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Hello.
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My name is Sammi, and I am from Paris, France originally.
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From Atlanta, Georgia.
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From Sydney, Australia.
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London, England.
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Moscow, Russia.
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There's been a lot more,
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but those are the ones that come to mind.
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My name is Sammi Grant, I'm a dialect coach and I'm legally blind.
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(people speaking at once)
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A dialect coach is someone who teaches actors accents.
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I can do accents from around the world.
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I don't really even have a count anymore
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because I've taught so many.
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I mostly work for the stage.
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I've started dabbling in television.
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One of the reasons I think that I took to voice work
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and dialect work is because I'm more in tune with hearing.
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So people are always like, “Oh, you have heightened hearing.”
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I don't like that phrase
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'cause it sounds like we have like superhero hearing
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like we're Daredevil or something.
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Oh, you're just like Daredevil.
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No.
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But I do have more a tuned hearing.
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I use my hearing more than a sighted person
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because I have to.
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For a London accent, placement's really important
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so the placements like really forwards in the mouth.
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So there's the southern accent that lacks the R.
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The Australian accent quite different
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than the British accent
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so they don't really say like, buttah,
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it's a little more like butter.
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Transatlantic accent is very dramatic.
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It's what you hear in those old time movies.
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It's kind of like a, well, well I don't know,
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is he ever gonna love me?
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Well I just want him to love me.
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But if I'm too expressive maybe he won't, I don't know.
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For Russian accent you want to sort of feel like
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you swallow some in back of the mouth.
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This is very stereotype, but like the Jewish New York mother.
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This is what I do a lot with my friends.
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You know, kind of like the, why don't you call me?
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You know I sit around and wait for your calls all day
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and you never call me.
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I don't mind, it's okay, you know, just whatever.
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I just pay for your college tuition, it's okay.
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It's a pretty in depth process teaching someone an accent.
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I get sent this script and I try to gather everything I can.
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So that goes much beyond just, where does this take place?
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It also factors in time period
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and education level, class level,
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and I also think about the gender of my character.
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And then I talk with the director to sort of you know
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touch base on their concept for the voice of the show.
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And then I kind of go on a hunt
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for authentic speakers.
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Once I've gathered all that information
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I present it to the actor.
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We're now surrounded by so many voices
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that are emotionless.
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You know by these automated voices that sound very fake.
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Where it's like, I'd love to help you,
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I'm a computer that's here to help you
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with whatever you want all the time.
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I love meeting new people and hearing their voices.
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I, you know, immediately go into dialect coach mode
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and I wanna sort of imitate them.
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I just wanna like experience their voice
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and experience what their vocalizing.
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(people speaking at once)