Archived from the original dev blog and left as it was written, so it reflects the game as it stood in 2008.
Believe it or not, voice actors are not perfect. We're human. We mess up occassionally, and sometimes during the process we become lightheaded or even frickin' delirious. And sometimes we just have really bad days. I know I have. But occasionally we'll have a day or session where we just have to let loose and have fun with it. It's either that or punch someone in the face, and that's not very productive unless you're Mike Tyson.
Oh wait a sec, he bites pplz ears off. Nevermind.
Anyway, because of this (not Tyson biting ears), the amount of bloopers and outtakes that happen during the course of a production can be abundant. Here's a small selection, some from the earlier months when we were still trying to find our way. Ah the memories.
Now, having said all this, being all loosy goosy doesn't always help depending on the material and context of a scene.
Think about the last scene in HL2 EP2 that Merle Dandrige (Alyx Vance in the HL2 franchise) had to work on. I won't spoil it for those who haven't played the game(s), but this scene in all likelyhood didn't evolve a sizeable amount of laughter or fooling around (no not that kind, yeh perv). I don't see how it could. Sometimes you have to find a place mentally for this type of scene and channel that raw emotion through. Thankfully as the security guard voice actor, all I have to do is on occasionally spurt out corny one-liners... but in a good way. ^ _ ^
When it comes down to it, we'll put on our "serious" hats and get the work we need to get done, but sometimes you gotta to have fun with it every once and a while, otherwise you're gonna be in bad shape at the end of the day.
And Mike Tyson will bite your ear off.
And now, for the sake of adding a special bonus, here's an clip featuring Mike "cornettheory" Hillard (http://www.onlyintheory.com), one of our scientist voice actors at his best, reciting lines from the infamous "Don't let it overcharge" scene. He does 3 takes all the way though, reading his scientist lines in proper, while deciding to read my guard lines in an... interesting manner. He also seems to have a knack at narration, apparently. Everyone on the team found it rather humourous. Myself included.
(Disclaimer: Any and all materials presented within this webblog are work-in-progress and, as such, are merely presented as approximations of the final ingame product. HL1 and HL2 sound effects used for nostalgia purposes only.)