Getting to know Nicola Zonca

November 10, 2021

Hi everyone!

 

I’m Nicola Zonca, ¼ of Native Prime’s co-founders, in charge of the Italian division as a Sound Expert. Do you know my journey started playing on tour around the world? Let me introduce myself…

 

I have a background as a musician and musicologist. I always loved music, and I had the opportunity to spend the first 10 years of my working life playing on tour around the world. I learned a lot from that experience! 🎼

 

Then, after giving it a lot of thought, I founded Studio Arki and started creating soundtracks, sound design, and dubbing for different media (from theater to dance, cinema and television). This quickly led us to work in the world of video games.

 

When we started in the amazing world of video games in the 1990s, it was natural to start working on localization as well. Within a few years, however, localizing to Italian became my main activity. A few years later, Native Prime was born, next to my partners and friends Diana, Vincent, and Friedrich.

 

Discovering localization has been a ride! On one side, I was and still am very fascinated by the cross-cultural aspect of it: it’s a lot of fun and meeting great people. On the other side, I am also in love with the gaming business environment. It’s highly innovative, young, next-gen tech, but in reality, absolutely centered on the artistic and emotional dimension of the product. A beautiful combination, technology, and emotion, which shows us some interesting ways towards the future! Don’t you think? 😄

 

Now you might be wondering, Nicola, when working, what is your biggest goal? Well, at Native Prime, as in almost every other activity in my life, I love to connect and empower a group of people around a project and thus see the project itself grow. This, while keeping as high as possible the quality of life of all the people involved in the project. That’s what I’m always looking for.

 

And a piece of advice I’d give you as a voice director (as for every Artistic director), what really matters is being able to keep the focus on the quality of the acting. That defines the quality of the emotions that are delivered to the players. Everything else is database and technology, indispensable but not sufficient. Gaming is an emotional activity, keep that in mind when on a project! 

 

I  have to leave now! Today is the perfect day to take my diving equipment together with my son and partner and dive in the beautiful sea here in Italy 🇮🇹, but see you soon on the next “Getting to know”!