the equation, and just casting for characters, I think is is the best way to go. But like it has swung a little bit towards the other way. But I feel I mean, it's not that affected that you find that the inclusivity thing is, has made your job more difficult. Or I think, if you can change between the commercial factor of voiceover that you know, the radio, television, commercial factor, you know, this and I know this as well, it used to be you were very conscious of a voiceover that's a voice heard of eyebrow that's doing that kind of voice. Now, it's the everyday man. It's the anti voice now doing that, weirdly. Yeah, androgynous. It's like, um, this won't be so applicable to people that aren't in this country. But the Bunnings the Bunnings ads don't have people that are act as they choose people that work in the store to do it. And that's acceptable, that is acceptable to hear somebody that does not sound like a voice artist selling you a product. Now, how that sort of transcends now over into the character work is, I would say, how how we need to find new. Yeah, it's a hard thing to explain, but because it's transcended and fraught, as transcended now, through a movement of, of what we expect and to now the downplay of things. I do not know how to describe this, it's kind of rebuilt, it's way more nuanced. Yeah, yeah, as I say to you, when when three people have to choose something, I'm sometimes very, very surprised, because I say, I don't believe that voice would come from that big man or that that very flirtatious looking woman, and they're very good at writing writing characters for women, and the that go against type and I'm very, very impressed with that. And often it's been men that have done that. So they've been very, very clued and switched on about their players. When when we're trying to find character, and you've probably what I am, what I am impressed about sometimes, with people is the more than words is how the character breathes, and how the character size and how the character finds its nuances around just the dialogue. So that it's not sometimes just dialogue, especially with character work. It's the breath into the work. So it's, well, my, you know, I want you to go over here and I want you to do this. And that gives you a life around of struggle around the character, rather than as, Yeah, mate. I want you to just go over there and I just want you to do This now wants you to do that gives us no life. So we're always working towards creating something that feels quite real trenched in their world, I call it more than more than words, which is, you know, the breath, the effort, and everything else around it something that that is the struggle of the character. And then you aren't saying that. But we've had many discussions with people around around heroes and anti heroes. And when we're playing goodies and baddies, you're sometimes never going to approach. You know, Abadi, like, you know, up here doing all this sort of stuff. Yeah. And it's, it's comedy, which is hilarious, you know, unless it's juxtaposition, like, yeah, for doing that kind of thing. There's something that just has the light and the shade to something, and we're just varying degrees of light and shade and there. Excellent. Wait, you know, I mean, I, you know, especially in the Path of Exile world, we don't list their bosses and people who don't know what a boss is, a boss is just purely evil, there's just purely bad, bad NPCs and characters, a shade of both. And they're a shade of good and their shade of bear, especially in this kind of world of Path of Exile. So we've got to kind of always be walking that middle ground where someone can go into that very dark, or they're very light place. And it also, you know, the delivery on expositional material, because that's what it says its exposition all the time, there's very little subtext to what you're doing, they can be I mean, you can do that with the more than words for the while you know that, that tells you how you might feel about some, but you're imparting a lot of knowledge and a lot of information for the player, its exposition, and we've got to be able to listen to that a lot. So that is a huge factor and choosing an actor as well, you can be am I actually listening to this? Am I getting the information that I really, really need for an anchor, listen to it for a next, you know, three or four hours. And also, whilst we then go into the process of recording, once someone's chosen, they need to also be reminded that the listening ear of somebody that is learning listening to all material for the very first time, slow it down by 20%, don't don't don't attack it as hard as you actually think you're attacking it, slow it down by 20%, which then informs the character yet again, even more, once you slow start slowing faster. Yeah, I'm gonna even talk up here. All that to say, Yeah, well, you know, it seems like, I've got to actually, oh, you know, creating the more than word stuff in the air, or the little text, you know, really slow that exposition down, and it becomes listenable, rather than just Yeah. And I've always said, like, you know, in terms of editing works with having gravitas to read, but the slower you say things, the more though, the more important those things become, like and so if you want to, like, you know, transmit that that feeling of like this, this you need to remember this information then slowing that down, that, you know, because a huge way towards that, I'm going back to your you know, to talking about voice selection and exposition things, a few of the clips I listened to with Path of Exile, especially in the early days, there wasn't quite like, how much does being an unusual voice plan to it like something new, because at some point, I was like, gosh, that's an interesting accent and kind of pitch. And like, you know, you meet those people in everyday life, who just like, you know, you meet them and you go, Gosh, you for like, really interesting voice, not necessarily easy to listen to, or whatever, but it just stands out for some reason. And we've kind of been interested in that in terms of trying to, like hoover up certain traits to then apply to characters or apply to voiceover in some way. How much do you bias towards looking for different voices that aren't just like, I have a sword and going on a journey? You know? That's That was lovely done that was it really? That's right. Well, that's that's our heroes, archetypal voice, how do we, how do we find you know, there's 10,000 of those and how do we find I think the first thing to acknowledge is that every everybody has a unique voice, a unique tambura a unique delivery and don't, don't don't think you are anybody else. You are so unique. And yourself. Sometimes you're your first delivery of who you are. There's not like anybody else. You know, some people were amazing mimics and some people were really, really good at actually doing somebody else's voice. I think I think personally, there's so many factors in doing this kind of work. First, first and foremost when I personally approach this work, is the sustainability of the voice. That's that's the most you've got to talk about the practicality of it. If you know you're going in and you're using Glock old dots, like engraved gravelly voices or something does not sit naturally with you, you will probably not sustain it and you'll create no JAWS for yourself, and you'll have a whole heap of issues with that sort of stuff. So that will probably talk about vocal health later on. But that's the first thing that I would I would probably say to a doctor that came in and gave me something very, very unusual. Is it sustainable for you? Cuz we're going to work hard, and you don't want to feel at any point your instruments sort of failing. If you feel that in a session, as I've always said, as it's the worst thing, especially like 15 minutes into like, two or two hour session, you just say, How am I going to? How's this gonna work? And it is, so you're right to put the number one because, yeah, if you can't do it for that long, you can't do it. Like, it's, I think, and then I start seeing, I've seen it myself and I start seeing the actor, they start clearing their throat, I was getting it myself a drink, to seek it, and it starts affecting their work and they become very, very apologetic, apologetic, and, and we're New Zealand's was self deprecated we're the worst. We're professional self deprecated. So if we feel like we're failing ourselves, we're failing the whole world, you know? So we've become exceptionally apologetic. And that that wastes time in itself. We have to keep reminding each other, you're doing a great job. It's okay. It's right. Take your time. And you've got this. That's what we have to do as he is New Zealanders to each other. I'm assuming dealing with Americans and you know, other other people that are very brash, and what you see is what you get, you know. So that's, that's the first thing that I look at the practicality of it. The second thing is that is it believable, because texts text, when you marry text and voice together? Somebody, they I've heard some amazing voices that are so incredible, but I do not listen to the material that's coming through. I first and foremost, habits really collects in well, that's where that's placed, that voice overrides what is important, and that's the performance or the piece of the material. So that is, that is something that often will be as an instinctual thing where I kind of go, I'm getting hit with a voice. That is what is, is actually being demonstrated to me first, it feels like a demonstration. And it's not connected to material, it feels like a performance. Like you're not the person you're trying to be the person sort of thing. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And, and I think we have, we have a limited amount of truth than us. And it's just trying to find those, those slight slides of our voice, whether it's high or low, or you know, how it's elongated out, or the accent that we might put on top of it. And it's subtleness or, you know, all those little, you know, texts that we might have that make something really, really interesting. So yes, the those two practicalities first, as you know, is it is it sustainable? Is it believable. And then when it is connected, and mostly when you do believe it, when it's a really, really interesting voice, and someone brings you something that you I mean, honestly, we're working with a to two dimensional piece of paper or the character and someone's rendering of it. What are we taking from that? We had a character just recently when I taught this, so let's look at this character. Let's look at him. He is scarred he has lost his leg. He has issues he what what makes him he's got, you know, a mohawk. But he's got something about the curl of his lip, he looks like he's angry, does each carrier chip on his shoulder. So when we sort of say, well, let's give a delivery, which means you have a chip on your shoulder. I don't approach it just purely as a voice I go, What is this person's history. So you know, if that if that because I've got a chip on my shoulder, you know, that might just bring up my speed or everything that I do, or I have a wall that's in front of me, I think that input forms the voice. As the same with you know, if we go for the, the woman that might be flirtatious in any particular way that you know, if we're only looking just at an image, and therefore she's an adventurer, and then she is well equipped with the, the, the compass around to her band while she has a sword or she looks actually really, really prepared in life. She's not dirty as a person. She's not scarred as a person, what she might educated, educated, white collar versus blue collar that can inform your accent as well. So there's so much information that you can garner just purely from an image. And I think there's a lot of research just in that. That's really interesting, because I've you know, I've looked at images, but I've never used them to that extent. And I think that is such a useful piece of info to really like what can you pull out of this because someone has spent a long time in bringing this character to life like you say, apart from the brief like You know, graphically, and they're, they're incredibly skilled in their own way. So like borrowing some of that, and yeah, really pulling out little traits that you can add an affectation or a speech impediment or something that's going to sell it as fantastic advice. Absolutely. I think so too. And I think that's just what I've discovered by listening to, you know, 100, people give me the same thing, you know, and it's just and sometimes, also, you would know this to Toby that sometimes you've just got to have some tenacity. If you're auditioning, you've just got to be prepared to lose it by going, I believe in this, I believe who this person is. And that pays off that, that's what steps sets you aside from, you know, 100 other people, we kind of go, I believe in this. And if you can line up all those things, which is the sustainability, the believability and the character, the actual emotive content of the script. And also, you know, those you've really studied the image of somebody's artwork, and that they have given you clues and little breadcrumbs along the way. And then look, if we get into the deep deepness of the real art of where you come from as a voice artist, your experience in life, and the people that you meet along the way, that person reminds me of that I that person I met in England, or that person, I'm in Israel reminds me of this person, and then you start embellishing these characters with people you actually know. And, and all the things that you studied and things that you do. And it's a beautiful, beautiful thing about getting older, you know, if you've become a student of life, you watch, and you look at nuances, and I've heard some incredible, not just voice that people have incredible voices and just ways of being and you go, Wow, I'm just going to take a little bit of that sometime and then injected here, and some character somewhere. And that makes Why believe that makes it believable, because that is your own personal experience being translated into the work you totally makes it authentic, like, totally authenticity these days. And VoiceOver is like, it's really swung from, like you say, from like, the, I know, the the old school like, I always use example, the Harvey Norman ads or like the voice where you're trying really hard to do that voice. And now it's just a complete opposite. And they just want to hear real people doing real things. And that's, that's what people connect with, you know, it's so interesting. The antihero is that 33 words in 30 seconds, it's now you know, 15 words in 30 seconds in slavery. We want to feel life as accessible. And with, with we've talked about so many things like we we've talked about 35 millimeter, which was, you know, so expensive to do to the point that we can just record and record and record and record, we can make movies, now we can make things from our home that are just so incredible. But do we do it has the technology made us better at making, I mean, we've got studios that are better, we could make albums out of stuff, we could make platinum albums of stuff, creativity can never be replaced. Genius can never be replaced. But discipline also is something that needs to be taught and learned, you know, especially, you know, you strike me as a person who's very disciplined, and you want to learn, and you want to better yourself and your craft, and you're not afraid to sort of throw yourself into that. And I really admire that, you know, I could take a bit of what you do, and to my life, and not afraid to say that. And I think that's we can all learn from each other. I mean, I think the future in the technology is what's going to be coming out of people's bedrooms is going to be just incredible. You know, I think I think Hollywood and I think, you know, the gaming companies and all these things must be scared on so many levels in regards to the revenue and their worry about, you know, I mean, you I don't watch television, I watch YouTube channels, you know, I watch, you know, monetize YouTube channels, and I love it. And it's because I'm watching people renovate French chateaus in real time, and I'm watching the seasons turn into the spring and, you know, the challenges and that is amazing to me. Yeah, nothing replaces a good idea that, like you're saying, and a well executed good idea. That's, you know, that is and that's like, you know, when you're coming up with the characters, it's exactly the same thing. It's an idea and and like, yeah, you know, take so much from that, that whole, you know, idea of, of getting all the things in a line and then adding real parts from your own life. Like it's, yeah, that because you hear so often that people talk about life experience being so poor, it's so important for the end. And that's the reason why it's because, you know, you build the set of you know, you make a patchwork quilt, animal is interesting fabric that you've come across, and you end up with a really interesting blanket as opposed to like a white cotton one that you could find farmers you know, well as I said to you, I think when I was 19 and 20 all those tutors, those amazing people that I had, it didn't hit me twice 30 Here information because I'd had life I had fallen in love. I've fallen out of love I'd had all these things in experiences and you know, just meant so much more you know Cool. I know we're kind of reaching the end of the hour. But we've got I've got a few more questions. And if you're right, you're up for it, we'll go into it because we just this has been such a great chat, when the first thing you noticed there was voice health. And you know, and it is challenging for the voice, I mean, character voicing, I've, you know, done a lot of a lot of commercial work, it's kind of our set as the commercial sort of corporate end of the sphere. I've done a few games. But the games I have done, I found really quite challenging from from just a, like the athleticism required from the voice because you don't really get that in commercial because you're only doing 32nd reads, it's usually just kind of like a radio kind of voice. And it's not, it's not finding the edges of your voice, which you have to do. You know, it's more like 100 meter sprint, the character stuff, like, that's the same kind of like trying to find the edge than it is, you know, doing the comfortable reads. So how do you sort of help talent with that, like the length of sessions, shouting is a big one for me, like I basically, I just refuse to shout these days, I haven't, I haven't actually done the work to learn how to shout. And I know that that is a thing. And I should actually do that, because it pre broadened my, my abilities. But what's your, you know, advice for length of sessions and shouting and stuff in terms of voice health? Look, this is where I've cut my teeth since my 20s, you know, trial and error. And also I had an amazing singing teacher who trained at the Boston School of Music. And they were in the good old days back in the, you know, a few decades ago, they used to put cameras down singers throats to actually look at the mechanism of, of the vocal instrument. And so she imparted some incredible knowledge to me about rotational body technique, and of the engagement of the body with the voice. And that has sustained me through my career of 20 something years now, in vocal health, I've not I've, I've lost my voice from using it for maybe six or seven hours of pure shouting and screaming and Monster work. But the recovery is quite, quite quick. That I think to, to put in its simplest terms, it first is to actually think that your body and your voice cannot be separated, they are together, they are, they need to be engaged. Regardless, if you're just sticky lating through your 32nd Read or you're doing commercial work, or you know, you you turn your head or you have a way of doing it, you're engaged physically and in some way, now you take that to the extreme we work on, you might work on one side of it, I work on the other extreme, which is pure, you know, wow. So lots of periods of time, you will walk out of those sessions. If you if your body is not sore, then you have not worked, you've worked with this not interesting, it's to do with the lateral muscles. And it's to do with a rotation of the body. And it's to do with the position of the body. Now, what they did is when watching singers of different sorts of disciplines, whether that was rock singers, they would analyze their body positions when they were achieving certain notes, as so that they knew that if they went into the jazz bars, that when certain singers were trying to get a certain tone and a certain sort of feel about it, they were on the front foot relaxing the larynx of the throat. And when rock singers wanted to hit the high note, they would hit the back foot, they rotated the microphone down, rotated it down, turning the lateral muscles on, and they're going back into the back, you can watch rock singers who do it, the ones that lose their voices, and they're not, they're not very good at it, they'll lose it throughout the gigs, but the good ones will go on the back foot on the high notes and sink down and rotate the microphone down. And then let the note go. So when I go on to do a Spartacus session, or I go into the Power Ranger session, if I'm engaging in that kind of work, monster work, I need to go what first and foremost, I'm looking at the script or the you know, my cue points, what specifically am i doing and where does my body position need to be? And what kind of how am I and what am I engaging in hence the dance training tense hence the dance training is pretty important and the mind body and spirit is very very connected and whatever we do if you can align everything up and understand that we are doing it you know we can can do great things. So yeah, it's it's very important I think to to just engage first and foremost, your mind and body and start experimenting with this kind of work shouting is is definitely something that you need to engage your lateral muscles in your back muscles and doing if it's not you're going to work this part of your body and then you will lose it are very quickly and you'll start getting Flynn build up our flame, there is the first, the first sign that your throat or your voice is trying to protect itself. So it's creating a layer Kotova then if you do, unfortunately, do it incorrectly for a long period of time, you can get nodules on your throat, and they will have to be they don't, they don't often turn into being cancer. But they can do they just have to be surgically removed. And it takes a bit of time to heal from that. Yeah, I think also, this is the kind of work that is on an individual basis, because everybody holds certain tensions in their body. And breathing meditation work releases a lot of trial, hard childhood traumas, it's incredible when I work with students about how much trauma or you know, relaxation, or lack or how much they bring into the studio with them is quite a bit of baggage from everybody, you know, and when you start doing this kind of work, which is very, very heightened, and I've seen actors completely fall on the floor and pass out because they've, you know, they've reached their physical and their mental capacity of doing that kind of work. Yeah, it's fun. And it's, that's why there's so good. Well, hence also why like, it's so important to really align yourself with the character that you've created and bring Authenticity to it. So it feels like a natural thing to do rather than forcing, like, you know, to do something. And I mean, is it something that you build up over time physiologically as well, rather than that, as well as mentally but like, is there a physiological limit? Because I feel like I you know, if I shattered all the time, I build up a tolerance like I look at like, you know, vocalists like Zack de la Rocha, or someone from Rage Against machine who just literally is Korea is screaming, and he seems to be able to sustain it. And I'm just like, I can't even do that for like, you know, 10 seconds without him suffering the consequences the next day, and there must be a kind of a physiological component, I would think as well. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's called get the check, like get the check at the end of the week? Yeah, well, it's kind of like that. I mean, when we were doing it, like, you know, two or three times a week, and we were suffering, we had to, I mean, some people just do it instinctually. And they they go, this is how I sustained it. And it becomes, you know, written into your body, you immediately know how to turn it on and turn off. And like I do now to that is just like you, you would probably if I videoed you doing a certain type of work, or a certain type of accent, I bet I could probably pinpoint different physiologies of where you turn your head or the nuances of that sort of stuff. It's not it's not even, it's subconscious now, yeah, and for different accents as well. Like, it's like, you know, each person has a different posture sort of thing like it or whether you're, you know, you're talking about the side of your mouth, or it's, you know, and that's really interesting about the voice placement. But the Yes, I agree, I think I think, you know, it's becomes eventually a cerebral point, that you start here and you're going, I'm failing at this, okay, I need to sort of start working this better. And then it becomes into your body. And, you know, it's like, I know how to do things that I haven't done this to three or four months, but I know how to do cross Brain Stuff. It's near in your body. It's like a cricket, cricket player, you know, spare pick up a ball and throw it directly in a wicket. It's the same as playing sport. So you asked to learn? Yeah, you'll learn how to how to form those postures and protect your voice, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, lateral muscles, you know, your, your glutes and your posterior and all that, you know, it all just sits in the right place. Cool. It's very interesting. Couple more things. One related to that last one exertion scripts, because I've always struggled with, like, everything ends up just sounding like sex noises. And like it gets, it gets kind of embarrassing and kind of like you're like, climbing a rope running, jumping. Like, there's what actually differentiates those things together? Are there any like, I mean, there's hilarious moments. I'm sure you could recount from exertion sessions. But like, is there any advice for exertion sessions for people that haven't done them before? Yeah, I mean, I've done lots of different TV shows, where we go and do fight scenes and they will sound like an orgy and an orgy that sounds like a fight scene. Yeah, and that's, that's hilarious. And then someone will point it out and then we will have a bit of a laugh about it. I was actually I was the lead actors, writing and efforts double for a whole TV series. So he was too busy to come into work. And do those those parts of the post production so I was employed to be his writing. And that sounds like when you're riding a horse, it sounds like you're humping somebody. Honestly. Ah, you know, and you shouldn't get paid for this. It's kind of weird, isn't it? Yeah, it is amazing isn't it is strange. But then also, I've been in a session with 10 actors, male and female and we were voicing an orgy for a specific show sword and sandals show show. And then And no, this just sounds like a battle it sounds like strangling somebody. But it's six and data not that dissimilar joins out there. Yeah. Plenty of embarrassing moments for sure. Yeah. Especially when two people you have to walk up with another woman in the UK or other people around you. counterpart. And you're going What do you do just sick, you know, voice the 16. And it's like, getting paid for this. This is so weird. This weird of all with it. You go. I wish they were streaming this? Because this is really interesting. Yeah, exactly. work. So I don't know if I can answer how you'd make it better. I think it's just yet again, also this kind of more than word stuff that's happening around at the effort stuff is going to be based on truth reel, you obviously if you're playing the the screen back and you're doing it to the perps, and that sort of stuff, you were actually looking at the technicality of actually just dropping it at the right time. You know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For games, you know, usually, it's like, you know, fire climbs, like falling. noises, I was just amazed at the variety of death noises. It's like, you know, death by falling from 50 meters death by falling from 10 meters. Tell you the whole gamut of them. So you'll go okay, we just want to start with 12 Attack sounds, defense sounds, then screaming sounds, three second screaming sounds and then the screaming sounds that you fell off a cliff. Now there's a difference between being thrown a falling off a cliff and throwing off a cliff. So you go, Oh, that's throwing a falling off Cliff then getting thrown off a cliff as someone threw you like, it's a surprise. Yeah. suicide death. That you are impaled on something. So oh, man, and you want to do very good. People are very, very good at it, then there are actors, and it does worry me, when they say I will not do it. And they tell me after their cars. It is tricky, because I know that their voice is their instrument. And I be as respectful as I possibly can with that, and we don't push it as far as I say, what is your limit on this? Can we do five can we get five screams you know, but I think also, that's really, really important. If you're going to this kind of gaming work there is there is this kind of work that has to be done around your character stuff. So you will have to be essentially, if you are cast and this sort of stuff to try and be as transparent as you can in regards to what you might or might not do. But be prepared that you will be asked to do these extra things often at the end of the session. We do 30 seconds of sprinting another 30 seconds of being sprinted by being chased. You know, in that very lightheaded on the floor of the studio after Yeah. It's basically I mean, if it's if it's like if someone's got a studio breaks or something where they've like, walled themselves, and I've like heard of voice actors who just like, by the end of it, they just drenched in sweat, there's water running down the inside the mic starting to fail, because the humidity is too high, it does get a lot more intense. And I think most people think, absolutely, you're soaked and you've got to keep yourself hydrated. But also if you're a good director, like have you ever personally either been a voice actor, so I know what actors need in regards to breaks. I have to say we're taking a break now guys, so come back in 10 or 15 minutes, overly afraid just to say, hey, look, I need to get a warm cup of water, a break or slip out for a bit and it makes so much difference. Just don't talk during your break. Don't call anyone. And if you're Australasian, we used to say self deprecating you Okay, yeah, yeah, I've got good. Yeah, let's go on. And then of course, start to fit in the work. You know, it does just just oops, okay, yeah, we've got five hour sessions. If you're looking at the time and you're getting, you know, four or five pages. It's fine. Yeah, exactly. And that's all good. I'm feeling a bit like there now without the air conditioning in my studio, I'm displaying it almost strange. But when one more question, something we touched on, and we'd said we'd cover is the the role in the future of of AI in games because like, you know, it's all very well recording, you know, going in the recording a stack of lines, because you want to cover every eventuality, especially like for triple A games, which are kind of like they're not, you know, roleplay games, they're kind of on a course. And there's all these people you have to meet in this like in this there's all these different eventualities. Obviously the ultimate would be to have like a, what they call the digital first AI Whoo Hoo, a dynamic AI so that, you know, basically a chatbot within the game can come up with new lines every time, like there's no limit to the amount of new stuff they can come up with, and then voice it within the game. This is kind of, you know, this is kind of in the, I'd say, sort of two to five year out, is there anything that you, you know, think that AI will change games or change the voicing for games? Do you think like, you know, main characters and NPCs will still be voiced by humans? Or when you're excited? That's a really challenging question. Because I want to say no, I want to say that the authenticity of of that of and the emotions that a human being can bring is, is always going to be very, very important. But the technology is so good now that within I mean, I think you might know that Adobe Audition had had released a piece of software that could deep fake someone's voice so I can take your voice. And then I could speak through your condenser mic, and it would replicate your voice. Now they pulled it the they pull that technology immediately, because it was obviously very, very dangerous. Because I could get, you know, Joe Biden, exactly, yeah, becomes very problematic, very quickly, cancer exceptionally problematic with their technology is there now. So that's, of course, the scenario of a human replicating and other humans voice. I believe that we will get it so good. It'll be it'll be based on the engineers ability to create nuance within the software. And the decisions that will be made. Eventually, I'd say within 10 years, the AI will be able to replicate the nuance of human characteristics and contextually pulled out from the script, possibly, absolutely. My game will do. Yeah, and I mean, everything that is happening right now, in our technology, whether you know it or not, is being recorded as being observed and filed. And I'm gonna say it's ripping me off. But it's it's an it's, it's studying human beings. Yeah, data is there isn't that? Yeah, that's what we deal with. Yeah. So the big question, I think it's another really interesting thing, what, what, what do we, as voice artists have beyond this technology? And where does our creativity sit? Beyond all with it? How, what are we going to do with this technology, that that, that helps us and what other forms of creativity are beyond gaming beyond voicing, commercials, documentaries, you know, trailers, whatever. That could be our future work. And because I believe people, people will cut corners, and I believe they will cut costs. I think that is something that is part of the paradigm not too far away from here. Yeah, economic incentive has always been the driving factor in the past isn't that so slightly, and there's voice banks, I mean, you know, this now working in audio engineer, we can go into grab 50,000 variations of somebody screaming or a baby crying, we can just search on those voice bags, and then pull that piece of information. We don't need to bring somebody had to do that. Now. We can just pull those libraries together. And within the software of editing, what we can do with that we can stretch things we can, you know, record things at 96 kilohertz, we can drop things down we can. It's fascinating. It's so fascinating, and I am an already terrified of it at the same time, along with the rest of us. Yes. I think you might feel the same way. I don't know what to perspective on it is, yeah, what do I feel about? I think I do think that there will always be a bit like how vinyl records have come back. There will always be a place for some voice artists. But I think that like, especially in the areas, I mean, even like, you know, starting today, there are so many areas where you probably don't need a human to read it out. Like you know, those those kind of travel announcements and things that are purely transactional, or, you know, they don't need a motion they don't need just need the words in the right in right order. And it's bespoke each time. So it's, it's kind of impractical to have someone you know, voice every possible, you know, think it's just like, you know, Siri and Google Home and stuff when you when you say, OK, Google, they, you couldn't have someone record that script, because the script would be infinitely long. So like, there, it's interesting that AI has had to AI voice has had to, you know, rise to create that technology. And I think there's probably other areas that we don't even realize exist yet because we didn't realize that was the thing five years ago, and yet it's just it's everywhere. It's completely you know, yeah, it's just in our faces all the time. So it'll be a very interesting area. I like to think as well like you that there will be parts that can't be replaced and and, you know, I've got these these beautiful stereo monitors that I got a long time ago from like, 1976 and they sound better than the ones that I got from like a couple of years ago. And it's like, because they've improved on the technology. But that's not actually what we want. What we want is like the soul of those old speakers, it just sounds better because someone put that much more time into it. And it wasn't designed to computers and stuff, it's just got this kind of vibe around it, which I'm not sure I can get vibe yet. Hopefully, they can't replicate vinyl DNA because it has a lower frequency. Because yeah, and just all like I've had a previous life as a documentary filmmaker and photographer and like, the old lenses are the best because they have these inbuilt floors, which change the light in a certain way, which the new lenses look totally flat and clean and perfect. We don't want perfect, we want color. And we want something that makes it different to reality. And I feel like that's kind of why, you know, old vintage lenses are sought after an old vintage monitors because they add this color that you kind of can't fabricate in a way. So I'm like shooting on film. You know, going back to the interview, you're shooting 35 mil, it has these, these very subtle things like when stuff moves across the frame, there's that blue there, which you can simulate. But it's also got like when you stop filming, and it starts blowing out all of those colors. Again, you can simulate it, but it doesn't look as good as the real thing. So yeah, I think this is a really interesting conversation, and I need to think about it really deeply. And I'd like to have conversation about this technology, you know, sometime in the future with you again, and see how much because things got so quick, so fast. So like, I can't even keep up with it. Exactly, yeah. So they just just saw that the other thing they've just saying that they're trying to release the digital wallet thing. You know, that's, that was just in stuff the other day, you know, we're gonna get Yeah, this is the biggest thing that was since airpos. They said, By the way, everything's going off your card now and your phone your phone. Yeah. And then what's the next step? The chips in the wrist? That's what it's gonna be. Because yes, because not everybody in seven generations, they're going to be very good with their phones. Yeah, exactly. I know people lose their phones all the time when we put your money in your ID and everything. Well, it's great. Absolutely fantastic to talk today. We've covered a lot of ground and anything that we didn't cover in the interview that you wanted to close off on. No, I'm I'm a I'm a typical Kiwi self deprecating. So, you know, I'm a sensitive person. And I think that just really works well with my career and what I do and also you know, hey, with the with ai, ai will never be sensitive. We'll never be as funny. We'll never be as deep we'll never be as as flawed as we are, you know, and that's the beauty of how you go, Oh, well, it's me so flawed. The future that's why we're such an amazing big A arguments are more flawed than newer, real and flawed. Toby. Lovely to catch up and you're doing great work there. Cheers.