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Hellena Taylor (Voice of Bayonetta) Describes How She was Offered only $4,000 USD to Voice Her Again in Bayonetta 3.

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
Kamiya is a cunt soo...
The world is not black and white, I'm not looking this at a perspective of perpetrator vs victim, it's a business negotiation and both parties want a good deal. We don't know the other side of that story, what we do know is who is in the wrong here, and it is clearly Hellena, breaking a NDA is like saying "my word was no value", a lie, so, why in the blue hell should we side with her?
 

Neff

Member
I honestly don't understand the "living wage" BS.

Living wage is a bit different for actors because they're not necessarily getting constant work. And if they're lucky enough to get them, residual payments can keep a roof over your head when you're not working. Taylor had a long dry spell which is presumably why she's particularly upset over this.

I feel bad for her and I love her work (Bayonetta is my favourite VG character), but she has handled this whole thing very poorly.
 
They lowballed her. 'Getting her revenge'

Revenge? What sort of revenge do you mean?

Entitlement? Lmao 😂😂😂

Getting a lowball offer, and then only 4k (union minimum), thats insulting.

Welcome to how any company operates. They aren't just going to go for the standard rates immediately. Doesn't matter who you are - that is why people negotiate. This is beyond common in any contract work. But please, continue to white knight for some random person and assume the worst despite knowing fuck all about the situation.
 
I'm convinced a lot of you just don't like this game series or something, because I have to think most gamers would be livid to find out that a video game character they really liked was going to have a different voice because the developer didn't want to pay any more than 4000 dollars.
I love Bayonetta, but this person was never the reason I bought the games. She is simply a voice and thousands of people can emulate it with little issue. She was paid the industry standard rates. She isn't a big name actress, she isn't part of a massive franchise (sorry, but Bayo is NOT a massive franchise and never was) - she isn't beholden to having higher pay.
She's not a favorite character of mine, and I didn't play much of the second game at all, but I can still consider other people who are fans. Are you all really suggesting that in a different game that you liked much more, with a character who is a personal favorite of yours, you wouldn't be bothered by a publisher refusing to pay more than 4000 dollars to get the "real" voice actor back? We're always talking about how cheep and greedy game publishers can be, and how they don't care enough about their customers. How does this not fit into that problem?
That is exactly what I am saying. I am not bothered by it at all and clearly most people don't seem to give a flying shit given the game continues to sell increasingly well since this "Scandal" came out. If you want to make an argument that the industry is underpaying voice actors, then that is certainly a good discussion to have. However, nothing here is a surprise to anyone with half a brain cell. If she was paid *under* industry standard rates and not given the standard rate after negotiations (an every day tactic for ANY contract worker who isn't a big name), then people may have room to stand here. But that isn't what happened.

The voice is part of the character design, that's why they use skilled performers to deliver the lines, not just whoever happens to be around for half an hour on Friday afternoon before everyone goes home early.
You are correct, however this actress didn't have a unique spin or voice. She isn't a Mark Hamill Joker. She isn't a David Hayter Snake, her performance can be done by literally thousands of others without missing a beat and something that clearly can be shown in the trailers for Bayo 3 with Hale.
 
I love the series but if you are asking me boycott this game that I have been for a long time over voice actor then my answer is no.

The funny thing is that most of the people feigning interest and anger over this never had any intent to buy or play the game. Look at all the groups that seemed to focus on this "Drama". Places like Kotaku, ResetEra, Polygon - groups that despised Bayonetta and feminine design.
 

kirby007

Member
The funny thing is that most of the people feigning interest and anger over this never had any intent to buy or play the game. Look at all the groups that seemed to focus on this "Drama". Places like Kotaku, ResetEra, Polygon - groups that despised Bayonetta and feminine design.
quite sure coomers like the design
 
Living wage is a bit different for actors because they're not necessarily getting constant work. And if they're lucky enough to get them, residual payments can keep a roof over your head when you're not working. Taylor had a long dry spell which is presumably why she's particularly upset over this.

I feel bad for her and I love her work (Bayonetta is my favourite VG character), but she has handled this whole thing very poorly.
I'm not getting constant work either. Do you see me crying on social media?

You'd be surprised if you knew how many people have a long dry spell in their lives and yet, nobody cares about them. Why should we care about Taylor? Does she care about us? There are no feelings here, just pure capitalism.

I hope she has a good lawyer for pulling out this stunt, because if I was Nintendo, I would fuck her in the ass.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Simp GIF by nervous.exe
XXEverywhere.jpg
 
Also.
Where's my personal twitter army when I lose my job?
I mean.. where is your professional twitter army when you quit your job because you didnt get a huge raise based on some weird idea that the company you work for makes so much money, and you, a person involved in one of the least successful of the company's projects is crucial to that success..

Because that is how business works, right? You get paid more even if you didnt contribute at all to the success of the company, right?
 
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Alebrije

Member
Considering her last work was on Bayonneta 2 and since then she has not used her voice in other videogame she deserves at least $4,500.00, so Kamija dont be cheap and open your wallet.
 

SSfox

Member
Did I misshear that or did Taylor say it was 16 hours for both Bayo 1 and 2 combined in the interview he showed?
There is a lot of upstream work in this kind of stuffs. And you have to consider that this a 3rd installment of a franchise that made millions of $ and Helena was one of the part that made and created the character Bayonetta, that is also for reminder, the main character of the entire franchise. It's not that hard to understand that 4000$ is a joke in this situation.
 

spons

Gold Member
For an industry that's basically a salt mine, Taylor seems especially salty. Whatever the case, going public means you're going to get flack from at least someone, and that someone is usually a group of Twitter users and/or ResetEra after they've discussed what point of view everybody should have before the rest of the users get banned. I have no idea about any political statements, but who the fuck cares about that, seriously.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Living wage is a bit different for actors because they're not necessarily getting constant work. And if they're lucky enough to get them, residual payments can keep a roof over your head when you're not working. Taylor had a long dry spell which is presumably why she's particularly upset over this.

I feel bad for her and I love her work (Bayonetta is my favourite VG character), but she has handled this whole thing very poorly.
If doing voice acting is a hit and miss career where making a stable living out of it is tough to do, then she should do something else in life. Most people who work have typical 9-5 kinds of jobs in a million different companies and industries. If the majority of people can find a normal job, I'm sure she can too.

I dont think the average lawyer or surgeon even gets paid $250/hr working FT, however she is doing voice overs for a video game character, which I doubt she even wrote the script. It's on her to find jobs to pay the bills not Nintendo or Platinum to purposely double or triple the wage so she can pay off her mortgage easier. She should be lucky the Screen Actor's Guild did some kind of mandatory payment agreements with companies so she still got $4000 for 16 hours of work.

Her problem is doing contract gigs for something that is super niche. Contract work as a whole is common. At my office, there's people on contract doing desk work for 10 years. The people who have it dont even want FT jobs with a bonus and perks. They actually want contract gigs where they demand something like $62/hr straight up because to them it's good pay and they dont have to get involved with all the corporate BS like politics, working past 5 pm or on weekends. That's the agreement. I have never seen one of them answer or send an email past 5 pm because they are done for the day.

She could be one of those people who does contract gigs in stable office roles. But she's chosen to make a living doing voice acting. That's on her to figure out.
 

GigaBowser

The bear of bad news
Lol how? Are you basing this off of twitter? Because I hate break this to you but twitter isn't the real world. Twitter is full of sociopaths, sycophants, and other looneys. Unless you know him personally, I wouldn't make disparaging remarks about him as a person
Not only that but even if he was a dick on twitter, I wouldn't give a shit.

As long as he made me awesome games.

hulk-hulk-out.gif
 

ShadowLag

Member
I personally wouldn't have said anything about it. Not her fight and she did nothing wrong. But, what she said was class all the way.

Straight up class from Hale. She gets it - when people are fighting instead of coming to positions of understanding, there are ultimately no winners. I'm glad she didn't give either side an edge.
 

LegendOfKage

Gold Member
I love the series but if you are asking me boycott this game that I have been for a long time over voice actor then my answer is no.
Of the many criticisms I have of the video that made us aware of this situation, directly calling for a boycott would be pretty high up on the list. Just speaking out about the situation would have caused some to boycott. Calling for it directly makes it look like she's a potential liability for those interested in hiring her. I agree her work should be worth considerably more to the project than 4000 dollars, but that aspect was a mistake, IMO.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I dont know who Jennifer Hale is but googled her and she's in a shit load of games.

Compared to Hellena Taylor, Hale is like a major league pro and Taylor is a AA minor leaguer. I dont know how up to date her bio is, but if it's true, Taylor hasnt done voice work since Bayonetta in various games in 2014.

Click on each link and use your mouse to scroll down, or if youre on your phone swipe down. Hale's career is literally 20x more. You'll be scrolling forever.

Helenna Taylor Bio

Jennifer Hale Bio
 

SegaShack

Member
I'm convinced a lot of you just don't like this game series or something, because I have to think most gamers would be livid to find out that a video game character they really liked was going to have a different voice because the developer didn't want to pay any more than 4000 dollars.

She's not a favorite character of mine, and I didn't play much of the second game at all, but I can still consider other people who are fans. Are you all really suggesting that in a different game that you liked much more, with a character who is a personal favorite of yours, you wouldn't be bothered by a publisher refusing to pay more than 4000 dollars to get the "real" voice actor back? We're always talking about how cheep and greedy game publishers can be, and how they don't care enough about their customers. How does this not fit into that problem?
This.
 

SegaShack

Member
So I'm kinda split on this.

On the one hand, if we take her word for it in terms of the fact that they made her an offer and she said "no that's too low" (completely ignoring actual amounts for now) and turned them down, then Platinum lied when they previously said Hellena Taylor wouldn't be reprising her VA role due to "scheduling issues".

On the other hand, unless we know: (1) what she got paid before for her other Bayonetta work and (2) what amount she would have actually settled for, it's hard to make a judgement call either way.

Obviously companies will use vague reasons like "scheduling issues" to diplomatically say "this person will not be coming back... meet the new person" but if it's a lie then it's a lie. Wouldn't make it excusable just because everyone else does it.

Full disclosure: I give zero shits about the Bayonetta series (never played it, have no interest in doing so) so I like to think I could take a relatively neutral line on this.

Also I just listened to a comparison video of Taylor and the new voice (Hale) and yeah I agree that her voice is way better than Hale's. That said, I'm pretty sure there are loads of British female voice actors who can do that stereotypical "sassy, almost villain-like, posh" voice. Their choice to go with Hale is a bit bizarre from what I've listened to, especially if they are paying her more (in which case why get rid of Taylor in the first place? is there more to the story than just money?).

Hell, even I know a few super posh older British women who would be glad to do that work for 4 grand.

Overall, surely VAs know that they (for obvious reasons) are inherently more disposable than physical actors. That's precisely why you see actors often successfully negotiate big pay bumps for sequels when the initial movie is successful (assuming they hadn't already signed up for multiple movies).
The company definitely is not going to say "due to wages she will not be reprising her role". They just look crappy if they did that. Scheduling issues is a common reason given.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
She's literally the most prolific female VA; like actually #1
I dont think the average gamer cares who voices any game they play. I know I dont. Reizo Ryuu told me (after I checked Google) Jennifer Hale is the most popular VA. I dont doubt this since her bio credits go on forever on IMDB for gaming and cartoon work.

But for me I never heard of her. I dont know who any VA are except for people occasionally bringing up Troy Baker and the guy who does Kratos' voice. I dont even remember his name but do remember he got into a car accident or something while making GoW.
 

SegaShack

Member
I dont think the average gamer cares who voices any game they play. I know I dont. Reizo Ryuu told me (after I checked Google) Jennifer Hale is the most popular VA. I dont doubt this since her bio credits go on forever on IMDB for gaming and cartoon work.

But for me I never heard of her. I dont know who any VA are except for people occasionally bringing up Troy Baker and the guy who does Kratos' voice. I dont even remember his name but do remember he got into a car accident or something while making GoW.
I dont think the average person cares either, but I can see why a fan would be upset over this. It's lame when any role in a series gets recast.
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
Pretty much a PR non-statement from hale, as expected, but might as well say nothing at all then.
What do you expect? A Cock fight? She is spot on, this game is not a product of an individual, but from a whole team that worked hard to make the best game they could given the time and resources. How is fair for them to have all their hard work boycotted over such petty statements. Hale was classy, didn't break her NDA, showed her support for her industry and make the very important defense of the team who created the game.
Hellena could handle the situation much better, her message would get a lot more support if she didn't ask to boycott the game.
 

LegendOfKage

Gold Member
I dont think the average gamer cares who voices any game they play. I know I dont. Reizo Ryuu told me (after I checked Google) Jennifer Hale is the most popular VA. I dont doubt this since her bio credits go on forever on IMDB for gaming and cartoon work.

But for me I never heard of her. I dont know who any VA are except for people occasionally bringing up Troy Baker and the guy who does Kratos' voice. I dont even remember his name but do remember he got into a car accident or something while making GoW.
You don't really need to know their names to value the voice that you already know. One of the most famous performances Jennifer Hale ever did was the female version of Shepard in Mass Effect. Imagine going from ME2 to ME3 and for some reason the voice sounds different. It's not worth more than 4000 dollars to prevent that sort of thing from happening?

Can you at least understand why many people might not want an existing voice actor to be replaced?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
You don't really need to know their names to value the voice that you already know. One of the most famous performances Jennifer Hale ever did was the female version of Shepard in Mass Effect. Imagine going from ME2 to ME3 and for some reason the voice sounds different. It's not worth more than 4000 dollars to prevent that sort of thing from happening?

Can you at least understand why many people might not want an existing voice actor to be replaced?
Who says I dont understand why?

But most people don't (including Nintendo). That's why she got offered the minimum rates for VA work. If her VA skills are so iconic for Bayonetta, Nintendo would offer her more to keep her. Going by the bio, the last time she did Bayonetta voice work was in 2014 for Bayonetta 2 and the Smash Bro character. That was 8 years ago.

Nobody even knows what kind of wage Taylor wanted anyway. Maybe she wanted $5,000. Maybe she wanted $50,000. Maybe $500,000. Considering she brought up the series has made $450 million trying to give an image the series is rolling in the cash, it's not like she would had taken $5,000.

Her fault was expecting a big pay out beyond the $4,000 offer.

Nobody should ever feel entitled for big money just because the company is big. If I get a job at MS or Apple (which are way bigger than the current company I work at), it would be stupid to think I should get 5x the salary because they make tons of money.
 
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(...) breaking a NDA is like saying "my word was no value", a lie, so, why in the blue hell should we side with her?
Doesn't change anything you said, but was she bound by an NDA when she declined a contract?

EDIT: to be honest, and I don't think a lot of people are saying this, but Hellena Taylor seems a bit unwell mentally, apart from the part she says so herself.

Not saying or implying she's not sane enough or belittling the original intent of her message, but I don't think she has a clear judgment. I feel she's probably in survival mode and nothing is going right for her right now, and sure enough with that attitude it won't.

From her short presentation we learn she's broke, she's depressed, she felt offended (which is her right) and doesn't care about her career or whatever consequences of her behaviour. Then she went on a tirade about the bible that felt needlessly verbose.

The vibe for me, is from someone a bit disconnected from reality.
 
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nush

Gold Member
I dont know who Jennifer Hale is but googled her and she's in a shit load of games.

Going by the bio, the last time she did Bayonetta voice work was in 2014 for Bayonetta 2 and the Smash Bro character. That was 8 years ago.


One of these voice actors does not turn down roles and by being constantly willing and available she builds a reputation as of of "The to go to" people when casting.

The other hasn't worked for 8 years.

Back in the day when I was out of work due to redundancy I signed on with a temp agency. Not one of those jobs paid me what I was "Worth" but earning anything was better than just sitting at home running up my utilities bills and earning nothing. I didn't turn down any job offered (Except call centre work, I did it once and it was hell) I'd deliver leaflets to houses, stock room work at retail, post sorting, data entry, reception. Which led to me gaining a rep with the agency as a reliable worker, which then go me in a position where I was offered the higher paying or more desirable longer term placement jobs first.

Eventually I did get a non agency job that paid me what I was "Worth" but I wasn't too proud to turn down work when I needed it.
 

nush

Gold Member
Serious question: who the fuck cares about Bayonetta's voice? To me, there was never anything special about her voice.
Looking though many pages on a search engine only shows this story and the previous one that she would be returning.
 
Click on each link and use your mouse to scroll down, or if youre on your phone swipe down. Hale's career is literally 20x more. You'll be scrolling forever.
Shit, you can just click on the links? I usually just type them in the address bar. And it's not just the one page that you can see but there's stuff under it you can "scroll" to? I'm on my PC right now but I will try to remember this "swipe" thing for later.

God damn, life changing shit. Thank you!
 
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