EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH KHRIS BROWN

THE VOICE LADY
By Santiago Mendez

Khris Brown, worked at LucasArts since the first Monkey Island, she managed the product support department and later she moved into voice production. She worked on all the great games from the "golden years" of LucasArts like Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, etc. She also had a special "rol" in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revange. Actually she runs Khris Brown & Associates, where she works in voice for games and movies. Among her credits you can find movies like: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence. She recently worked on the excelent game Psychonauts, but no we are not going to talk about it (at least not yet) because she worked on the lovely The Dig, a game that's almost as lovely as her.

Tell us a bit about yourself, and about your career in sound business. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that there are no many women in sound.

I came from Universal Pictures in LA to LucasArts in 1990, and started working on voice in 1992 because of my casting experience. It's true that sound in entertainment seems mostly dominated by men, but there are many women doing great work. Because the games and entertainment industries are so competitive and staffed with such intelligent, experienced and well educated people, there's no real interest in having someone on your team who is sexist or focused on anything other than making the best game possible. So it's not much of an issue.

Since the history of The Dig goes back to 1989. How early in the game have you been involved?

I only got really involved when we started looking at casting - before then the game had been floating around the division for a while, but it wasn't yet ready to be fully produced.

What can you tell us about the actors you've worked on in The Dig? Did any of them had to make more takes than the others?

To be honest, it's been so long that I don't really remember very much about the nitty gritty details of recording. When we got the materials back, I remember that all the actors were really nice and worked very hard to make their characters believable and emotionally compelling.

Do you remember how many lines of dialogue were in The Dig?

Not exactly, but there were quite a few. I'm sure Darragh (O'Farrell, voice director/producer at The Dig) could look it up for you.

There is a great difference between movies and games, especially with graphic adventures. For example I've heard Robert Patrick saying "It won't do anything" too many times, even more than Schwarzenegger saying "I'll be back". Do you find any major differences between working in movies and games?

I do. Because people hear game lines so often, we try to record as many variations as we can so that the player is still engaged and interested. Tim (Schafer) is great about this especially - we recorded Raz (in the upcoming game "Psychonauts") saying that he wasn't able to do something at least 50 different ways. Working in film, you're very often creating just an atmosphere for the viewer to move through, and the emotional impact you're trying to achieve is part of a linear story with a defined beginning, middle and end. In games, the player is an essential part of the experience, and we want to immerse and welcome them so that the characters in the game are their friends and you can move around a hundred different ways and still be engaged. Recording for games is far more challenging and interesting, I think. It's unfortunate that voice acting and directing in games doesn't have its own category in the AIAS and development awards. It makes such a huge difference when it's done well that most people don't pay attention to it - it only stands out when it's bad. When it's good, it should be invisible and you should just be thrilled playing the game. But it would be nice to have it recognized for the very integral and essential part of the game it is.

How was a normal day while working in The Dig? What was exactly your job in it?

I was the senior editor, and had a wonderful team of editors working with me. We would load, cut, clean (where necessary for pops and clicks) the voice, work with the team to get it into the game, and work with the sound department on processing and incorporating voice as a part of the whole soundscape. We also dealt with people's comments on everything from Cora's dialog and inflection to whether Robert Patrick's stories about the guy he met who was kidnapped by aliens were true. There were * lots* of lines, and lots of changes, so it was very exciting!

We've already asked Julian Kwasneski about this and we want to have a second opinion to confirm it. You've worked with voices for a long time so you should know..... what is Ludger Brink's accent?

I'd have to hear it again. But pan-Nordic/Germanic would cover it.

Any funny story or anecdote about The Dig?

Not really. Darragh's stories about what happened in the studio were always great, and he's a great story teller, so it was always fun. It was so long ago that it's difficult to remember. But we would always have favorite lines that would strike us as being funny (editing voices for 8 hours a day in a windowless room can make you a little crazy), and we'd do things like mail them to one another so that they'd play automatically, just to be a pest. Julian would make little songs out of them sometimes, or make music out of favorite syllables. He's very talented!

Have you participated in this old tradition at LucasArts, the "Pizza Orgy"?

Of course! Pizza orgies are the best. I think every company should have them a few times in a game's development. It breaks down hierarchical barriers in the company and promotes togetherness and team spirit. It's also a great way for the designers and artists to have an outside perspective on their work. I love when people tell me what they think of the voices, what they liked or didn't like, or what became annoying after hearing it for the thousandth time. Then I'll know how to make things better.

And finally. What do you think about The Dig?

The Dig is neat. It was a fairly revolutionary concept at the time and took courage for LucasArts to develop. I feel grateful to have been able to share a period of time when some pretty amazing games were made, and feel very lucky and happy to have had such a great team. To be able to continue to work with some of the same great people today is the best of both worlds, so I'm thrilled.

February 28, 2005.
Interview © 2005 Santiago Méndez.

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