The Monster Factoryconsists ofspecialist and talented vocal stunt performers who create sounds for all manner of creatures and monsters in video games, movies, and beyond. That could include zombies or even aliens, as was the case forEidos Montreal’sGuardians of the Galaxyvideo game. Indeed, Eidos Montreal shared a behind-the-scenes video around two years ago that detailed how many alien characters in the game were brought to life through The Monster Factory. Game Rant recently had the opportunity at Gamescom LATAM to learn more about CEO Sébastien Croteau’s involvement in the project. In some projects, The Monster Factory doesn’t just perform; Croteau consults on a lot of projects and, inGOTG, created the alien language players hear.
Speaking at this year’sGamescom LATAM, Croteau talked about the consulting aspect of his job, which sometimes means creating almost a whole new language. It doesn’t go as far as Klingon or some fantasy worlds, but it’s important that alien or creature languages sound intelligent and can communicate that even if players don’t know the language.
Voicing Aliens In Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Game
When voicing aliens inGuardians of the Galaxyasacreaturevoice actor, Croteau explained that the process for envisioning their sounds is not different from actors learning about the history of their characters in a movie to deliver them properly. However, creature voice actors have to look at the physicality of a character, namely facial and body features, that may influence their sounds. A creature without a mouth emitting noise from elsewhere would obviously sound very different from a creature with a gigantic mouth. From there, it’s also about understanding the creature’s function: is it a wild animal? Is it a pseudo-intelligent creature? Is it an intelligent creature from a warrior-focused race? All of these elements factor into creating a creature’s sound.
Depending on those elements, sometimes creature voice actors have to invent a language - which is exactly what Croteau did forGuardians of the Galaxy. It’s important, Croteau highlighted, that any alien conversation had a “genuine feeling that it’s a conversation among intelligent beings,” as nonsensical noises passed off asalien languageswould not hold up to scrutiny. For realism, Croteau added, “It needs to be more elaborate than that.” One way this is done is by retaining human elements of language, with Croteau using the natural upward inflection at the end of a question as an example:
“I need to do that inflection, even in an alien language. Because we need to keep some elements of the human language, even when we’re creating an alien language, so that people can understand that it’s a question. There’s a point at the end of a sentence, so we have to play with certain human rules, even in alien languages…You don’t want to go into a game, listen to an intelligent creature speak an alien language, and it sounds like gibberish. It needs to be more intelligent in the design and the way that the voices are being delivered.
The Building Blocks of Alien Languages In Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Once Croteau settled on the consonant and vowel sounds, emphasized certain inflections, and otherwise had the building blocks of the language down, he began to teach it to other actors on the project to get the pronunciation as right as possible. Sometimesvideo games create entirely new languages, but that wasn’t necessary forGotGand Croteau.
This whole project took three months in order to make it realistic and believable, and the payoff is quite obvious to any listener inGotGwho takes notice. As Croteau pointed out, though, the point of a lot of their work is to not be noticed - players would certainly note alien-like gibberish, but natural alien languages feel just that: natural.
“We didn’t have time to build a complete natural language, like some fantasy Elvish languages orStar Trek’s Klingon, but I wanted to ensure that when you are listening to the conversation among aliens, you have a genuine feeling that it’s a conversation among intelligent beings.”
Overall, The Monster Factory’s work inGuardians of the Galaxyshowcases the impressive capabilities of its vocal stunt performers at voicingalien creatures, as just one example of their expertise in the fields of sound design, voice acting, and more.
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
WHERE TO PLAY
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