In this interview, Kaili Vernoff (Susan Grimshaw in RDR2) interviews Jacquie Shriver Sladeck, a longtime games casting and dialogue professional. In her current position as Head of Studio at Side L.A., along with the decade she spent at Sony, Jackie has developed and cast some of the most celebrated performances in gaming history, including God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, and everybody's current obsession, Cyberpunk 2077. Jacquie and Kaili talk about her early interest in recording engineering, the realities of auditioning in a pandemic, and just how much collaboration is involved in bringing these incredible characters to life.
Learn about the studio Jacquie heads, Side LA, at: www.side.com
Follow: @jacquieshriver on Twitter
Check out Jacquie's episode of The Game Dev Show coming soon!
For bonus material with Jacquie and other Let's Play guests, visit the*gameHERs website.
You can find a transcript of this episode here.
In this interview, Kaili Vernoff (Susan Grimshaw in RDR2) interviews Jacquie Shriver Sladeck, a longtime games casting and dialogue professional. In her current position as Head of Studio at Side L.A., along with the decade she spent at Sony, Jackie has developed and cast some of the most celebrated performances in gaming history, including God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, and everybody's current obsession, Cyberpunk 2077. Jacquie and Kaili talk about her early interest in recording engineering, the realities of auditioning in a pandemic, and just how much collaboration is involved in bringing these incredible characters to life.
Learn about the studio Jacquie heads, Side LA, at: www.side.com
Follow: @jacquieshriver on Twitter
Check out Jacquie's episode of The Game Dev Show coming soon!
For bonus material with Jacquie and other Let's Play guests, visit the*gameHERs website.
You can find a transcript of this episode here.
TRANSCRIPTS ARE GENERATED USING A COMBINATION OF SPEECH RECOGNITION SOFTWARE AND HUMAN TRANSCRIBERS, AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK THE CORRESPONDING AUDIO BEFORE QUOTING IN PRINT.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:00:00] There's so much to casting that it isn't one person going like "I found them, this should be your person." It's a collaborative effort of a bunch of people talking for a really long time and discovering who the character is and then expressing that.
Verta Maloney, the*gameHERs [00:00:21] Welcome to Let's Play by thegameHERs, a podcast hosted by actress Kaili Vernoff. Fans know Kaili best as the fiery Susan Grimshaw in Red Dead Redemption 2, and Miranda Cowan in GTA V. Our series features some of the most informed and exciting people in the gaming industry today. Kaili and her guests discuss careers, gaming and so much more. If you like what you hear, be sure to check out thegamehers.com website to hear exclusive bonus material from each of our guests.
Kaili Vernoff [00:00:53] Hey, everybody, OK? Today's interview is with Jackie Shriver Sladeck, a longtime games casting and dialogue professional. In her current position as Head of Studio at Side L.A., along with the decade she spent at Sony, Jackie has developed and cast some of the most celebrated performances in gaming history, including God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man and everybody's current obsession, Cyberpunk 2077. Jackie and I talk about her early interest in recording engineering, the realities of auditioning in a pandemic, and just how much collaboration is involved in bringing these incredible characters to life. I cannot wait to share this interview with you, so here we go.
Kaili Vernoff [00:01:36] Hello hello?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:01:37] Hi there.
Kaili Vernoff [00:01:38] Hello. There you are.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:01:40] I made it it at long last.
Kaili Vernoff [00:01:44] How are you?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:01:46] I'm great. I'm wonderful. It is a beautiful fall day in Los Angeles and I had a good workout this morning and everything is good, how are you?
Kaili Vernoff [00:01:58] We're good. Everybody's healthy, and I think that's enough to be grateful for right now.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:02:03] Couldn't agree more. Could not agree more.
Kaili Vernoff [00:02:07] Um, I have to tell you, I'm so excited to talk to you. Literally as soon as we were putting together Season 2, I knew I wanted to talk to you. And then when Noshir talked about you as someone who took a chance on him early in his career, I started really trying to, like, work on that.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:02:26] Well, we were at a picnic with Sharon and Noshir, socially-distanced, hanging out. And they had mentioned what a great time they had with you and reached out to say, you know, there's a possibility you might be interested, and I was like, what an honor, just because of the great work that you guys are doing, gameHERs like in looking at the website and looking through all the podcast episodes and all the great blog entries and posts and everything, just so utterly impressed with the community that you've built and the topics that you're touching on. So it's such an honor to be part of it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:03:02] Oh, I'm so thrilled to hear that. Yeah. You know, they brought me on to do this podcast, and so they were already sort of formulating their mission. And it has been incredible to have a like a like a close-up seat to how many women are responding to that mission, you know?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:03:20] Absolutely. There's there's a lot of room to explore. So it's really exciting when someone does start exploring it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:03:27] And by the way, this is like one of those weird small world things. But Dean Pineiro, the wonderful voiceover agent out there, do you know Dean?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:03:38] I know Dean very well.
Kaili Vernoff [00:03:39] So I know Dean very well. And the reason I know Dean very well is because my husband is a two-time Olympic diver and they were divers together.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:03:50] Oh, my God.
Kaili Vernoff [00:03:51] So I was texting with him and I told him that you and I were going to be talking. And he was like, oh, my God, she's awesome.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:03:57] Oh, I love it. Dean's one of my all-time favorites and always has just been a person that I could go to with, hey, I need to get this done. Let's talk like grown-ups about this thing and he always was able to do that for me and continues to do that all the time. So I'm a massive fan of his and how cool that everybody connects in these weird ways that aren't always about entertainment but always come back to entertainment. They often do.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:24] Yeah. And I love that Dean has been one of those people for you because I just adore him.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:04:30] So true.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:31] It's so true. And by the way, if you haven't seen pictures of him as a diver, I'm going to send you some because... Spectacular!
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:04:36] I can imagine.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:39] Spectacular.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:04:40] Putting it together in my imagination. And I'm like, this checks out. This seems like this could have been a thing.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:45] Oh, yeah. OK, all right. Let's talk all things Jacquie now, though. So first things first. Like how did you end up in the industry?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:04:55] So my story, I'll try to keep it short, because it's not super interesting, but so I grew up in North Canton, Ohio, a few forays into other places, but mostly grew up in Ohio. And I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. When you're supposed to start making those decisions around 15, 16 and right around then, I had pivoted from astronaut to recording engineer, and that is quite a bit of a teenager.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:05:26] Hormones will do that.
Kaili Vernoff [00:05:28] Yeah, that's true. That's true. Wild, wild shifts.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:05:31] Wild shifts. So my parents, because they are amazing human beings who are just... hearts of gold were like, OK, we will, we will, we will be there for you to follow this stream of recording engineering, but you're going to need to get a bachelor's degree, like find a school where you can get a bachelor's degree, but still study that. You can study whatever you want. It has to be a bachelor's degree. So I went to the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, which is mostly known for musical theater, drama and ballet and things like this and they also had this little program called Electronic Media, which gave me a very broad but very shallow knowledge of all things entertainment. So we had classes on entertainment sales, we had classes on law, I had live TV classes where we would do like live segments. We had video editorial, audio editorial, web design, like all kinds of stuff, but just a little bit of it. So I basically had to force my way onto the audio professors. There were only two at the time and just started... Like dug my claws into them and was like, teach me, teach me.
Kaili Vernoff [00:06:43] And I have to say, I'm going to interrupt you for a second, because I know you said it's not that interesting, but I actually am fascinated with how you got the bug for audio engineering.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:06:54] I think it came from a love of music. So I am a music lover, life-long music lover. But I am... and this will, this will come in handy later or in my short-handed story. I love music. I adore music. I suck at music.
Kaili Vernoff [00:07:10] Oh...
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:07:10] I'm no good at it. I can't sing. I can't like I can learn how to play things like I can read music so I could learn to play the piano and the clarinet and to a degree the guitar. But I just never picked it up and had that kind of aptitude for it that pushed me to continue... Like it was always a struggle. But I... It never really deterred my love of music in general, and so my brain went, well, if I can't be a musician and what other options are there to be associated with music? And so recording engineering popped up as a thing, and when you're that old, when you're 15 or 16, you don't even know what jobs are out there like you have no concept of what people do for a living other than like doctor, lawyer or whatever your parents did, you know?
Kaili Vernoff [00:07:58] That's so true. It's just this sort of like vague thing floating around that sounds like you want to be there. Yeah.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:08:05] And you pick these big things or ideas, even if you're like, maybe I want to be in business. So you study business, whatever the hell that means. I forgot to ask if swearing is OK.
Kaili Vernoff [00:08:16] Yes. Yes, we are grown-ups. You can swear.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:08:21] Great. So I figured out that, like, there have to be recording engineers and I knew about that. So my parents actually, again, being insanely awesome human beings, called the very few recording studios in our area in Ohio and asked if they could just pawn me off on them for a day just to sit and see what happens. So I did that for a couple of quick, super tiny like demo recording studios that did local bands and stuff like that in Ohio. And I, I thought it was interesting. So I decided that that was the closest thing I was going to get to music. So that's why I found the school that had some sort of audio engineering program, even if it was just a teeny tiny little bit. And then I just, like I said, stuck my stuck my claws into those two professors and was like, I'll learn the rest of this, but I want to learn this stuff. Teach me.
Kaili Vernoff [00:09:14] That's fabulous. I love that your parents gave you like the ladder to get there to to try it out.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:09:21] They always... They never looked at me and said that's not something you should do or that doesn't seem like a good idea. They would always ask me important questions like, how do you see yourself making a living doing that? Or, you know, just practical things to go like, OK, what does that mean for you? Do you know do you know what it means to be a recording engineer? Do you know what kind of hours they keep? Do you know where you need to live and all that stuff? So we always had great conversations about that, but they were never, ever people who said maybe you should reconsider. So I definitely benefited from that. Absolutely.
Kaili Vernoff [00:09:55] OK, so you get through this program and you focus in on these professors and they basically give you what they know.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:10:04] And they give me what they know. And I am pretty competitive and fierce when I get my mind to it. And I did everything I could to just impress the shit out of them. And ultimately it paid off.
Kaili Vernoff [00:10:20] Yes.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:10:20] And I received... Our program had a bunch of scholarships for students. Some of them were money. Some of them were specific to internships. Some of them were like to the Aspen Music Festival to record for the summer. So I won one of these scholarships and the scholarship I hadn't even applied for. I had applied for the one to go to Aspen to record music. So.
Kaili Vernoff [00:10:44] Yeah that does sound really good.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:10:45] And I applied for that and I won it. And they brought me in to tell me that you've won this one. But then they said: However, after the deadline for all the applications came in, we received another grant. And you get to pick which of these two things you want to do, because.
Kaili Vernoff [00:11:02] Oh my God, when does that happen?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:11:04] I know and this is really the crux, like this moment is everything, because the other internship was to go to a place called Sound Deluxe Design Music Group in Los Angeles to intern at a recording studio that did voiceover for games, commercials and location-based entertainment for six weeks. And I was like, Los Angeles, Aspen, like, which one's better for me, for which thing? And ultimately I chose Los Angeles. And so that's where I went. I went to intern at this place Sound Deluxe, now defunct, but was the premiere place for video game voiceover in the early aughts and that summer of 2003, I interned there for six weeks under Becky Allen, who is now the audio director at 343 Studios in Seattle and under Amanda Wyatt, who has come up, Amanda was my boss. She hired me and she was the Business Development Manager there. So I interned for six weeks and I went back to finish my last quarter of college because I was going to graduate in December. And two days before I graduated, they called me. Amanda called me and said, if you can make it out here by January 3rd, I've got a job for you.
Kaili Vernoff [00:12:23] Hmm.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:12:24] And so I did. I packed up the day after Christmas, drove across the country, started working January 3rd. And it's the only thing I've ever done professionally is video game voiceover.
Kaili Vernoff [00:12:33] That is incredible. So were you a gamer ever?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:12:39] I, I was. But not the obsessive hardcore, it's the only hobby I have variety. But I... my brother, who's six years older than me...my brother and I played NES so I had, you know, tons of experience with the TNC, Skate and Surf game and plenty of Mario of all varieties. And we got the SNES and I played Tekkin there and also at the at the arcade, I would go to the arcade when we would go to the movies.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:10] We used to go to the arcade at the movie theater, too. That was like the only place that I really played video games. I forgot about those.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:13:16] Yeah, and you don't even think about it as playing video games anymore, because when you think of playing video games, you think about being stationary in your house.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:23] Totally.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:13:24] But I played a ton of video games at the movie theater when I was a teenager.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:30] I love this so much, Jacquie. I love that you came to this, that it wasn't that you wanted to be in gaming and you ended up on this end of it. You are doing exactly what it is that you were hoping to do and that you were... That you were planning for.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:13:45] And it's yes and no. So I came and was at a recording studio and my brain still when I started at Sound Deluxe I was like, I want to do music. And this recording studio was exclusively voiceover and sound design. They had a music department, but it wasn't I wasn't anything a part of it. So that internship that I did that first summer was I was a note-taker in video game voiceover recording sessions so that first summer I took notes for... Resident Evil 4 was recording.
Kaili Vernoff [00:14:15] And what's that mean exactly: taking notes?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:14:18] So back in [coughs] pardon me, in the Dark Ages. Oh, my God, I just turned old, I just in this moment turned old because I said that.
Kaili Vernoff [00:14:29] Welcome to this side. I welcome you.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:14:34] How wow. I could feel it like. Anyway, in 2003, we were still using pieces of paper that had the script on them and marking down which take the director liked. So the performer would be asked to record the line once or twice or three times, usually three times, and so on my little piece of paper I would make three little hash marks. And if the director said I like the second take better, I'd circle the second hashmark and we would move on. And those notes would then go to the editor who would take the audio, recorded audio and match up with my notes to figure out which specific pieces of audio to edit.
Kaili Vernoff [00:15:11] And that's what you were doing for the whole internship, just like like writing down the selects.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:15:17] That was... I mean, there were a few days that I did other things like, you know, getting signatures for talent paperwork, or I think somebody had me working on a sound library, putting metadata in on car door slams for sound design, for sound effects and stuff like that. So I did a little bit of everything. But but the thing I the thing I enjoyed the most was taking notes. And it really was it only it took those six weeks. But I went from like, "this is weird. I don't know what I'm doing" to "look at these amazing actors and directors and engineers working in this crazy harmony to get to act in a vacuum. And to have information passed between those three parties in this beautiful concert that happens" and I really fell head over heels for it and I went from I didn't even know there was voiceover in video games basically at the start of my internship to I was actually supposed to leave after five weeks. And I called my parents and I said, can you please send me enough money to stay in a hotel for an extra week so that I can go back and do one more week with them because I really want them to know how badly I want this. And they did because again, my parents are awesome and. That kind of was what turned it there, so like during that six weeks, I went from maybe I want to be a recording engineer for music, maybe I would consider sound design to dialogue in games is fascinating. How do I be a part of that?
Kaili Vernoff [00:16:47] Yeah. You know, you came to my attention as a casting director. That is that is when I was first thinking about you and what I wanted to ask you about. And it sounds like, well, I want to ask you, when you were... When you were interning and you were hearing that the choices, did you find that you already had an opinion about that? Like, did your ear already jump to what you thought would work best?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:17:10] It really didn't. I had the benefit of another, like, serendipitous moment of my life is the the Voice Director on that project, that first project that I was on presently before was Chris Zimmerman Salter. And so. It wasn't necessarily that I knew, but over time I could predict what Chris would like. And over time, I then realized why Chris liked what she did and then realized that that's what those were, the performances that were the most genuine or honest or had the most worked the best for that particular scene. So at first I was... I didn't even understand what was different between the three takes. You know, I was just by... My ear didn't... It didn't exist. I had no concept. And then, you know, obviously it took more than six weeks. Those six weeks were my crash course. But over the course of many years, interacting with Chris and with all the other amazing voice directors in town that I was able to capture what it is that translates in the game space.
Kaili Vernoff [00:18:15] Mm hmm.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:18:16] And figure out, not only that, but figure out how all the different beautiful ways that directors can work together with actors to find those things. But it... I mean, that part that second part has taken... It's not done. It takes forever.
Kaili Vernoff [00:18:33] You know, I was interviewing for this podcast, Brenda Romero, who's this legendary game designer, and she's been in game design since the early 80s. But she was saying that with all of the advancements in video games throughout her career since the early 80s, that the biggest one she has seen is is the addition of professional actors.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:18:55] And that has grown so much since 2003 when I sort of like became a part of things, because even back then, you know, we were limited because that was like that was first or second generation. So like PS2 days. Late PS1 or early PS2 days. I say PS1 is my benchmark because I later worked for Sony, but obviously there are plenty of other consoles out at that point, that we were still bound to a certain amount of disk space to dedicate to voiceover, so it wasn't even just the size of the worlds. It was like you only had a certain number of kilobytes or megabytes to dedicate to all of audio and then a subset of that to dedicate to voiceover if you had it on your game at that point, because we're still on at that point, CDs rather than DVDs and later Blu ray.
Kaili Vernoff [00:19:50] Oh, fascinating.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:19:52] You had to figure out how to fit what you needed and therefore that meant there was a lot less variation because if one, you know, effort sound or line of dialog, we'll get the idea across. And you are taking away like fidelity of graphics potentially from having more audio than you kind of have allocated for yourselves as part of the game design process. And that's crazy. And then we got to PS3, and you had Blu Rays, you had infinite amounts of space, and we suddenly sort of overnight became... Variety was king, how many different versions of this can we get? You know, everything can actually start to sound more realistic now because we're not limited and we can stream it off the disc rather than needing, like, these full WAV files on there. So it really changed everything to have the higher fidelity of everything, actually, I think allowed for... allowed space for proper acting to exist because you weren't just going to have them say this bare minimum number of words that needed to convey something very specific for the game to function, instead, you could actually tell a story because you didn't have to limit yourself in that way.
Kaili Vernoff [00:21:08] That is so cool. I would not have thought of that. I know when I was doing Red Dead, I was shooting that for about four and a half years and sometimes the the tech would advance while we were shooting. So we'd have to go back and do something over just because tech had advanced to the point that... That I can't even really say why we had to do it again, but just because they could do it better. My like layman's term, and I think it's it's incredible to be a part of an industry that's that's advancing this quickly so you can do more and more and more as the tech catches up.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:21:47] And so not surprising to hear, because working at Sony... I worked at Sony from 2006 to 2016 and worked very closely with the motion capture and facial capture teams in the service groups there. And, you know, they're constantly evolving to do it better, do it quicker, do it for less disk space, do it for less money. All of that stuff, it's it's it's constant because everybody wants to have that, that best, highest fidelity, that best looking, best sounding. And it just drives this incredible amount of innovation constantly. But, yeah, if your... if your... If your production cycle is too long, you're going to have to circle back and chase your tail a little bit to to get everything up to where it needs to be by the end of it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:22:36] Yeah. And I think what's also cool of being in this burgeoning tech is like if... If they don't if something's not working, they have to build it. It's not like they can go buy it, like they have to figure it out. So, like, in very real time, the tech is advancing as you're making the game.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:22:51] Yeah, absolutely. And that problem-solving, how do we figure this out thing, you know, really is one of the most exciting things about games. Not that that doesn't happen in film and TV. I'm certain it does, especially in like technology sectors. But in video games, it's just sort of a common daily occurrence of... I've hit a blocker.
Kaili Vernoff [00:23:11] Mm hmm.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:23:11] What are we going to do about it? Who can I collaborate with to figure out how to get past this or to to make it better to change it? And then doing that, succeeding and then moving on to the next challenges is one of the coolest things about the entire gaming industry to me.
Kaili Vernoff [00:23:30] I love that. Yeah. So in researching you for this conversation and then in just talking to you already, you know, it's you know, it's very clear that casting is actually just one part of what it is that you bring to the project. So how would you describe the totality of what you do?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:23:50] My... I've... I have had such a journey to have all of these great experiences in my professional life that have all sort of dumped into a big bucket that became me and that started with like I was notetaking at supplier.. So Sound Deluxe was my my first job. And that was they were... They were an outsourcerd that game companies come to you and say, help me produce my dialogue for the game. And that's what they would do. So I worked on it with tons of different projects and clients. And then I went on to Salami Studios, which is an animation voiceover production facility.
Kaili Vernoff [00:24:28] Great name.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:24:29] It's awesome. They did such cool projects. I was there for less than a year, but we worked on Boondocks. We worked on Bratz, which was, you know, a lot of kids animation like Bubsy Wubsy and God only knows if anybody knows any of those anymore.
Kaili Vernoff [00:24:45] But yeah, my daughter used to watch Bubsy Wubsy. I forgot about that one.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:24:49] Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
Kaili Vernoff [00:24:50] Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! That's right.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:24:53] We so we did the ensemble recordings for those shows. So I learned a lot in that aspect, you know, again, being around actors, being around production, understanding what it takes to get things from point A to point B. So I was I was a production person there, so I was making sure tapes went from place to place and people had their information and that type of thing. And then I went to Sony as a dialogue coordinator. So I was I was somewhere between scheduling talent and participating in the casting process, you know, with a proper casting director and then getting the dialogue back and implementing it into the game play, testing it, making sure it sounded good, like editing it, mastering it, making sure the levels are good and then sending it up to localization. So I got all this crazy, amazing experience at Sony through a variety of projects, but also just a variety of positions.
Kaili Vernoff [00:25:41] Mm hmm.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:25:42] And then got to the point and I'm being, like, brutally honest. This isn't something that a lot of people necessarily talk about in these terms. And I certainly don't want it to make anyone think less of me or anyone else in this position. But I got really burnt out on crunch and decided that in order for me to continue working in this industry, I needed to be at an earlier part of the process so that I could crunch less. And so I took looked at the totality of my experience and went, casting happens early. Casting doesn't usually crunch. How can I get involved in that to be able to stay in the industry that I love but survive and have an adult life, you know?
Kaili Vernoff [00:26:22] No, I think not only would would anyone not think less of you, I think that's really smart.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:26:28] I mean, it it it took a dramatic emotional toll on me that that that maintains to this day like I am still fiercely protective of the people who work for me their time and how it's being spent, and that was from... There was never any malicious intent at any of the projects that I worked on that crunch. But I crunched partially because of my personality, my sort of inability to be the first one to leave. And that's a me problem, but also because I did want everything to be as good as it could possibly be and so did everyone around me. So it was never my crunching experience. Wasn't anyone standing over me with a ruler saying, you know, you're a bad employee if you don't do it. But it's still... It was pervasive and it happened.
Kaili Vernoff [00:27:19] Yeah. So for anyone listening to this who's not in the industry, can you just describe what crunch is in layman's terms?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:27:28] So for, in my experience, crunch was basically a period of time that could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to... There was one project that where we crunched for six months straight where you work more hours and that sometimes is mandated, rarely mandated, but is usually just an understanding within the team that you're going to be working 12 hour days and you're everyone's going to be working Saturdays and there's just enough there's that much work that needs to be done. So we're all going to come in and do the work... And you just keep plugging away at it. And because everyone is working that much, then the conveyor belt of things that need to be done, so in our case, a lot of times, you know, towards the end of a project, you get a lot of bugs in a bug tracking system, which is someone saying, I noticed this in the game and it doesn't seem right or you need to check it out and you might have, you know, 600 bugs that are assigned to you.
Kaili Vernoff [00:28:32] My god.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:28:32] And you're sort of... And you're like, well, it's not like my eight hours isn't going to get me too much through this, but maybe if I put in 12, we'll see how many of these I can dig through. Meanwhile, more are being piled on top and you're, you know you're prioritizing and you're working with your producers. And, you know, I was young and I was very invested in making sure that my career was going to have a good trajectory. I wanted to work well on great projects and be known for that. And that's what caused me to crunch again. Nobody ever stood over me and was like, you can't go home now. I kind of I did it to myself, but everyone around me was doing it to themselves too. There was the culture of sleeping under your desk or, you know, coming in and staying over the weekend and.
Kaili Vernoff [00:29:18] And a little bit of a badge of honor, right? That you're as dedicated as.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:29:22] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:29:22] As everyone. Yeah. And I think it's good that I mean, I, I actually think that it's you know, that the idea that you were protecting yourself by deciding that you needed to work on stuff earlier in the process, I think, you know, probably protected your mental health and your longevity in the... In the business.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:29:42] It absolutely did. And it also allowed me to get excited again and like revamp my creativity in a new way. So I've been at that point, I got into casting by nature of convincing Sony that we needed to centralize talent and casting, rather than having each of the dialogue teams, dialogue coordinators working with outsourcers.
Kaili Vernoff [00:30:06] Yeah, I read this quote from you when you were talking about audio and dialogue in games. I think you said "the dialogue pipeline is less like a linear path and more of a complex subway system with a series of stops, starts, and junctions.".
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:30:19] Yep, it's true.
Kaili Vernoff [00:30:21] Can you walk me through that a little bit?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:30:23] So the dialogue pipeline, like in a video game, it should start...at the very beginning, thanks Jacquie, at where when you're first started starting to talk about what your story is, who your characters are, how are they going to move through the world, you know, who's interacting with who, all that type of stuff, you have to start talking to dialogue professionals at that point. Those are often like dialogue designers who are more on the level design, game design side of things. And you have to figure out, you know, is your player character going to be talkative? Are they interacting with, you know, non-player characters out in the world, like on a constant basis, like on something like Red Dead 2 where Arthur's just saying hi and howdy to everybody who walks by, you know, there's lots of that or are they going to be, you know, more silent and quiet and maybe just like small breath emotes here and there to indicate that, you know, this person is living, but there are dependent... There are things that grow from that information from the very beginning. So, it might mean if you have a character who has been described as a, you know, a talkative or gregarious person, but they don't have an opportunity with a lot of NPCs because the game isn't designed to have those NPCs out there, then you have to work with the game designer to figure out how do we imbue this person with being a talkative person? Like, do they talk to themselves, OK, why? Now you're dealing with dialogue and writers and level design going, OK, this person needs to have some way of conveying this part of their personality. So let's figure out how to do that. Maybe we write some lines. Write some lines, then we have to get those lines recorded, so we have to find somebody either internally or maybe we take the step and go ahead and find somebody to cast, maybe it'll be the final person. Maybe it's just a placeholder. And then you get that stuff back to the game, you put it in the game, and then you learn things about the dialogue and everybody has an opinion. And then all of those different pipelines restart and change. So level design may go like I can see a great way to use this mechanic or this aspect of this character's personality. So I'm going to work with the writer to get more lines. And maybe that means that our dialogue budget is going to change significantly, because now we need this extra dialogue that we weren't planning for at the beginning of the project because we figured out that it works to convey something to the player that it needs to. So there's you're just constantly learning new things about the game that I mean, that is... game development is you start somewhere... because you have to start somewhere, and then you learn it and figure it out throughout the entire process.
Kaili Vernoff [00:33:07] Yeah, it sounds like it's very much a live process. So you at Sony convinced them that they should centralize this casting process?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:33:14] Yes. So convinced them to centralize and then convinced them that I should be the person doing it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:33:21] Well done.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:33:23] And obviously, I... It wasn't just me. There was a committee of people within the Sony Services Group determining that this might be the best course of action. And I just happened to have a lot of experience across a lot of different projects and things like that. So I... You know, we built this position as a group to benefit not only dialogue, because obviously through the years, it's not just dialogue anymore. It's it's dialogue and motion capture and performance and narrative like it's all it's more than just find the right voice. So, you know, I became a part of a couple of different departments. So part of the visual arts group that were doing, you know, scanning head scans for likeness and were doing in charge of motion capture and also part of the audio department, which is concerned more with, you know, dialogue or voice-only characters and that sort of thing. So we all kind of developed what this role was going to be. And then and then I was off to the races on a brand new part of my career that was tangentially related, but, you know, I had been very much dialogue and implementation focused and then took the leap to finding the actors to participate in our games.
Kaili Vernoff [00:34:41] That's... I love that you have... Like you're already invested in the development of the audio by the time you hit the casting session, which I think, you know, isn't always the case with film and TV, you know, that sometimes casting directors aren't even given the entire script when there's NDAs involved. So I think that, yeah, you're already invested and you have so much inside baseball about what it is you're looking for.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:35:09] Yeah. Which which is... It's fascinating and it's really challenging because there's a lot of information to... About a game too that can be thrust upon you to ingest. Which I'm sure you found in on your side on the on the performing side of like in a game like Red Dead, how on earth do you distill everything that happened up into a certain point? You know what I mean? Like, there's so much information.
Kaili Vernoff [00:35:41] Especially if you're shooting out of order. If you're shooting out of order...sometimes I wouldn't even know. I'd have to go and say, is this before that thing that we shot two weeks ago or after, I couldn't do any of my, like, usual preparation.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:35:58] Which is such a challenge.
Kaili Vernoff [00:36:00] Yeah, but also really fun, really, like you have to rely on your scene partner to sort of figure out what you guys are doing.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:36:07] Absolutely.
Kaili Vernoff [00:36:09] So in... in you know, were you at Sony for 13 years? Do I have that right?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:36:15] I was there for 10 years from 2006 to 2016. And I left Sony to come to my current position.
Kaili Vernoff [00:36:22] Yeah. So at Sony and your your position as the head of Side L.A., I mean, you are responsible for developing some of the most-celebrated performances in gaming, like the God of War series and Days Gone and Spider-Man. I mean, that must be so incredibly rewarding to see these these...not just the games, but the performances just garner so much acclaim.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:36:48] It's and what's funny is what's funny to me is that the the title of talent casting manager at Sony or a casting director in some cases is... It's almost a lie in terms of their the idea that there's one person who holds some sort of grand responsibility for that because of how crazy collaborative video games are. And so the what I take away from my contribution to a lot of those great titles is all the conversations I had with the developers and the level designers and the narrative teams to figure out what they were looking for and then finding people to present to them, like here are options, you know, where are we going? How are you seeing this? Like, let's figure out a way to talk to one another. And sometimes that takes like seeing performances to go like "I like what this person is adding." But, you know, unfortunately, because of the era of performance and motion capture, there are times when the perfect actor isn't perfect because of the constraints of height or gait or facial capture, scanning digital double requirements and stuff like that. So.
Kaili Vernoff [00:37:58] Right.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:37:59] So there's there's so much to like casting that it isn't one person going like I found them. This this should be your person. Like, here you go. I've delivered them on a platter. It's a...it's a collaborative effort of a bunch of people talking for a really long time and discovering who the character is and then expressing that with a bunch of different actors in the casting process to find out what comes closest to the vision that the people I'm working for at that point, the game director, what they're looking for.
Kaili Vernoff [00:38:32] You know, I don't know if you get to audition actors in person when we're not in a pandemic, but I, I feel like there's this thing that happens sometimes. I mean, I've been acting for my whole adult life. And there's this thing that happens sometimes with the casting director that I like to call the magic. And it's when I'm in an audition and there's this, like, moment when I sort of feel like I've broken through, like I all of a sudden maybe ears and eyes have perked up in the room a little bit. I can tell there's a little electricity between the casting director and me. And it doesn't always translate to getting the job, but it usually means I'll get maybe more specific direction. It might get another pass at it. And I'm wondering if if you in casting, do you feel that thing on your end, like this moment when you can just tell that An actor has something, right?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:39:21] Absolutely. It's. Those those are the most fun for for for me, too, so I... In my time at Sony specifically, I did tons of in-person auditions and casting both for sort of live-action for MoCap and PCap jobs and then, you know, loads of voiceover casting sessions and. It's that feeling of like it feels like momentum.
Kaili Vernoff [00:39:51] Yes! That's right. Yes. Yes.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:39:53] It feels like we both like like I'm on a train and it feels like the actor, like, hopped on the train or on the train together. But now let's figure out where we're where we're...where we're going. You know what I mean? We're we've we've overcome the part where we need to figure out who this person is and now we get to discover more about them is how that feeling feels.
Kaili Vernoff [00:40:15] That is exactly... Like I'm getting chills. That is exactly right, because it's hard to find words for it. But that's right. We've gotten past that thing where, like, you know, like you were describing maybe physically I'm not right. Or maybe, you know, who knows, maybe you already had someone in mind. So I you know, I'm not getting your full attention. But then there's that... That moment when it feels like, oooh! Oooh let's work together on this. Let's work together on this because I like, you know, and I miss it so much right now. Yeah. Oh, it's...
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:40:46] And then everything over zoom is just a little bit different. It's still there. It can still be there to go like, oh wow, here we go. But I think for me personally, I have no idea how you guys feel about this on the acting side. But auditioning over Zoom, I have such a hard time seeing Zoom or Skype, whatever. I'm having such a hard time seeing myself because I'm distracted by myself. And I have to wonder if if if people are going through the same thing of...
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:17] Of course.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:41:18] being self-conscious and like looking at yourself and seeing what you're doing instead of physically, you know, getting out of your head.
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:24] Yes, of course we are. Because, you know, well, first of all, we're in charge now of like the lighting and the camera angle and all that stuff that normally we wouldn't be in charge of. And then, you know, to... in order to go out there and and really connect with a character, you have to throw away what you look like. But and maybe some people like Noshir or other people who are tech wizards know how to make it work. But I don't know how to be able to look at the casting director face to face without having my image somewhere there, too.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:41:55] Yep.
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:56] Um, and maybe that's a zoom setting and someone's going to listen to this and just send me a message and be like, here's all you have to do. But yeah, it's definitely... It adds another layer of responsibility for my own image that. Yeah. That I'm... That I'm that I'm learning. I think it's a learning curve for everyone on my side. And I'm sure it is for your side, too.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:42:20] Yeah, well, from the studio side. You know, a six-month crash course in just change your entire business model, get good at something else.
Kaili Vernoff [00:42:33] Yeah. And it's it's it's... I'm an eternal optimist, so I feel like artists, especially in times of uncertainty, global uncertainty and everything that we're facing, I feel like artists, we're usually the ones who sort of... We rise up in strife and times. Right. Like during the Depression, people went to the movies. That was like the one relief they had. And so I do think that it is incumbent upon us to make it work, to keep telling stories, to keep bringing things, you know, to enlighten or teach or distract or entertain. But it really is it's a learning curve for me. And now I sound old.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:43:26] No way. It's been for us on the studio side, like we have become partners with the talent in a brand new way to be able to go like we want to set you up for success for your session that's happening over the Internet with you in your closet with, you know, the microphone that you maybe just bought a couple of weeks ago. So it's been I mean, obviously, it's a challenge and it's in it can be very frustrating for for talent who are like, I didn't sign up to be a recording engineer, but here I am. So, you know, it's it's... We find it as our job to be shepherds and to be cheerleaders and to be, you know, as much as we can to to build up talent so that they can do what they do best, which is perform without all of the rest of it there. But but for everyone, it has been, this insane pivot of, you know, you have to get over the frustration, you have to get over the blocker, you have to get over the resistance to it and go, this is what I do now. This is what I'm doing now, and I'm going to find a way to be great at it. And moving forward.
Kaili Vernoff [00:44:35] Yep, yep, and I love that, I love I love that you, you see yourself as a shepherd. I think that's I think that's really special. I see why people like to shout you out. OK, so one of the main questions that I get from fans is how do I get into voice acting/performance capture? So from my end, I normally recommend an acting class. But since I have you here, I, I feel like I need to go right to the source. What do you tell aspiring performers about getting started?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:45:09] Act, learn, learn how to act. The rest of it will come later. Some of the most prolific voice actors that are working in games -- I'm not going to obviously shout out who they are because of what I'm about to say, which is do not necessarily have remarkable voices, they just have remarkable acting talent. And therefore, you know, it comes through and they get hired over and over again because of their talent, not because of a specific way that they can maneuver their voice. Now, your ability to maneuver your voice either in pitch and tone, to be able to sound like somebody else or in accents or in, you know, any of those sort of more tangible technical ways of doing it, those become your toolkit. For you to be prepared for anything that comes your way, but without that foundation of acting and understanding how to build a character, the rest of it is kind of meaningless. And it's just, it's shallow to be able to do a voice, but not be able to do what a character needs that voice to do.
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:18] Mm hmm. Right. You're trying to build it from the outside in.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:46:24] Mhm. Yep. And I think. From where I'm sitting, obviously, I... In the positions that I've had, I've had the good fortune to have access to and work with a lot of talent agents to find talent, so I'm not sort of mining for individual people, for the most part, I'm working with trusted agents, like we said, like Dean Paneiro and all of the other great talent agencies out there to find talent. So that basically means getting to representation is kind of a... A barrier to entry, and so getting to that place of representation will often require lots of classes and a variety of things, technique as well as talent as far as acting goes, but also technique as far as understanding how to work with a microphone, distance and placement, how to manage your projection and that type of thing. And then getting yourself to a demo and, you know, they're kind of the steps and they're they're kind of prescribed where you do the classes, you do the work, when the classes tell you you're good enough to do the demo, when your demo is good enough, you get represented. And when you are represented, you get more opportunities.
Kaili Vernoff [00:47:42] Yeah, yeah. I've had people ask me now that everything is remote, if if, you know, if they're in different parts of the country, if they can send out demo reels. And I really don't have the answer to that. But I think that because of that, the the representation piece, it's that's the piece that would maybe stop people that aren't, you know, in Chicago, in New York and L.A. from being able to get their demo tapes into someone like your hands.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:48:13] And I think I actually think that the pandemic has created a lot of opportunity there, because now that we are so good at figuring out how to get good quality audio and to connect with people remotely, I don't think it's as much of an issue for me, if someone is great and they're in Iowa, as long as the connection is good, it's really no different than working with Noshir from his home studio. It makes no difference to me now that we know we can do it. It kind of took the pandemic for us to all push past the like, OK, it'd be easier and it would sound better if we did it at our studio, so we'll keep local to L.A. So I definitely I think that's opened up possibilities across the board, but I think. I think the difference between my experience as a person in casting and the experience of a lot of other casting directors might be that the position of casting often the role is to find new people and to take on those demo reels and to, you know, work with people and find them where they are. Whereas in my experience, it's been a little bit less of that. So I think I think there are people who could probably speak a little bit better to getting to that point... to that point of that representation piece, because for the most part, my experience since I've started doing it is reaching out to the talent agents who are the ones culling the submissions. But but I don't think I honestly believe that the pandemic has created more opportunities for people who aren't in the major markets. So long as your demo is good and so long as your Internet connection is great, it really isn't any reason that you shouldn't be able to book voice jobs for video game stuff.
Kaili Vernoff [00:49:54] I think that is going to make a lot of people listening to this very happy to hear and and yeah, I mean, lemons. Lemonade out of lemons. Yeah. Bright side.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:50:05] Exactly.
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:07] So when... When someone does get in front of you, what, what would you say are the biggest mistakes that actors make when they're auditioning specifically for video games?
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:18] Biggest mistakes...
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:18] Yeah, like common pitfalls maybe.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:50:20] Yeah. God, it's so funny to... It's so funny to try and generalize like this, because the truth is. Every video game client who comes to me looking for talent is looking for something in a different way, so they might describe a character one way and I will discern from that what they what they mean, which isn't necessarily always what's on the page and go like, OK, now I understand what you're looking for and then try to distill that in a way so that the talent who are coming in understand what I'm looking for and then having to put that on tape. So honestly, the reason I give all that pre-life to my answer is like sometimes the biggest pitfall is being too on the nose. So like I said, I wanted a sexy badass and you gave me like a generic, sexy badass. But there are some times when giving the generic sexy badass is going to get you the job. But there are other times when it's not kind of clever enough or doesn't give enough life to the character. I don't see anything specific that's going to excite me to move, to move, move it on. So it honestly depends for me on the client, what's working and what's not for actors, which is a very unsatisfying answer. I know.
Kaili Vernoff [00:51:41] No but it's true and it makes sense. I mean, it's not one-size-fits-all. I know there will be those times, especially in commercial stuff, where, you know, they'll just hammer home. "We don't want an announcer, we don't want an announcer." And so, you know, you do what's what's authentic to you and what would be your read, and then you hear the spot and you're like, "well, that is an announcer. You should have just said. Announcer I should have done that.".
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:52:04] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:52:05] Yeah. Because sometimes I think sometimes I think the casting directors really are trying to bring out performances and actors and at least in advertising, then there's like then... There's like a mountain to climb with getting, you know, these these advertising agencies or the clients to take a leap with something more interesting.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:52:26] And now we are we're in the the world of self-tapes. Um. For the most part, I mean, we still do directed auditions over Zoom for for roles and stuff like that, but we we do an awful lot of self-tapecasting where the talent becomes the casting director to a degree in terms of negotiating with yourself how you're going to play the role without a lot of outside information. So I mean, from where we're sitting at Side, we try very hard to supply as much of that information as we can. But you're still open to interpretation, you know? It's still how are you reading the words that I put on the page that are hopefully there to describe what the client's looking for?
Kaili Vernoff [00:53:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is the thing that, you know, that is missing, at least for me and other actors that I know is that, you know, I think one of my superpowers is taking direction. And if I'm doing a self-tape, I can listen back and I can understand if I'm doing what I intended to do, if what I'm hoping is coming across is coming across. But I don't have that partnership in the room.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:53:38] And it is a shame. It is a shame. And it is definitely every project benefits from having people have an opportunity to connect in real time about a character and talk through it or even just be able to use hand gestures or, you know, squinting of eyes to convey things that you can't necessarily do, even over Zoom or any of those things. So it's a miracle that we are doing the kind of great work that we are -- and by we I mean, the entire video game industry -- that we've been able to continue to do things through the last six months. That's a testament to talent being tenacious and willing to go the extra mile and to the entire industry for figuring out how the technological challenges are going to get overcome. But it's it is a sad aspect of it to lose is that intense collaboration, like in-person personal collaboration that happens with director casting director, talent, you know, game director, producers, all the people in the room to actually fully formulate a character or a scene.
Kaili Vernoff [00:54:53] Yeah, I really hope we'll get back there and I think we will.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:54:57] I know we will. It's just a matter of time. But I but again, silver lining Jacquie, is that we will never go back to not being able to do it this way now that we've got come this far like we will never be caught off guard.
Kaili Vernoff [00:55:15] It's so true, it's so true, we we we are. Yeah, we have... We have made it work. I think we have made it work. And you're right. It's it's it's incredible. Um, so what what would you say, Jackie, is your favorite part of your job?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:55:38] My favorite part of the job is... Of my current job, my my favorite part of my current job is seeing my production managers who are the ones who are actually doing the work of making getting a client's request, like through to recording and then back to them of actually seeing that work come together and seeing a. A happy actor in the booth, because all of the scripts and materials are there for them to have what they need to flourish in the scene and to have a director there in the room going like this is great. And everybody. My favorite part is everyone recognizing something great as it's happening, and that is a unique thing that we get to have in the studio recording studio or even on the mocap stage. I'm sure you've... You've had those moments as well where you're like right now, in this minute, we did something awesome and I can't wait for people to see it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:56:38] Yes. Yes, you feel it.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:56:40] Just having access to that is is the favorite part. Having access to that on a daily basis is really an incredible feeling.
Kaili Vernoff [00:56:52] So, yes, and we haven't even mentioned the fact that for the last three years, you've been head of Side L.A.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:56:59] Yes.
Kaili Vernoff [00:57:01] And how did you end up there?
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:57:03] So I... Side as a company was an audio brand in London -- Side UK is really what they were called. And they have been around since the late 90s, like twenty-five years at this point. And I was working on a project called The Order 1886 while I was with Sony, and I needed a bunch of British voices. so I connected with them and I thought, wow, these guys know what they're doing. They're they're very talented and I just really like the team there. So at E3 in 2016, I met with the at the time the president of Side UK, Andy Mery, and he told me that he was looking to start an L.A. branch and what did I think about that. And I was like, that sounds like a great idea. Like I would totally work with a Side, you know, team in Los Angeles. That's great. And he was he asked me if I knew anybody who who I could think of, that would be a good fit to head that up. And I was like, you know, let me think about that. I'm sure... Let me think through all the people I've worked with. And we concluded our meeting and we walked away and I went, son of a bitch, I want that job.And I immediately called my mom. It was like, I don't know xactly what just happened, but I think I've got to I've got to try and go for this, so I wrote back to Andy later and was like, so by the way, I would like to do that. So I...you know, I came on to Side L.A. when the construction was just about to begin. So they already had a facility and they had an architect and they had all of that stuff. But I had the pleasure and fortune of being able to flesh out the majority of our team. One of our our amazing recording engineers, James Batley, came over from Side UK for consistency's sake. So he's he's an amazing engineer and just presence... And James and I built up a team of engineers and production folks and started a studio. And it was a lot of work.
Kaili Vernoff [00:59:10] Oh, I bet, I bet, but but very successful work.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [00:59:16] Yes, we have definitely we went from, you know, one or two sessions a week very quickly to being you know, we're consistently booked. We have a lot of really big projects. We can finally start talking about our involvement with Cyberpunk 2077, which is really amazing. And a lot of, you know, we get to work on so many incredible projects, so many incredible developers and publishers that trust us with their with their IP and and their work, so we're you know, I'm just bombarded daily with amazing behind the scenes game content. I get to hear about all kinds of great stuff before it happens.
Kaili Vernoff [01:00:01] That is so cool. OK, so as we've been talking about. The collaboration in our community is... we really couldn't do anything without it, so I would love to give you an opportunity to tell me about a time in your life or in your career when someone recognized something in you and gave you an opportunity to shine.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:00:24] I have to go back to Amanda Wyatt, who gave me my very first opportunity at Sound Deluxe way back in the day she was at the time Business Development Manager, but was basically in charge of the voiceover department. And Amanda, I mean, luckily I've have known Amanda for some 15 years now, and she just immediately saw something in me that was that I could do some part of this. I might not know everything and might not know anything, but that I could probably learn it or figure it out. And so she did me the incredible honor of just throwing me more and more things to do. And trying to challenge me to figure out how to do them, and sometimes I wouldn't do them right, and Amanda had the amazing ability as a mentor and as a manager at that point to course correct without making me feel like I had screwed up or that there was a big problem, but that something needed to be done differently, there was another way to do it. And I learned so much from her, not only about, you know, obviously correcting whatever things were needing to be corrected, but about how to be a manager and how to lead people and how to give them, the ownership and the recognition of their work to really take control of a project and really make it theirs and complete it without... Without needing handholding or without needing constant validation. And Amanda, really... she saw something in me, but she also taught me so much about being a manager, about being a leader, and so I, I, I credit her wholeheartedly. Alongside, I have to close number two, close second place there was Chris Zimmerman, who also did the same thing and said, I see something, and you seem like you get some of this. So I'm going to give you a little insider information here and there about directing, about talent, about that type of thing. So those two women really gave me a leg up to be able to communicate with everyone in the games sphere and just how to how to be a manager and a leader, which was really important stuff that you don't always get great training on when you're that age.
Kaili Vernoff [01:02:53] No, that's really beautiful. And it sounds like...yeah, like the way you see yourself as a shepherd now came to you through these women who shepherded you in a very real way.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:03:07] Yep, and still do, they're still, you know, lucky for me, I get to work with both of them frequently because they're both incredibly talented and sought-after voice directors in the game sphere. So it wasn't a long ago goodbye that I waved to them too. I actually get to see and hug them or used to get to see and hug them pretty frequently. So I get to keep honing those skills and keep learning from them.
Kaili Vernoff [01:03:32] I love this. That is so cool.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:03:35] Yeah, they are so cool.
Kaili Vernoff [01:03:37] I think one of my favorite things about, about hosting this podcast is, is just learning how incorrect the misconception is that this is a male-dominated industry. I mean, I don't mean to say it's not male-dominated. There's a big male presence in this industry, but there are a lot of women who make it all work and who have been for, you know, since the beginning.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:04:00] Absolutely. And I... A shout out to all of the amazing women in production at on the game dev side. There are so many amazingly talented producers and producers don't often get the recognition because they're not creating art or they're not, you know, directing voice sessions and that type of thing. But they are some of the hardest working folks to keep everything on the rails, to actually become, to achieve. And I'm always in awe of producers. And and there are a lot of amazing women producers out there.
Kaili Vernoff [01:04:35] Yeah. Yep. I know. I'm in all of them, too. Thank you so much for making time for this today. I'm I'm I'm just so inspired by this conversation.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:04:47] I am so thrilled to have an opportunity to talk about my experience as a woman and in games and in the voiceover sphere and again, like I said when we're talking a little bit earlier, the. There being a space for women to talk about being women in games is relatively new and that is amazing and I'm utterly delighted to be a part of it and of course, want to push it forward and see how much more conversation we can get going, because I would love to see there being even more women in audio women in audio would be amazing. So all of the, anyone else who wants to be a recording engineer just because I didn't quite wind up going down that path, but I know I could have and I know there are a lot of women and girls out there who would find it interesting, and I think they should go for it.
Kaili Vernoff [01:05:43] I love that you've said that, but that is. Yeah, yeah. Just go for it.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:05:49] Yep.
Kaili Vernoff [01:05:51] All right. Well, thank you so much, Jacquie, for making the time. This has just been delightful and informative and everything that I could have hoped for. I've learned so much.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:06:02] It's been my absolute pleasure. Any time. And thank you for being such a gracious hostess.
Kaili Vernoff [01:06:07] Oh, thank you. So have a great day.
Jacquie Shriver Sladeck [01:06:10] Thank you. You too. Bye, Kaili.
Kaili Vernoff [01:06:12] Bye bye.
Kaili Vernoff [01:06:16] Such a fun conversation. Alright, I have some news: if any of you listeners are interested in becoming dialogue professionals in the games industry, Jacquie has generously offered to set up some timeboxed mentorships as she's able. So send her a DM on Twitter, including any demos and resumes you have, and she will listen to as many as she possibly can. That's so awesome. You can find Jacquie's Twitter and other social media and website information in our show notes. And for bonus material with Jacquie and our other Let's Play guests, visit thegamehers.com That's t-h-e-g-a-m-e-h-e-r-s dot com. Thanks. And see you next time for our Season Two finale. I can't believe we're already there.
Verta Maloney, the*gameHERs [01:07:03] Thanks for listening. Let's Play was brought to you by the*gameHERs, a community that connects all types of women gamers and welcomes every human who supports this. Let's Play was produced by Kaili Vernoff and co-produced by the*gameHERs team, Laura Deutsch, Rebecca Dixon, Verna Maloney, Heather Ouida and Alexis Wilcock with sound design done by Frank Verderosa. Please visit thegamehers.com To access exclusive bonus material and to learn more about the*gameHERs community. And we'd so appreciate if you subscribed and gave us a five-star review. Thanks again for listening.