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Interview with Dialect Coach Pamela Vanderway – Part 1

June 21, 2011 by George 4 Comments

Dialect coach and idea factory Pamela Vanderway It was a little over a year ago that I met Pamela Vanderway on Twitter. We were discussing my near annual “fake a Jamaican” gig, in which I do a Jamaican accent for a radio commercial, and we had a great conversation on what it takes to learn a dialect or accent. Since then, we have talked about a wide array of topics, and I have discovered the she is an idea generator, a lover of the arts, and probably more energetic than 90% of the people I know. As a dialect coach based in Los Angeles, she has worked with many, many actors on acquiring the proper dialect for films, television, and other projects. You can see her work on her website at Dialect 411, and follow her on Twitter. I was able to squeeze into her busy schedule and ask her a few questions about her profession, how she became a dialect coach, and more. Here is part one.

Tell me a little about your path to becoming a dialect coach. When did you decide this is what you wanted to do, and was there a special program you were in or developed to get you there?

For every coach I’ve met, the path has been different. I was training to be a professional actor when I realized that more than any other thing, dialect work was what I wanted to do. After earning my BFA from California Institute of the Arts, I searched for programs in the United States that were geared toward  training dialect coaches. While I found many schools with speech therapy and linguistics programs, I could not locate a program which integrated the scholarly side of dialect coaching with any sort of deep understanding of the actor’s craft. I decided to approach CalArts to ask if they would consider creating a masters degree program that would meet my needs. Fortunately for me, CalArts is known for creative risk-taking so I was invited to work with the faculty at CalArts to design a program in which I could earn an MFA in speech studies for actors. For two years I observed nearly every speech and dialects class session the school offered and took notes on course content, instructional style and student progress.  In addition to speech, I took voice-for-the-actor classes, sometimes repeating the same course in order to deepen my knowledge and to observe how a different set of students may or may not influence the outcome of the class.  I took text analysis, theatre history,and various film history courses.  I regularly observed student actors as they worked with their acting teachers. I tutored students in phonetics, eventually working my way up to co-teaching courses. I also tended to ‘crash’ every class, rehearsal or student film set I thought might enrich my knowledge, studied every scrap of dialect information I could lay my hands on in those days before the wonder that is Google, and worked on student film and stage projects in every capacity I could. My philosophy was (and continues to be) that the more one knows about the big picture of something, the more skillfully one can enhance that picture with their talents.

My training of course did not end with my MFA. To better understand and serve my clients, in addition to the dialect research my job requires, I’ve taken group and private voice and voiceover classes, ADR classes, traditional storytelling classes, marketing classes, earned my 200-hour Yoga RYT certification, explored movement modalities such as the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Technique and Hellerwork, attended voice conferences, and observed actors rehearsing as much as possible so that I have exposure to the myriad approaches an actor may have to his/her craft. I even took horseback riding lessons for a while in order to experience centering and grounding in a new way. I really love what I do and want to provide my clients with the most comprehensive instructional experience I can, so I’m always open to trying out new modalities and techniques.

Many people equate “dialect” with “accent.” Are they the same?

The terms ‘dialect’ and ‘accent’ are hotly debated in linguistic circles. Ask five professionals and you’ll get five variations of an answer. Me? I tend to be of the mind that a dialect includes word and phrase choices while ‘accent’ is a word referring to pronunciation and musicality alone. That said, since I work mainly one-on-one with my clients, I allow myself flexibility in my usage of these terms, so that my client feels as comfortable as possible. (I figure that since learning a dialect is about as challenging as learning to walk on the high wire, I should extend comfort to my client wherever I can!)

Does an actor have to immerse themselves in a dialect in order to become “fluent?”

The simple answer is yes. An actor needs to have sufficient exposure to the specific sounds, rhythm and melody of a dialect in order to be able to accurately duplicate these components and then effectively integrate them into performance. How much time will be sufficient? That’s the million dollar question. Every case is different and depends on many factors including how much experience a person has at learning dialects at the professional level, how much prior exposure to the target dialect a person my have had incidentally in their life thus far, and how many components in the target dialect differ from the actor’s own dialect. This list only scratches the surface.

Clearly this isn’t a simple process, and there is no “Rosetta Stone” to get it done quickly

It’s a complicated formula to say the least. One thing I can say for certain is that anyone who claims to be able to teach an actor a dialect in one or two lessons is being overly optimistic. The actors you see collecting shiny golden awards are spending weeks and months rather than hours preparing for those award worthy dialect roles.

Is there a particular issue that would cause an actor to have more difficulty learning a dialect? Are there habits that you need to overcome or break before learning a dialect?

As I mentioned a little earlier, many factors influence the length of time that dialect training may take. One factor I have not mentioned though is an actor’s ability to hear. When an actor is living with significantly compromised hearing, learning a dialect can become quite challenging indeed. If the hearing loss is great enough this is a challenge that unfortunately may not be completely overcome. As far as habits are concerned, the only habits one must overcome is any tendancy one might have to give up when the going gets rough. Learning and then integrating a dialect is a project that requires a great deal of energy, focus and specificity coupled with a sense of curiosity and permission to step outside what is known and comfortable. The process can be at times thrilling and at other times a bit intimidating. As long as you don’t hit the first rough patch in the road to learning a dialect, declare yourself ‘not good at dialects’ and quit, you’ll reach your goal.

Look for part two of this interview tomorrow, where you get to hear more about the dialect acquisition process, and find out just what the heck these are:

IPA Pillows

Filed Under: Career Development, Interview, Training Tagged With: accent, actors, dialect, dialect coach, interview, Pamela Vanderway, training

Interview with Dr. Ann Utterback – Part 2

May 6, 2011 by George 4 Comments

Part two of my interview with voice specialist and author Dr. Ann Utterback. Ann has a PhD in speech and specializes in voice and diction. She has written dozens of articles and 8 books on the voice, including the Broadcast Voice Handbook. Her most recent article on tension and the voice can be found on Voice Over Xtra.

Part one of this interview is here.

Is there a consistent problem you run into with beginners that you would love to eliminate before clients get to you?

I often say that breathing is the energy for speech.  It is really helpful when someone comes to me who has already done some work to improve breathing.  I’ll give you an example.  I used to do an exercise in workshops where I asked participants to exhale an “ah” sound for as long as they comfortably could.  Invariably, the person who went the longest had some experience playing a wind instrument.  They already knew how to inhale a full breath of air and how to control the exhalation of that air.  Now not everyone wants to take up the tuba to improve their voice!  But there are other ways to work on breathing.  Yoga is great for breathing.  Aerobic exercise expands the breathing capacity.  Any of these things will help.  Breathing is something we can all work on on our own.  If a client has done this before they see me, it shortens the amount of time I need to work with them.

Dr. Ann Utterbeck of OnlineVoiceCoaching.com

Do you find that previous performance training, such as singing or stage work, provide a help or a hindrance for those you work with?

 Singing and acting can certainly help your voice.  It can, however, really hurt your voice.  It all depends on the type of training you receive when you are doing it.  I’ve had clients who have permanently damaged their voices singing without good instruction.  Not just rockers, either.  I had one client who sang in a choir but received bad advice about projecting her voice.  Stage acting can also promote misuse of the voice.  That was more true back in the days before microphones were used so extensively on stage, but it can happen even today.

Can you walk me through what a telephone evaluation with you would be like?

This is a good place for me to state very clearly that I am not a voiceover instructor.  There are plenty of people out there doing that who know lots more about voiceovers and how to develop character voices, etc., than I do. I am a voice specialist who works with issues like breathing, articulation, sounding conversational, having good vocal energy, and keeping your voice healthy.  A typical session begins with the client sending me their work.  I review this extensively before our session.  In the session, I begin by doing a vocal health assessment.  I ask the client lots of questions about the history of any voice problems, how they care for their voice, if they have symptoms of stress, and other questions along those lines.  I also ask about diet, smoking, water consumption, and exercise.  Once the history has been covered, I begin discussing the areas where I believe the client needs improvement based on my review of their work.  I explain the concepts and give exercises from my book, BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, that the client can begin doing to make the improvement needed.   Some clients do only one telephone consultation with me, and use the tools I give them to work toward improvement on their own.  Others may schedule more sessions so I can walk them through the exercises and keep them on track.  I’ve always told clients that I can give them in one hour the tools they need to improve.  I don’t want anyone to think that they will have to pay for numerous sessions.  That’s a choice, but not a requirement.

Is there a success story you can share that makes you proud of the work you do?

I worked with one young women, let’s call her Mary, whose voice was so young-sounding that she couldn’t get a job at the smallest television station in the country.  What is needed for a childlike voice is work with resonance.  Mary took this work so seriously that she did the exercises I gave her everyday for probably an hour.  I was amazed by her commitment.  But, it paid off.  In a couple of years she had not only gotten an on-air job in television, she was working in New York city, which is the number one television market in the country!  I used to play a recording of her “before” and “after” voice in workshops, and no one could believe it was even the same person.  She is living proof that you can make major changes in your voice if you really work at it.

I want to thank Ann for taking the time to answer these questions, and I truly appreciate what she is adding to the voiceover community. Take a few minutes to check out Online Voice Coaching and see what she has to offer. You can follow her on Twitter at @AnnUtterback.

Filed Under: Career Development, Interview, Training Tagged With: Broadcast Voice Handbook, Dr. Ann Utterback, singing, training, voice specialist, voiceover

Interview with Dr. Ann Utterback – Part 1

May 5, 2011 by George 1 Comment

Dr. Ann Utterbeck of OnlineVoiceCoaching.com
Dr. Ann Utterback

A few months ago, I began using Scoop.it in order to find news and information on voiceover. It has a very nice search plan. And one of the best things I found using Scoop.it is Dr. Ann Utterback. Her blog posts on managing the voice for broadcasters are incredibly helpful, and I began posting them for others shortly after finding them. Others clearly have found her just as helpful, and you may have seen her recent article on Voice Over Xtra on reducing tension with exercise.

Dr. Utterback is a Voice Specialist with more than 40 years experience. She has helped hundreds of people make the most of their voices.  She has worked with broadcasters, voice over artists, and podcasters around the world. Ann is the author of eight books and over 50 articles on voice. Her book, BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, is used in newsrooms and classrooms throughout the United States. It is designed as a self-help book that teaches how to improve every aspect of your voice.  She has her BA and MA in Speech with  an emphasis on voice and diction from the University of Memphis, and her Ph. D. from Southern Illinois University. You can find her website, book and a free voice exercise MP3 at Online Voice Coaching, and she was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. I’ll be presenting the second half of the interview tomorrow.

What led you to be interested in working with broadcast professionals on their vocal techniques?

There were a couple of things that started me on my career path.  First, I grew up in Memphis and had quite a strong southern accent.  While in college I took a voice and diction class and used what I learned to correct my own accent.  After I did that, it occurred to me that if I could fix my own accent, I could help other people with voice challenges.  This started me on a 16-year teaching career.  I taught voice and diction at several universities around the country.  Then in 1985 I was contacted at the University of Maryland, where I was teaching, and asked to coach one of the bureau chiefs at CNN.  He is the person who advised me to leave teaching and become a broadcast voice specialist full time.  I owe him for that because it has been a wonderful career.  In 1989 I went on to write my main book, BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, which is now used in newsrooms and classrooms across the country.  It came out in the fifth edition last year, and it’s rapidly becoming a popular resource for voiceover artists as well.

Do you find that, as groups, television anchors, radio hosts or voiceover professionals have different concerns or technique issues to work on?

Television is challenging because you have to factor in the visual presentation as well as the oral.  Other than that, I find that the basic areas of breathing, resonance, vocal health, articulation and vocal energy apply to all forms of oral expression.  I have had the privilege of working at the Voice of America as a consultant for the last 20 years, and people ask me all the time how I can work with people broadcasting in over 50 different languages.  I tell them that the equipment they are using is all the same whether they’re speaking Tibetan, Swahili, or Urdu, and it hasn’t changed in thousands of years.  We all breathe and articulate, for example, with the same equipment.  Vocal health challenges don’t vary from language to language and that’s true of the different modes of voicing whether it be voiceovers or broadcasts.

Your posts point out that there is so much more to what we do than simply breathing and speaking. Do you find it difficult to convince newcomers that it isn’t just about talking, and that the rest of the body plays a part in their “performance?”

I’ll tell you a funny story about that.  Around 1995 I was asked to speak at a large broadcasting convention.  I had been incorporating more and more stress control work into my coaching because I had discovered that with some broadcasters it didn’t matter how much I coached them, they didn’t improve.  I finally realized that they were so stressed it was preventing them from improving.  Well, when I let the word out that I was going to lead a convention session on stress, my friends in the business told me it was professional suicide.  They thought no one would take me seriously as a voice coach ever again because in the broadcasting world you didn’t talk about stress.  My session changed all that.  It ended up being standing room only, and now every year at this convention they have a session on stress control.  I’m hoping that voiceover talent will realize the importance of stress control and vocal health as well.

Read Part 2 of this interview. You can follow Ann on Twitter at @AnnUtterback

Filed Under: Career Development, Interview, Training Tagged With: broadcast voices, Dr. Ann Utterback, Scoop.it, technique, tension, training, Voice Over Xtra, voice specialist, voiceover

A Resource for Voiceover – MineWurx Studio Voice Talent Services

February 15, 2011 by George Leave a Comment

Minewurx Studio Banner

Micheal Minetree is the proprietor of Minewurx Studio, and he has posted a listing of the services in the very active Minewurx Studio Voice Talent Services group on Facebook. I am reposting it in its entirety, because if you are a voice talent and need some help with any of the things he has posted, you might have great option right here. I have never worked with Minewurx, but many people whom I respect have, so I offer this wihout hesitation.

There is something I’ve wanted to share with all of you for a while – but I had to wait until the time was right. So here goes. The “Voice Talent Services” part of the group name is just that – it’s about providing services to talent when they need them. These services cover a whole host of things to better and empower voice talent.

The services we provide cost very little money to new clients and can be had for little to no cost at all for current web hosting clients. One client just got their Flash website edited and redesigned for free. Another client called when their ProTools system wasn’t working and they needed a hand. Cost? Free. Another client called when they needed a quick graphic for their web site. Charge? nada… These are things we do every day for our clients. Below is a list of the types of things we provide:

  • Web Hosting
  • Graphics
  • Software Training
  • Coaching and Instruction
  • Talent Casting
  • Audio Editing and Mixing
  • Audio and Video Encoding for the Web
  • Audio and Video Player Installations
  • Voice Demos
  • Video Editing
  • Music Libraries
  • Sound Effects
  • Job Postings
  • Web Design
  • Site Development
  • Blog Installations
  • Forum Installations
  • FTP Server Access
  • File Storage and Backups
  • ISDN – Source Connect Bridging
  • … and anything else we can think of..

So – the moral of the story is – when you need a hand with any of the above – try calling your web hosting provider and see if they offer them. I’m pretty sure they don’t. But we do…

If you ever need anything having to do with any of the above, or would like to explore what options are available to you concerning your existing web hosting – just call. We’re building a different kind of web hosting service – one that offers additional features like no other.

Questions? Message me on Facebook, email me from the website or call (571) 318-9776 and leave a message if I’m not there. I always  get my emails – so that is the fastest and best way to reach me.

Thanks,

Michael

And there you have it. Some interesting opportunities there. Go check out Minewurx!

Filed Under: Career Development, Marketing, Sales and Contacts Tagged With: hosting, ISDN bridging services, Michael Minetree, Minewurx Studio, training

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