Meet the Actor – Elisabeth Hunter

September 5, 2013 Kris Takahashi Meet the Actor 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but with the mod out of beta I can start working on the blog again. Part of that is doing more actor interviews, particularly with the fine men and women featured in the main quest.

Elisabeth Hunter is relatively new to the mod, but she’s already churned out multiple roles and no two are alike, including Inari for the Warm Sands quest and Falatild for the Blood of Kings Questline. She’s one of the rare breeds who is as hard-working as she is talented, and you all have her to thank for the release coming as swiftly as it did. Go on. Thank her. By singing telegram preferably, but a nice comment would also suffice.

Here is her interview in glorious text form, and like the previous interviewees, she graciously answered all the questions, not just the stupid ones.

Introduce yourself as much as you are willing. You know, name, location, belly button
type, whether you snore in your sleep.
My name is Elisabeth Hunter. Im from Orange County, California. I have an “inny” belly button. I do not snore in my sleep. I have a birthmark that looks like a dog. I have a “buh-gillian” freckles. I
am a huge foodie, a Seinfeld addict. And I married my high school sweet heart.

Tell everyone a little about yourself, how you got into acting, what your goals are if
any.
I grew up in the theater doing musicals primarily, then continued doing drama and acting/singing competitions in high school. Went to a college and got my BFA in theater. Since graduating 2 years ago, I got an agent, attended GROUNDLINGS improv school, theater has taken a back seat to on camera acting, commercials, and voice over work.

My number one goal is to make a living doing what I love most, performing. Other goals are to be a main voice on an animated TV series or film, land a few big time national TV commercials, be the snarky mom on a sitcom, be on SNL, be on Broadway…I like to have my hands in a lot of different cookie jars.

Would you rather have pointy ears, a tail, or neither?
I feel like both of those features would just get in the way. People would be stepping on your tail, it
might get a door shut on it. The pointy ears could get caught on things and you could accidentally poke yourself.

How did you find out about the mod project?
A little bird named my husband (who is a video game enthusiast) actually told me about mods and found your website that had a list of roles yet to be cast. So I decided to give the roles a
look, recorded an audition and ended up voicing many characters in the mod.

Have you played Skyrim? If so, what sort of character do you typically role play? If not, what kind of crippling addiction do you prefer?
Yes, I’ve played a little bit of Skyrim as a Bosmer, but personally I prefer WOW, Old Republic and Guild Wars. Love the voice acting in O.R.

Talk about some of the larger roles you’ve done – Caylene, Inari, and Falatild.
Caylene was so much fun to play. We have a lot in common given that we are both performers,
we can be a little annoying/over-the-top at times and like to use our charm to make up for our short comings.

Our one difference would be that I like to think I hold a little more skill in the “acting” department than Caylene.

For Inari, I enjoyed getting to play a voice that is 100% different than my own. I can relate to her getting over emotional and to the frustrations she has with her love. We both love men that tend to be occasionally oblivious, but still would do anything for them.

I loved playing the warrior Falatild. She and I are both strong women. We are not easily trifled with. However, Falatild I think may be a bit more courageous than me, she is a soldier after all…

Does Caylene have any actual talent? Or would that make her less charming?
I think Caylene has a talent for entertaining people. She’s no Meryl Streep, but she can hold a crowd’s attention-even if that means people laughing at her and not with her.

Would you like to do an actual bard in the future?
Yes, I would enjoy doing an actual bard someday.

If you were a zombie, whose brains do you think would be the most delicious and
why?
Mmm, Ina Garten aka The Barefoot Contessa…her brains would be filled with all those yummy recipes of delicious food she makes.

Waffles or pancakes? Stormcloaks or Imperials? A hook for a hand or a brick for a
foot?
Lemon ricotta pancakes with blueberry compote from La Grande Orange in Pasadena, CA. Imperials all the way. Hook for a hand. Death by a thousand cuts and easier to conceal. The brick foot would slow you down when running from enemies, but kicking people in the shins or anywhere else for that matter would be fun.

Outside of this interview, when is the last time you thought to yourself, “This is bad idea” and yet did it anyway?
My wedding. JK JK! Probably any time that I test how far below the red line I can get on my car’s gas tank meter.

You’re walking down the road when you stumble across three eggs. A dragon, a cliff racer, and a gigantic chaurus hunter. Which one do you raise as a pet, which one do you sell, which one do you make into an omelette?
Dragon as a pet. Sell cliff racer. Tomato Basil Chaurus Omelette.

The face of your worst enemy is now on the boxes, labels, and packaging of all your favorite
foods. Do they taste worse?
Nothing could interfere with my tastebuds and their favorite flavors in food…nothing!

What kind of recording equipment and setup do you use? What are some of the
difficulties you encounter while recording?
I use a Rode Broadcaster Mic, a Tube Compressor, and I have a Macbook Air which runs programs such as Adobe Audition and Garageband. The biggest issues are always decreasing room noise and the fan on my computer is obnoxiously loud. So I have to take frequent breaks so it can cool and calm down to be quiet for recording.

Plug any work you’re doing. Where else can people hear your talents?
The next upcoming project where you can hear my vocal stylings will be an animated TV series. The show is called The Adventures of Circle Jerk, an adult cartoon comedy about a sociopath Circle who passive aggressively ruins the lives and self-esteems of all the other Shapes, Symbols and Signs in a world called Semiotic City.

Trailers and Teasers – A Warrior’s Life

September 4, 2013 Kris Takahashi Trailers and Teasers No Comments

This is a little collage of the three bards who can play the song, A Warrior’s Life. I asked many singers to get this is on only a few day’s notice, and understandably many didn’t. However, Barrett Leddy, Alice Bell, and Giramor – who also composed the song and for both the bards and Luaffyn’s Band – got it done, and the music in the mod is that much fuller for it.

Creation Kit – Notes on v3

September 3, 2013 Kris Takahashi Other 3 Comments

Just want to share some changes that will be a par of version 3. This is a blurb I was working on for the description page, hence the tone.

Interesting NPCs began as a project to bring color and life to Skyrim. However, the early characters were rather modest creations – a direct result of my own limitations with the CK. Over time, as my modding skills have improved, those NPCs have evolved into companions, spouses, and quest givers. Yet as a product of this unusual development cycle, any quest that involves an older NPC may require having met them previously. As I am still unable to create new lands, it may require clearing vanilla obstacles to prevent the possibility of conflicts.

To help rectify this, many of the innkeepers will provide notes directing you to Quest NPCs that are harder to find. Meeting them will ensure you can meet the prerequisites organically. This will result in many small quests whose only goal is to meet the NPC.

For instance, if you start the game and go directly to Zora, upon speaking to her a quest “A Field of Cotton” will complete in your journal. This may seem peculiar to long time users of the mod. New users, however, might first talk to Orgnar, who will give them a note to search Brittleshin Pass. Reading said note starts the quest, finding Zora completes it. This is a huge help in finding Gorr after his initial departure.

Couriers will also help guide you to NPCs when two are involved in a quest. Find one, and a courier will lead you to the other. Another thing I’ve added are filler NPCs that just point you to the quest starter.

This NPC, for instance, voiced by SageHalo, will direct you to two harder to find quest starters. Ytharil in particular is extremely hard to find given the location of her barrow is not on any map. Having a quest marker point the way is extremely convenient. In hindsight, I probably should have used NPCs like this as opposed to the innkeepers, but at least the notes will be less resource intensive.

The other primary changes that need to be noted are thus:

• Duraz is the only NPC who did not make it. She will still be in the Old Hroldan Inn, but as a deaf/mute. “Setstage 3dnpcenable 1” will turn on her dialogue as well as other silent commentary and conversations with Valgus and Qa’Dojo.

• Similarly, there is also a mechanism to remove NPC dialogue, by setting the quest that holds their base dialogue to stage 500. For example, to remove Yushari‘s dialogue, simply type “Setstage DialogueYushari 500” and she will be a mute. Scenes with other NPCs will remain.

Quest names can be found using the HELP command in the console. However, essential/quest NPCs cannot have their dialogue removed, as the player may not be aware exactly how much content they are removing.

• If I think of anything else, I’ll update here. There should be increased compatibility with other mods, including Convenient Horses and EFF, in addition to AFT and Simple Multiple Followers.