doomwar
Member
Where's my hair?
Posts: 98
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
Pronouns: he/him
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Post by doomwar on Dec 19, 2016 8:00:00 GMT -8
Kira, you can move this topic if you want to. Anyway, I'm asking this question is because since this VAC is getting members from both the professional and non-professional fields around the world, it would be great to learn which accents are rare and which ones are common in the industry and the various regions. I know that General American and General Canadian (at least their western variants) are commonly used in anime dubs and movies, the English actors are moving away from speaking RP in favor of either their own accents or the varying Estuary accents, and bilingual Hong Kong entertainers nowadays use a GA-sounding accent, save for a few still using RP-style accents but what about the other regions?
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Post by sonicmega on Dec 19, 2016 11:31:48 GMT -8
What is RP? My apologies for not understanding.
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Post by Reece Bridger on Dec 19, 2016 11:42:17 GMT -8
What is RP? My apologies for not understanding. 'Received Pronunciation'. It's the fancy term for the classy English accent. Not the House of Windsor accent you might think of that the queen speaks in, where you add an E sound under every single vowel, ('Helleoh!') but the accent most people think British politicians and elites have, as opposed to Cockney, Scouse, Northern, Southern, and the other British accents
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Post by Lady Stardust ★ on Dec 19, 2016 21:19:38 GMT -8
Aside from RP I've seen a fair amount of auditions for Cockney accent. Irish, Scottish, Australian, Russian... I also often see "middle eastern" or "Eastern European" though they don't specify which region.
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Post by peterjvo on Dec 20, 2016 1:41:47 GMT -8
RP was the first UK accent I learned. Was disappointed to hear that the trend is moving away but it's nice to have something to fall on in case I get to audition for a Star Wars project. I saw a YouTube video from a native that claimed that the RP accent seems to come back into play when the conservative party gets elected into power but I can't really confirm that.
Southern/Texas gets thrown around a lot down here in Texas. Funimation and Sentai Filmworks is down here so whenever there's a foreigner or Osaka character in an anime that needs to be dubbed, Texas or Brooklyn tends to be the marker in the translation. I also picked up Brooklyn but have only found a use for it for bully-type characters.
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The Uncertain Man
Member
Looking for some gentle feedback on how to improve my demo.
Posts: 164
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Post by The Uncertain Man on Dec 20, 2016 4:18:30 GMT -8
I'm incredibly thankful that RP is declining. The British Isles have a diverse range of accents and it's often looked down upon to have a regional dialect. The Conservatives tend to be made up of RP speaking private school boys, so I can certainly see where that person is coming from.
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duffyweber
Member
Posts: 220
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor, Semi-Professional Voice Actor, Audio Engineer
Pronouns: Any OK
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Post by duffyweber on Dec 21, 2016 14:28:15 GMT -8
As an American VA, studying RP and similar accents can certainly be very beneficial though. (Though I tend to just emulate Geoffrey Palmer for older British characters, and Philip Bretherton for the younger ones, heheh.)
I've gotten a few gigs with production companies that I didn't realize were in the UK until AFTER I'd auditioned. (Let me tell you - nothing makes you more nervous that faking an accent for a sound director whose accent it ACTUALLY IS.) XD
I find that in a lot of games, the old Chicago or New York style 1940's gangster-esque bit is well-received if they're looking for some humorous aside from NPC-characters. Scottish seems to pop up every now and then (though thank God Glaswegian isn't specified! It's fun to play with, but getting it right is next to impossible if you ain't FROM there, and you'll tie a knot in your tongue trying.)
A fun one you might try is a country/coastal UK accent. It gives a welcoming, folksy feel without doing the whole Cockney "'eah! Oo ahreyooou?" thing. As The Uncertain Man pointed out, there are a LOT more accents than just your standard RP, and Cockney.
Persian has popped up more than once, for me, and it's a lovely accent and fun to do.
One thing I always suggest where accents are concerned - BE RESPECTFUL. It's sometimes okay to do a Boris-and-Natasha "beeg trouble for moose aynd sqvirrel!" thing if it's a really wacky character, but if you're supposed to be serious, take a moment to study the accent and treat it (and the people to whom it belongs) with the respect it, and they, deserve.
And now you've got me curious as to what crazy accents everyone's done. ^_^ Weirdest for me: I speak Spanish*, but usually Mexican/South American accents. Had to do a Spain accent a couple times, and WOAH is it different! Took me a while to polish it up correctly, and I STILL have to go slowly and make sure it sounds right.
*more or less ; )
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doomwar
Member
Where's my hair?
Posts: 98
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
Pronouns: he/him
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Post by doomwar on Dec 23, 2016 8:10:15 GMT -8
The accent I've been using in my video game reviews is a combination of a Boston Brahmin (The New England equivalent of RP) and a non-regional Boston accent (whose IPA chart is hard to find), updated it a bit to sound like a modern accent (Estuary, sorry General American) but retained the 1600's 'o' sound (as in hot pot) although I hoofed it like in Estuary and RP (to an English ear it would sound long).
I do use a General American accent but not too often as I live in Quincy for more than a decade now and the Boston accent became my primary accent, it'll sound little different to non-New Englanders.
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doomwar
Member
Where's my hair?
Posts: 98
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
Pronouns: he/him
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Post by doomwar on Dec 29, 2016 11:39:56 GMT -8
Did anyone had trouble pronouncing certain words or letters when pulling off accents from every part of the Commonwealth of Nations or the US like mispronouncing 'Z,' 'been' or 'easy'? Also what are the easiest Standard/General accents in your opinions? Regional?
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Post by Nyan on Jan 1, 2017 2:21:36 GMT -8
I'm English, when I first started in voice acting, I had to learn a US accent to get parts. Now I find speaking in variations of my natural voice get me the most work, I guess because English\Brit voices have a strong association with certain genres. That said occasionally people have called my natural voice fake which I find pretty funny.
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Post by totalspiffage on Jan 1, 2017 13:54:10 GMT -8
It's really odd for me, considering I'm actually bi-dialectal (mum's english, dad's from around Philly) so I switch sometimes between the two. My english is very posh as my mum is from a posh area near London, something my northern and welsh friends make fun of near constantly, but my american accent is the most generic with limited regional markers (the caught-cot merger is one, there's a few more but they're quite subtle)!
One of my accent pet peeves is when people hire me for "no accent" jobs. I'm sorry to say, but EVERYONE has an accent or marker in their natural dialogue.
But anyway, I've been asked to do New York accents quite often (which I'm ashamedly VERY bad at despite studying accent tags on youtube for hours), New Jersey sometimes, Midwest or Canadian accents or Australian!
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