The Standard/Neutral American Dialect, The Minnesota Dialect, The Southern Dialect, The British Dialect, The Australian Dialect, The New York Dialect, The German Dialect, The Texas Dialect, The British South African Dialect, and The Irish Dialect with Donald The Dialect Coach (www.DonaldTheDialectCoach.com)
In today’s video, Donald The Dialect Coach teaches you what to focus on when learning a dialect so that it will be believable. He also shows you how to keep your line delivery from being choppy while performing with a dialect. Part 2.
by: Donald the Dialect Coach
We all want to be engaging speakers.
Some people seem to do it naturally, however it is a skill that can be learned.
How can you make your voice interesting? How can you engage with material immediately? How can you make choices right away (even when cold reading)?
USE THE VERBS!
This trick alone will TRANSFORM your auditioning.
When you’re reading a sentence, find the action verbs and use them. A verb expresses action or a relationship between two things. Wait a minute – that’s what acting is all about! It’s no wonder that this tip will cause you grow as an actor immediately.
When we watch movies, what do we want to see? ACTION.
When we are speaking, we need to speak the action with our voice for the person listening. We can’t literally pantomime each thing we talk about, but we can milk our action verbs and make the audience feel as if they were there.
The great thing about verbs is that we can make them sound like what they mean. For example, The word trampled sounds like what it means. So does love, hate, fear, accept, deny, free, etc.
You get the picture 🙂
Your job as actors is to make these action verbs the star of each sentence that we say. All of the meaning and emotion in the sentence should be put into the action words.
Let’s use this sentence as an example: “I know they talk about me.” You may be tempted to use the pronouns, so that it sounds something like this: “I know they talk about me.”
Listen up, friends! Pronouns are an actor’s worst nightmare. Okay, that’s a bit extreme but you get the point 😉
Pronouns don’t deserve our attention 90% of the time.
Picture this:
Your best friend walks into your house, slams his car keys down and says, “I know they talk about me.” He doesn’t need to point to himself when he says, “me” in order for you to know that he’s talking about himself, does he? Nope, It’s understood. Likewise, he doesn’t need to point away from himself when he says, “they”. It’s understood.
When we stress a word it’s like we’re pointing at it with our voice. The meaning in the sentence is contained within the verbs.
“I know they talk about me.”The way he says the word “know” answers two important questions.
AND
The same is true for the word “talk.”The verbs are the meat of every sentence. Pronouns are just filler. Yes, you have to say the pronouns in a sentence, but you don’t have to use them.You will be amazed at how quickly using the verbs will impact your acting.
Happy Training,
Donald www.TheAccentSwitch.com
In today’s video, Donald The Dialect Coach teaches you what to focus on when learning a dialect so that it will be believable. He also shows you how to keep your line delivery from being choppy while performing with a dialect. Tune in next time for Part 2.
As actors, a big part of your career is out of your control. You gain and lose roles for a myriad of reasons.
If it’s out of your control, then what do you do?
You know the best thing about skills?
Training, a great attitude, and specialized skills beat talent every time!
Donald The Dialect Coach
www.DonaldTheDialectCoach.com
Donald Gipson (www.DonaldTheDialectCoach.com) combines a unique blend of professional acting and teaching expertise to deliver a high quality learning experience that enhances the skills of professional actors and sets them apart from the competition. Donald demystifies dialects.
Whether working locally in Los Angeles or around the world via Skype, Donald shows you the fun and easy way to learn dialects and reduce your accent. Most importantly, he teaches you how to own a dialect, build up your skill set, and add more value to yourself as an actor.
Website: www.DonaldTheDialectCoach.com
Email: Donald@DonaldTheDialectCoach.com
