KERA News
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
It’s the iconic, ear-curdling ultrasonic scream of Sindel from the Mortal Kombat series. The sound alone can destroy her enemies in the game – and that scream was voiced by an actor who spent hours in a studio.
Many video game voice actors must scream or yell for projects to make characters come to life.
Tim Friedlander, president and founder of the National Association of Voice Actors, said that sometimes leads to the issue of “churn and burn” in the industry where companies will push actors’ voices to the limit and drop them.
A fellow voice actor was pushed to scream and yell in a session until he coughed up blood and lost his voice for six months, Friedlander said.