Rebeloop Records Raucous Rendition for VR
In film, TV, and commercials, Loop Group may be the perfect example of, “if it’s done right you’ll never notice it, but the moment it’s gone, you’re completely aware.” Think back to the last movie you watched. Any scene that took place in a public space, even with just a small handful of people in the background behind the main characters, was most likely brought to life by a Loop Group.
The term Loop Group (Noun? Verb? Why not both!), describes a group of actors, anywhere from a pair to groups of ten or greater, sharing a sound stage and performing to video playback in real time. But instead of watching the performances of the big name stars, they’re specifically paying attention to everyone ELSE in the scene. The job of a Loop Group is to believably recreate the conversations and interactions of the background characters.
Recording the background characters while they idly chit chat on set doesn’t allow for the control needed when mixing, let alone preparing for foreign language versions. So the director will have their extras silently act out their conversations, then bring in the Loop Group to fill in those conversations discreetly in post-production. One such Loop Group is Portland’s own Rebeloop.
When he realized Portland had a clear demand for Loop Groups, but that no local, established groups existed, Director and co-founder Mike Vaughn decided to form Rebeloop to meet that demand. He directs his team to perform side conversations (typically improvised) that feel appropriate for the setting, and as realistic as the project needs them to be. Full of actors from Portland, the Rebeloop players are no strangers to our stages at Digital One. Most recently, we worked with them on the trailer of an upcoming video game re-release, Among Us VR.
The original release of Among Us was known to many as a popular way to reconnect and have fun with friends during the height of quarantine. Those who have played it are all too familiar with the chaotic discussions in the game as players decide who amongst them is the traitor, where crosstalk and shouting is the norm. Between that aspect and trailer director Derek Lieu’s goal to showcase the conversation proximity feature in the game, he ultimately found himself in need of a Loop Group.
Rebeloop, acting as a group of six actors that day, delivered the performance needed to bring this trailer to life. We recorded them on one of our sound stages having a variety of conversations—casual as new players experience the VR setting for the first time, and chaotic when a team member’s character has mysteriously died, yet no one seems to know anything…
Some of the Rebeloop troupe working with trailer director Derek Lieu in his secret hideout. photo: Mike Vaughn
We spent half a day recording Rebeloop, acting out a variety of scenarios to make sure there would be plenty of options to audition in the trailer. Then, after Derek comped his select takes into the trailer edit, the project returned to Digital One for about another half day to do the final mix. A highlight of this one was definitely sculpting the spatialization of the various voices throughout the trailer, in order to illustrate the aforementioned proximity effect of players’ audio in the game. It was a blast to record such a large, energetic group of people in the studio for a game that has really meant something to so many people, especially when spending time with your friends was just a little more challenging.