Welcome to Inside the Atomic Studio! This is a new interview series exclusive to Nukapedia, the Fallout Wiki, featuring text-based interviews with the voice actors of the Fallout series. With each new blog entry, we'll be talking to someone who's lent their voice to or otherwise been involved with the Fallout franchise, asking them about their career and their work on Fallout.
With our first entry, I talked to Torian Brackett, who worked on the Fallout 76 update Expeditions: The Pitt. In it, Brackett voiced Responders at the Whitespring Refuge, as well as some other characters, including the bitter lover and the Responder janitor.
1. First, tell me a bit about yourself! In Fallout 76, you voice many of the Responders and dialogue at the Whitespring Refuge, but who is the person behind those voices?
Well, I'm 31, originally from New York, and coming up on my 1yr anniversary of moving to LA in January! My free time is spent gaming if I can help it, and I'm also part of a weekly DND campaign. It's gotta be in its 5th year by now... I also enjoy a good horror movie and love jazz music!
2. What brought you into the world of voiceover? What's your version of the story that every voice actor has about how they started doing it?
Acting behind the mic wasn't really on my radar until the pandemic. I was living at home and working on musical theatre productions for about 6 years after undergrad when the state shut down. It was during that time that I reached out to someone I knew was already working in the industry and started doing my own research. My first job was an audiobook called Tainted Moonlight, which I loved! It was a long process but coming from the stage, it felt like a one-man show. It would be just under a year later that I booked my first game, the System Shock remake.
3. How specifically did you first get involved with and cast for Fallout 76?
I really should check in with the dev team about this because the offer came directly through my agent. So I'm assuming someone saw my work elsewhere or liked my demo, but I can't say for sure. That's how it happens in this industry sometimes and it's always a blessing.
4. In The Pitt update, you voice a lot of lines that are used on multiple characters, for the Responders as a whole. Were there any big differences in the recording process between this and doing voiceover for specific named characters with their own story?
Whether they're protagonists, supporting roles, or side npcs, every character has to be a real person with a story and reason they ended up where they are. So on the creative side, no. While the voices would end up being used for a few different character models, the idea behind the responders was the same. This particular group just happened to be at the Whitespring, helping rebuild and providing a safe space for those who needed it. On the technical side, things were pretty similar as well; you've got a spreadsheet of lines in front of you, and you go through one by one, with the director helping you navigate the context of each moment.
5. Sort of as a follow-up to that last question about the Responders, a lot of their lines are pretty optimistic and emphasize making a difference in the world. Was this "faction personality" generally the case for everything you recorded on The Pitt, or were there times where the various Responder characters took a different approach?
I think the faction personality was consistent throughout, especially now that I've gotten to hear everyone else's interpretations of the lines. I think it was important for the devs to preserve the theme of who the responders are so everything you mentioned about them comes through with all of our performances. At that point, the individuality is just who we are as actors and what we bring to the character personally.
6. Were you a fan of Fallout before working on The Pitt? If so, how did that inform your performance?
I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't played before working on the game, and was only familiar with the world on a surface level, but I do remember once the lines got to talking about rads and scorch beasts, I had a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with!
7. As a whole, when recording for something like a Fallout game, is the process more heavily directed and straight-forward from the directors and writers, or do you get the chance to play with a character a bit and have your interpretation of them? Maybe a bit of both?
I think the direction for the Responders was pretty consistent, the team knew what they wanted out of those performances. But I did also get to voice a couple of NPCs for the random daily missions that appear in the Whitespring Refuge; those characters I had a bit more leeway with as an actor, which is always fun!
8. How do you prepare for a voiceover role like this? There's the script, of course, but did you have to study anything for the voice work you did on The Pitt?
In general, you don't see the script until the day of recording, for many reasons. This might be different for a performance capture role where you need to memorize your lines, but I didn't see anything between auditioning and the recording session. So creative preparation for the role is about preparing your openness, curiosity, and willingness to try anything, knowing that your director will set up the parameters of the sandbox you get to play in for that moment. Technical preparation looks like having tools in your belt to confidently access whatever is asked of you, vocal ranges, accents, etc. For example, I was cast as a Responder, but the day of the recording I was also asked to do those side NPCs and they need to be given the same care and attention as anyone else.
9. For a non-Fallout question, what's something you're really passionate about in the world of voiceover right now? This can be a platform for you to advocate for anything going on that's important to you right now.
Hopefully this is a dated answer by the time it's published, but I'm a member of SAG-AFTRA and our Interactive Media Agreement, which is the contract we use for video game work like Fallout, is nearing a year past expiration. We're hoping to gain provisions in our ongoing negotiations that protect actors from malicious uses of synthetic voice technology that would all but remove us from the equation in the development process. At this point, it's not hyperbole to call it an existential issue, as AI tech is progressing faster than union regulation or federal legislation can keep up with. Losing this fight means there won't be a job to negotiate for in the next round, so it's very important to not just me, but all your favorite voice actors and the people we work with! Making games is a labor of love from start to finish and with the games industry earning well into the billions of dollars, we want to make sure actors remain part of the conversation when it comes to how our performances are used.
10. Finally, where can people find you or hear you? What's the best way to follow your work, and what you've been appearing in recently?
You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @teebeevo! Audiobooks remain a large part of my workload so check me out on audible if you're a listener! On the games side (this is actually the first place I'm announcing it, haha) I'll be playing Morgan in The Walking Dead: Destinies, available November 14th!