Interview with Audio Lead / Voice Director of LucasArts: David Collins
Mr. Collins has been kind enough to grant The EUCantina an interview. He talks about his role as Audio Lead at LucasArts, what voicing a video game character is like, and of course, The Force Unleashed.
EUCantina (EUC): Mr. Collins, thank you for joining me and visiting EUCantina.
David Collins (DC): Thanks for the invite! Your site looks great. Glad to see so much passion for SW EU. Especially after contributing to it for so many years.
EUC: Now, you are the audio lead for LucasArts and have worked on many of my favorite games, including Kotor II and Republic Commando. What, exactly, does your job entail?
DC: Basically, My job as an audio lead means that I’m “responsible for everything that comes out of the speakers.” So, anything having to do with Music, Sound Effects and Acting (or voice), basically. My official title is “Audio Lead / Voice Director,” which means that I also deal with casting and directing actors on various projects (I have a theatrical background and acting career as well).
The Star Wars projects that I’ve lead in this capacity are Republic Commando, Battlefront II, and The Force Unleashed. Generally, I touch almost all projects in the building in one way or another. I guess I earned a rep back in the Starfighter and Bounty Hunter days of being a “go-to” Star Wars Game Audio guy (IE, I’m a huge Star Wars fan and knew all of the film sounds by heart… like many other fans). 
But being a lead means that you are married to the project from its concept phase all the way up to its ship date. It’s a very satisfying process, creatively.
On Kotor II, which you mentioned, I actually didn’t work on the audio other than voice… I was one of the (many) voice actors in the game. I voiced all of the Trandoshans (which I also did for Republic Commando), as well as most of the Sullustans and a male Twi’lek. That was a fun challenge, because the script was all in made-up languages, such as Huttese or Dosh, the Trandoshan language (much of the latter I made up during the session with various hisses, clicks and guttural sounds). Because of my Star Wars fandom, I loved the challenge!
EUC: You are currently working on Lucasarts’ upcoming The Force Unleashed game. Can you tell us what we can expect in terms of the audio and what you have done on the game thus far?
DC: Sure! The goal is make a next-gen, AAA, truly cinematic Star Wars game that makes you feel like you’re immersed in that galaxy. The same is true with audio: I want this to be a game that feels immersive, cinematic, and unmistakably Star Wars at every moment in the game: from the music, to the thousands of new Sound Effects (which must fit in seemingly with all of the amazing film sounds), to the creatures and the actors…
My first challenge was to create audio for the amazing “pre-viz” movies that the team made back in 2005 (you may have seen them on YouTube, etc). It was there that I really tried to figure out what the Force really sounded like… I didn’t want it to be too synthetic, or too “gamey,” if that makes sense. I wanted it to feel like the apprentice almost had the ability to break the sound barrier! Side note: The highlight of that Force Power Previz video for me was voicing the Stormtrooper that gets thrown around myself… that was fun. “Help ME!!!!!!” J
My second challenge was to work on the story. I was lucky enough to be in Haden Blackman’s feedback loop as he released his first few drafts of the script, and I was just amazed. I took each draft and immediately worked with my boss, Darragh O’Farrell, to begin my involvement in the immensely-important job of casting the Force Unleashed.
Then there’s all of the under-the-hood stuff: the tools, the technology… how am I going to make audio an amazing part of this game? What about DMM? Euphoria? Etc…
And then finally, the design and implementation begins, and this took about 18 months total. I have a team of amazing sound designers working with me, like Brian Tibbetts, Tom Bible, Erik Foreman, Damian Kastbauer… all veteran game and film guys, and huge Star Wars fans. Together, we created all of the design and game integration.
Currently, we are mixing the game, doing bug fixes, making tweaks, and working on all of the international versions. The game is so amazing! I can’t wait until it’s released in September.
EUC: Along with being the audio lead for The Force Unleashed, you also voice the Secret Apprentice’s droid side-kick, Proxy. What can you tell us about voicing in a game and also about Proxy as a character?
DC: Being a voice actor in games is a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of hard work. It takes actors with an incredible imagination, because you’re in the studio with nothing but a director, you and a microphone. Imagine playing a Stormtrooper in a game: you’re in a quiet studio, and you have a script full of “Death Yells,” and you have to just go for it! It sounds silly, but once it’s in the game, it adds so much to the soundtrack. Throughout the years, I’ve met and worked with some of the best voice talent in the industry, and I’ve learned from each and every one of them.
On TFU, we really went out of our way to find great film and theater actors as well as voice actors, because we shot TFU like a film: from table read, to rehearsals, to production. All of the actors were in a studio, doing mocap and dialogue, while feeding each other lines. We really worked the scenes up like a theater piece. It makes all the difference in the final product… this game’s story feels so cinematic, and the performances are wonderful.
My role as Proxy came about mainly due to my deep understanding of the script, my background as an actor, etc…. remember what happened to Harrison Ford while he read across from all of the actors auditioning for Star Wars? He eventually was cast as Han Solo. Well, while Darragh and Haden were casting TFU, I was the actor reading across from every single audition… from LA to London, for about nine months. When the table-read happened, I read Proxy, because they were really having trouble casting that role. Well, the cast and crew fell in love with it! They still went out and auditioned hundreds of people… but they loved what I did. Eventually, they offered me the part.
I’ve gotta tell you, he’s an amazing character! He’s not anything like C-3PO, and he’s not evil like HK-47 from Kotor… he’s actually totally unique. He’s a prototype Holo droid, and he can appear as anyone and fight like anyone! He’s also a very fancy communications model, and serves as a holo-comlink of sorts for Vader through the Apprentice’s missions.
He is The Apprentice’s training Droid, and his Primary Programming is to try and kill the Apprentice… this is the programming that Vader gave Proxy! This is how Vader has trained The Apprentice all of his life! And yet, Proxy is his only friend and companion… so the comic irony comes from the fact that Proxy and the apprentice are best buddies… but Proxy’s always trying to do him in during various ambushes and funny moments throughout the game. I don’t think either of them know any better… their entire lives, they’ve never known anything else…
I like to think that I’m giving Proxy’s performance a certain innocence and loyal friendship, because I don’t know if Proxy really understands death fully, in spite of how lethal and dangerous he is. Haden and Darragh certainly directed it that way as well. I imagine that if he ever actually did succeed in killing the Apprentice, he would be full of grief. He’s such a great character. I love the relationship that Proxy has with the Apprentice, and Sam Witwer and I had the time of our lives playing those scenes together. Sam is an amazing actor by the way, and a really close friend.
EUC: In a recent interview on GameTrailers TV, you hinted at a Cantina song still in production for The Force Unleashed. Will it be similar to the Cantina songs heard in Kotor, or another re-make?
DC: This is a new piece specifically for this bar, and this story. We didn’t want to re-use the classic cantina stuff, but instead we wanted to add something new to the canon (besides, the Modal Nodes aren’t in this story, for those of you who know about the Cantina Band’s back-story). Let’s just say that it’s a cantina where certain creatures hang out, and according to a source book that we found, those creatures listen to a certain kind of music… so Jesse Harlin (long-time collaborator and friend, and music supervisor on TFU) penned another cantina tune that’s all-original.
Interestingly enough, Jesse was scheduled to begin writing it the week we filmed that episode of GTTV for Spike!
Part II
EUC: Also, because of that hint many people are wondering how late in
production scores and sounds are made for the game. When are they made,
and can you tell us if the sounds are completed for the game, as the score
was finished a little while back.
DC: Great, great question. Game audio often times works right behind the rest of the game production. It’s different than film, where traditionally audio is considered part of “Post-Production,” and they begin after principal photography and production have wrapped (although that’s not always the case). With us, we work right along-side the main production, iterating again and again, and go with the design changes in order to get it just right. Games are fluid, and you can change one little sound at any given time (unlike film, where sounds are mixed together and go out the door that way from beginning to end).
In the case of our new, original orchestral music, we specifically recorded earlier in the process for two reasons: one, we wanted to make sure that Mark Griskey’s incredible music was featured on every platform, so we wanted to get it nice and early so that we could feature it on the Wii, Playstation 2, etc, and their schedule (for various reasons) needed the music earlier. But reason number two is because we wanted to get Mark’s music into our tech and really finesse all of the bits and pieces in our interactive music system on TFU.
Mark played the game, worked with concept art, and worked with animatics to score certain cinematic moments… but most of it is put together in the game engine, and we want plenty of time to make sure that different musical beats happen at just the right time.
The cantina song was a late addition, because we were inspired late one evening by one of the designers (Tony Rowe) who really just wanted something fresh and new in one scene. Jesse Harlin was happy to oblige!
EUC: Getting off The Force Unleashed, what has been your favorite video game to work on thus far?
DC: Well, I know I’ve spoken a lot about the Force Unleashed, but really, at this point, it ultimately is my favorite! I’m just so pleased with how it’s turning out.
But, if pressed to talk about something else, the game that’s probably closest to my heart is Star Wars Republic Commando. I worked on that game for 22 months… and back in those days, teams were smaller, and we had fewer resources… as a result, the team was really just Jesse Harlin doing music, Harrison Deutsch doing voice editing, and then me as their lead. I did almost every sound effect in that game myself (although I had some amazing help towards the end when it got super-busy), rather than leading a big team of talented sound designers like I do now. I also directed most of the actors. So RC is a very personal expression of my audio tastes and my love for Star Wars… I can honestly say that it turned out exactly how I wanted it to.
While that team has long since disbanded, we still all keep in touch. It was an amazing project that completely surpassed everyone’s expectations in the media and buying public, so it had a wonderful underdog quality to it. It’s still a fan favorite and has a small cult following, and what’s been great has been my trips to Star Wars conventions, or Comicon, and meeting some of the game’s fans dressed as Commandos. Talk about EU creation!
It was also great working with the actors: Jonathan Cook as Sev, Raphael Sbarge as Scorch… but especially Temuera Morrison as Boss. I flew down to New Zealand to work with him for a week, and he was such a cool guy! He could’ve been stand-offish, etc, but he was so welcoming, and happy to have a representative from Lucasfilm in New Zealand. He showed me about town and we went and drank some beer… I don’t see him that often, but when I do, he tells me that when he works a Star Wars convention, he has more fans asking him about RC than Jango in Ep2! Maybe he was just being nice….
In a way, that experience prepped me for the challenge of The Force Unleashed, which, I gotta say, sounds even better.
EUC: If any game’s audio could be done differently, what game would it be and why?
DC: My sound design hero Ben Burtt has a saying about films: “Films aren’t released… they escape.” His meaning there is that there are always tweaks and fixes that one wants to make on every project, but eventually, one has to let it go. The same is true with games. Sometimes you just run out of time. I’d say the hardest games in that regard are from the distant past: Bounty Hunter being a great example. If we just had more time…
EUC: Lastly, what game do you feel is the best date to work in terms of audio
quality?
DC: Hands-down: Star Wars The Force Unleashed. Amazing acting performances, great sound design, stunning orchestral music score and John Williams going at you…. We really dug deep into our Star Wars knowledge and love for this one. We also worked quite a bit with Skywalker Sound, and they are just amazing
EUC: Thank you for joining me, Mr.Collins, and please feel free to come
back any time!
DC: Thanks so much for the invitation
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