Finding your voice. That does sound so euphoric, but it has a good ring to it.
Like most actors living in London, I attended classes at the Actor’s Centre, in an attempt to hone my skills. I especially liked the one-on-one sessions with a vocal coach. My vocal coach was always extremely interested in my accent as she didn’t meet many South African actors. She said she had never had an Afrikaans student at all. Well great, that made for good conversation – she asking cultural questions, me answering her with slight (snobbishly amused?) disbelief at her obvious lack of knowledge about my culture (or the fact that she was actually, sincerely interested in it?).
Anyway, we only had an hour per session, so better crack on.
Having committed myself to a career in acting, I spent hours practicing to lose my South African accent, to sound “more British”, to try and conquer the elusive Received Pronunciation. “The bells must be tingling, my dear” she said once, referring to the crystal clear articulation that is required for RP. It was a struggle for me. As a rule, we Afrikaans speakers can be quite lazy with our pronunciation. (Oh, shoot me. It’s true). I had to practice my voice exercises daily, as a day or two without doing it, would cause a lapse that was quite irritating and embarrassing.( If you are staring at a client through the glass pane separating the vocal booth from the technician and you just. cant. get that word pronounced so it sounds natural, you do wish you had done your homework.) It’s a great feeling to be fully warmed up and “on top” of your toolbox – your voice. If you are a VO artist, I recommend that you keep doing your vocal exercises, as often as you can.
But that’s not what today’s write-up is about.
Having practiced my rolling R’s and softening my guttural G, I ended up being thrown in the following scenario, many times. I read a script to a client, in South African English or Afrikaans and receive the following note: “ Mmmmm. Ok…But can you sound a bit more South African?”
(Pause. What does he mean?)
“Erm? What do you mean?”
(Do you mean you actually WANT to hear my over-pronounced Afrikaans R and just love the scraping G in my throat? )
Mumbling from the other side of the glass, fumbling for words to express what is needed.
(You do? ?)
“Oh. OK. Sure…”
I would nail the session by opting for a balance between clear articulation and that familiar Afrikaans combination of “flat” vowels and the overstressing of certain consonants. Well doesn’t that sound fancy. It just means I had to carefully traverse the river between training and falling back on comfortable speech patterns from back home.
This scenario made me aware of the perceptions different nations have of each other. I’m talking about positive, if misguided (ignorant?) perceptions we harbour for other cultures. We South Africans definitely do it too. It’s often not malicious, just misguided. What does make it dangerous, from a business point of view, is that you always need to keep your target market in mind. More than once I had to give my opinion on the matter to the client, informing him that his chosen approach may not resonate with his market. As any professional voice over artist will tell you, this is something you steer clear of. You keep quiet unless spoken to! (Really.)
The stereotype will live on, in all of us perhaps, for as long as we watch TV and devour what the film industry give us.
Being asked to “sound more South African” did confuse me though. Were all those exercises at the actor’s centre for nothing? Where do I receive training for THIS? Why not just stop training altogether, what de heck. Having returned to South Africa and now living here these past 4 years, I am confronted again with the perceptions from this side of the ocean. My answer is this: Of course you need to keep training. And then listen. Listen to what the client envisions. Try and see the picture and final product he has in his head. Then jump in and swim.
It’s important to be proud of your language, accent and culture, but this industry needs you to be versatile. Do what the client asks, he is always right, remember…
Have a lovely month! Follow me on twitter @Marinda_SAVoice if you like!
Marinda