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Article: Quid Pro Quo

Quid Pro Quo
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08 Sep 2007 | No Comments

"Quid pro Quo"
Originally written by Marius Gosch on July 7th, 2005.

There is a very special aspect in which Broken Sword 2.5 separates itself from most other games of our magnitude and why one can consider it as a pioneer in fan made games: we will release our game with complete German synchronization. This may not sound very innovative initially, because speech in adventure games has been pretty much standard since the release of ‘Simon the Sorcerer’. However, when you look at the money that we have at our disposal for this project (you don’t have to search for long: we don’t have any money available for this project), our experience in the branch (this is the first self-developed game most of us have ever made) and you then take a look at our voice cast and see that we have a most impressive list of voice actors, you’ll realize how much heart we’ve put into the matter and how important the voices in this game are.
People often ask us how we’ve pulled it off to get voice actors like Joachim Kerzel (does the voices of Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins, voice-over in about two thirds of all Hollywood movie trailers, etc.)* or Stefan Fredrich (voice of Jim Carrey) on board for our project and those are indeed exciting stories… Imagine, one day I get an e-mail message from Alexander Schottky (German voice of George Stobbart) with the topic “Mr. Kerzel would gladly participate” and the message contains the phone number of Joachim Kerzel, whose voice I will always associate with Anthony Hopkins’ fantastic role as Hannibal Lecter. With the sound of his voice goose bumps are guaranteed. Full of joy – but also with some fear – I immediately grab the telephone receiver dial the Berlin phone number and end up with Mr. Kerzel’s answering machine. The well known voice enters my ear and practically commands me to leave a message. I wait for the beep, say my name and… out of nothing “The Godfather of German Dubbing” takes the receiver (horn?) into his own hands and actually wants to talk to me. My heart is racing like mad as I try to get myself together and I explain to him what the work is all about. Joachim Kerzel, who acts very clinical (?), experienced and mainly concerned for the most important information, agrees to do it. He mentions that he’s aware that there is no payment for the job and says that he’ll dub the short scenes in the next few days. Finally, he wishes me a happy Easter and says his goodbyes as quickly as he’s said hello. I put the receiver down, faint for a minute and two days later I’m holding an envelope from the Berlin sound studio addressed to me with in it a CD with the recorded scenes of Joachim Kerzel in best quality. What could make me happier than this? I honestly don’t know.
To quickly get back to another question, which we’re probably asked even twice as often: Who will do the voice of Nico?? Long story short: you will probably not know the voice over. Her name is Agnes Regan and she is, at least we think so, the best suited person for the job. Her style does not copy that of Franziska Pigulla, who did the voice of Nico in the first two parts of the series. She brings with her her own style, which is perfectly compatible with Nico. We ran into her through a Hamburger dubbing studio, with which we are working perfectly well together. At this moment there aren’t any try-outs yet, but these will come shortly.
And as you are already doing now for about five years: wait in anticipation. :-) With this in mind…

Marius Gosch

* In Germany, foreign movies and TV series are normally synchronized in German. When doing this, well-known international actors often get a certain German voice actor to do their voice.

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