配音员

We're about an hour into our interview when the computer behind Larry O'Brien makes a noise. 他转过身去查看电子邮件. 这是试镜电话. 他开始在法戈市中心的工作室工作, a room carpeted with black egg carton foam and an acoustic tile ceiling.

O'Brien is dressed for comfort in a pair of olive green cargo shorts, 凉鞋和一件浅绿色的平牌高尔夫球衫. 他的蓝眼睛, 细眉毛，光头, he bears a passing resemblance to "The Shield" star Michael Chiklis. He skims the call sheet: "Looking for a male or female for local TV. 温暖、自信的声音，迷人. 将结束只在当地播放的30秒电视广告.他设置好电脑开始录音, 他的声音比他谈话时的语气更流畅, 对着麦克风念几句话, stopping and starting again at times to try out different inflections. 奥布莱恩满意地转向他的电脑. 只需点击几下鼠标, he splices the good bits together and cuts dead spaces caused by the need to breathe. He sends out an email with the sound file and his standard cover letter. 这一切都发生在两分钟之内.

他必须速度快才能打败竞争对手. More than 3,800 voice over artists use the same Web site to get work. O'Brien figures if his audition is among the first 30 received, his chances are far better. More often than not, the eight to 15 auditions he completes per day will go unanswered.

他还与全国四家人才经纪公司合作. When he lands an audition through a talent agency, the jobs typically pay better. 新人认为在工作中发声很容易, 他说, 并收取少量费用以进入市场, 是什么压低了整个领域的价格. "They're just belittling their own product when they do that," O'Brien says. Voice over work is a scratch and fight business and it takes years to grow a reputation. O'Brien has his successes, but they come only through hours of auditions and self promotion.

Even on a slow audition day, he doesn't dare leave the office to do errands. 下一个试镜电话可能会给你带来薪水. 间歇, O'Brien keeps busy by sending out demo CDs for his "Ads On Hold" business, 哪家公司为公司答录机提供服务. He also shotguns about 100 resumes to advertising agencies every month. He spends about 30 percent of his time as a voice over artist getting his name out.

O'Brien reads scripts for clients such as The Radisson Hotel in Riyadh, 沙特阿拉伯, 全球电机, 微软, 谢尔体育用品和卡塔尔国际银行. 他的声音甚至在宣布 emergency warnings before tests on an oil rig off the coast of 沙特阿拉伯. “为什么他们想要一个美国人?? 这也是我们喜欢英国声音的原因，”奥布莱恩说.

2005年，他的一张演示光盘让他得到了一份为科尔维特公司朗读的工作. For two years, his voice was on the owner's manual DVD for every Corvette sold in North America.

奥布莱恩在纽约州俾斯麦长大.D., and thought being a disc jockey would be the "coolest job in the world.“他的真姓是罗伯逊. He adopted his professional name at 17 due to an admitted lack of understanding of reality.

"I thought I would have all these women throwing themselves at me and I just didn't want to be bothered by people calling me at home."

O'Brien started out in radio in 1976 after graduating from the Brown Institute in Minneapolis. 他几次尝试转行. He earned two bachelor's degrees in the 1980s at 乐虎电子 - one in psychology and the other in corporate and community fitness. By the time he finished each program, he knew he didn't want to pursue jobs in those fields. 拿到两个学位后，他又回到了广播行业.

1993年，他终于离开了电台, he was unhappy with the national climate - huge companies were buying radio stations across the country and cutting them down to shoestring budgets. O'Brien believed the companies no longer cared what announcers sounded like, and it stung.

他在TMA酒店集团找到了工作, which owns various nightclubs and restaurants in the upper Midwest. TMA雇了奥布莱恩做电台广告. They set him up in a small office above CI Sport in downtown Fargo, not the ideal place for a studio. 火车每15分钟开一趟. The flight path for the local airport was close enough to cause problems. 他头上的通风口没有影响到他, but the occasional vibration of large compressors two floors below did.

After a few of the nightclubs closed, O'Brien was no longer needed full time. He got to keep the office space to write and record commercials for the remaining nightclubs. 但每周只花几个小时. 奥勃良不得不扩大业务范围. 他创办了HotVoiceover.com公司. in 2004 and began building a resume that brought his voice around the world. Two years ago, a simple audition call led to his biggest success to date - Madden NFL videogames. 《乐虎集团》发行商艺电公司. 出售7.4 million copies in North America last year and 60 million copies in the last 17 years. 它也是美国国家橄榄球联盟的官方比赛, which allows only the Madden series to use the names of real players and arenas.

Long-time television announcer Al Michaels used to call the plays in the video game, 但当下一代视频游戏机, 比如Xbox 360, Playstation 3和任天堂Wii, 几年前开始推出, 设计师想要一种新的声音. EA chose to model the play-by-play calls after a nonspecific hometown radio announcer who always roots for the home team. O'Brien beat out a slew of voice talent during an extensive search and audition process. "Larry adds excitement to the game," said Jason Ostresh, assistant producer at EA Sports. “拉里是下一代《乐虎集团》的代言人.但没有人会因为配音而购买游戏. 关键是要把它呈现在眼前，但不要压倒一切. 我花了不少时间才把它做好. For Madden NFL '06, his first year with the series, O'Brien logged more than 70 hours of recording. 每个球员的名字, 例如, had to be read three different ways to match the different moods at that point in the game - so, 例如, Brett Favre's name sounds different when he is sacked compared to when he puts up a touchdown pass to win the game.

"It's physical work to sit and yell into a microphone for an hour," O'Brien says. 但这是他喜欢的工作. 他喜欢不知道今天要做什么, tomorrow or a year from now - whether he'll be voicing a doll of Moses or shouting the warning alarm for an oil rig. 直到电脑发出声音他才知道, 另一个试镜电话是通过电子邮件打来的, 他正在为下一个疗程准备装备.

-- J. 哈根