Double Dutch

Just in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season, Carl Amari, the producer behind “Twilight Zone Radio Dramas” and “Mystery Theater”, released an audio interpretation of the Old and New Testaments on 79 CD’s. This 98-hour long production involved over 1,000 actors, technicians and musicians, and features an original music score by Stefano Mainetti, and film quality sound effects. The end result is “The Word of Promise Bible“.

STAR POWER
Jim Caviezel, star of the remake of “The Prisoner”, and crucified in 2004 in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, reprises his role of Jesus for this epic audio drama. Other cast members include Marcia Gay Harden (Esther), Malcolm McDowell (King Solomon), Richard Dreyfuss (Moses), Jason Alexander (Joseph) and Luke Perry as Judas. Michael York narrates both testaments. British actor Martin Jarvis is the voice of God. Voice-over actor JoBe Cerny (the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy), directed an incredible 175,000 takes.

As you can imagine, a project like this is fraught with challenges. I know first-hand how hard it is not to step on people’s overly sensitive religious toes, when it comes to recreating creation and all that follows… During my time at the BBC, I was asked to produce an hour long radio drama for Radio 1, which specializes in current popular music and chart hits. The idea was to retell the story of Easter through music and narration, but in a way that would appeal to young adults.

TRANSLATION
One of the first problems I ran into was which translation of the Bible to use. Here are just a few choices:

Revised Standard Version (1952, RSV)
New American Standard Bible (1963, NASV)
The Jerusalem Bible (1966, JB)
New English Bible (1970, NEB)
Living Bible (1971, LB)
Good News Bible (1976, GNB)
New International Version (1979, NIV)
New King James Version (1982, NKJV)
Reader’s Digest Bible (1982, RDV)

There are, of course, a few more ‘exotic’ options. Mike Coles is Head of Religious Education at Sir John Cass’s Church of England Secondary School in East London. He wrote “The Bible in Cockney: Well Bits of it, Anyway….”

Here is his version of the Lord’s Prayer from Luke 11:2-4:

HELLO, Dad, up there in good ol’ Heaven, Your name is well great and holy, and we respect you, Guv. We hope we can all ‘ave a butcher’s at Heaven and be there as soon as possible: and we want to make you happy, Guv, and do what you want ‘ere on earth, just like what you do in Heaven. Guv, please give us some Uncle Fred, and enough grub and stuff to keep us going today, and we hope you’ll forgive us when we cock things up, just like we’re supposed to forgive them who annoy us and do dodgy stuff to us. There’s a lot of dodgy people around, Guv; please don’t let us get tempted to do bad things. Help keep us away from all the nasty, evil stuff, and keep that dodgy Satan away from us, ‘cos you’re much stronger than ‘im. Your the Boss, God, and will be for ever, innit? Cheers, Amen. Who is it for? Geezers and birds, oi, oi, oi

Then there’s the Princess Diana Bible. In this gay version of the Bible, God does not create Adam and Eve. He creates Aida and Eve instead. This Bible is not completed yet, but portions of Genesis and Leviticus can be read on the official website.

“The Word of Promise Bible” uses the 1982 modern translation of the King James Bible.

CASTING
The second challenge was obviously casting. Christian and non-Christian producers are still struggling with questions such as:

• Must God really have a British accent?
• Could Jesus be a Yankee?
• Would it be wrong to cast an African-American as Judas?
• If our “voice of God” happens to be female, would the Bible Belt still buy the audio book?
• Why can’t King David be played by an openly gay actor?

NARRATOR
For my Easter special, we picked Ezekiel Gray a.k.a. The Man Ezeke, as our narrator. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and nicknamed ‘Rasta’, Ezekiel was the first black daytime presenter on Radio 1. Some had their doubts about a DJ recounting what most people regard as the heart of the New Testament, with a distinct Jamaican accent. There was no reason for concern. Ultimately, the production ended up winning a Sandford St. Martin Award for excellence in Religious Radio Programmes.

IT’S A WINNER
The New Testament from “The Word of Promise Bible” was released in 2007, and was picked as the Christian Book of 2008 by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (the first audio Bible to receive this award). So far more than 700,000 copies were purchased. It’s the greatest story ever sold. If you don’t believe me, just ask Joan Allen (Deborah), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mark), Lou Gossett Jr. (John), Stacy Keach (Job & Paul), Gary Sinise (David), Marisa Tomei (Mary Magdalene), Jon Voight (Abraham) or Max von Sydow (Noah).

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS the Word of Promise Bible was nominated for Audio Book of the Year 2010 by the The Audio Publishers Association (APA). On May 25th we’ll find out if it will be the winner of an Audie Award.

On June 5th 1995, John Baur and Mark Summers were playing a friendly game of racquetball. For some mysterious reason, they started encouraging each other in pirate slang. I’ll let them tell the story:

“…whoever let out the first “Arrr!” started something. One thing led to another. “That be a fine cannonade,” one said, to be followed by “Now watch as I fire a broadside straight into your yardarm!” and other such helpful phrases.

By the time our hour on the court was over, we realized that lapsing into pirate lingo had made the game more fun and the time pass more quickly. We decided then and there that what the world really needed was a new national holiday.”

With Halloween upon us, our streets will soon be filled with young Jack Sparrow lookalikes, some of them more Arrr-ticulate than others.

HALLOWEEN
As a voice-over arrr-tist, I absolutely love October 31st.  What other holiday gives me the perfect excuse to revisit my crypt of creepy vowels and consonants, and resurrect them for the promotion of a local thrill ride or a scary costume emporium? At this magical time, I usually take out my secret weapon: the alveolar trill, also known as “rolling R”. Doesn’t everything sound more sinister and spooky with a rolling R? Just think of the prince of darkness himself: Count Drrrracula from Trrrrransylvania.

You should be warned: the Dutch have a distinct advantage in the rolling R department. We roll ‘em out all the time. Words like Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Strikwerda… they wouldn’t be the same without a tongue-twisting alveolar trill. Netherlanders really appreciate their R’s.

The English on the other hand, consistently snub this consonant. What’s even worse, they leave half of them unspoken. Ask any Englishman to properly pronounce the following sentence:

“Not a word about the bird was ever heard until it occurred.”

Tell me, where did the R’s go? Now, if you did hear any rolling R’s in there, you were probably listening to a Scotsman (or to Mel Gibson practicing for Braveheart).

PETER PAN
However, there’s one important exception. If a classically trained English speaking actor wishes to add a dash of extra creepiness to his delivery, he will bring back the rolling R. My favorite example: the inimitable Cyril Ritchard in his role of Captain Hook.

Even though most of us will never be asked to play Captain Hook, I believe the alveolar trill should be on the tip of the tongue of every professional voice-over actor. Many of our clients are paying us for our ability to correctly reproduce the names of people and places, foreign and domestic, no matter what our mother tongue may be. Just as opera singers are expected to master Italian, French and German pronunciation, students in my fictitious voice-over academy would have to take languages classes as part of their ‘verbal acrobatics curriculum. As one of my imaginary students, you’d only be allowed to graduate if you could say the following Spanish sentences correctly, three times in a row:

“Erre con erre cigarro. Erre con erre barril.

Rápido corren los carros sobre los rieles del ferrocarril”

THE MISSING LINK
There are other strange things going on with the R in the English language. As we’ve seen, the R is often written out but not pronounced, as in the sentence “Never say never” (spoken in the Queen’s English, of course). But if that same word precedes a word that begins with a vowel, the same R is pronounced, as in “Never say never again”. This is called a linking R.

On top of that, some English speakers add an R that doesn’t even appear on the page, as in the word “idea-r” or the sentence “President Obama-r-and his Danish counterpart”. Linguists call this phenomenon an “intrusive R”.

And then, there is this famous R…

Peter Cook as the “Impwessive Clewgyman” in Wob Weiners “The Pwincess Bwide”.

As non-native English speakers (such as myself), what-R-we to make of all this? Is there any logic to your language? Is there any welation between your spelling and your pwonunciation?

AMERICA
So far, I have only touched upon the rolling-R and the Bwitish R… What  about it’s American counterpart? Well, as you know, the ever so silent British R is often clearly pronounced in the States. Just as the rolling R might be a challenge for Americans, some Europeans have a hard time pronouncing a simple word like ‘hamburger’. See for yourself.

AHOY ME HARTEYS
There’s only day in the year that’s absolutely ideal for practicing your R’s. It’s September 19th, the International Talk Like A Pirate Day! And if you don’t believe me, ask John Baur and Mark Summers. With the help of some friends, they turned a goofy idea  into a global phenomenon, with a newsletter called “The Poopdeck“. It’s arrrguably one of the silliest idears I’ve heard in a long time, and that’s exactly why I love it.  Now, if you will excuse me… I have to get back to my ship.  Arrrrr!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS voice-over talents will love this short pirate video, written by & starring Jonathan Kydd. It’s called “Aharrr”.

No, I won’t name any names, but I was quite shocked by what I found out, recently. Let me ask you a question instead.

Do you know the difference between Flemish and Dutch?

I’m not asking for an exposé on historical linguistics, but say you’re in need of a cheesy Dutch voice for your imitation Gouda commercial. You decide to check out a number of voice-over sites in the hopes of finding the perfect Hollander.

Be honest: would you be able to tell from the demo whether you’re listening to a voice-over talent from Flanders (Belgium) or from The Netherlands? After all, both speak Dutch. Of course I’m assuming you’re not from either one of those countries.

If the answer is “No”, don’t be embarrassed. I discovered that a number of internet voice-over providers don’t seem to know the difference either. What’s even worse: they don’t seem to care. After a random and by no means scientific search, I found numerous colleagues listed under Dutch talent, who were in fact Flemish speakers.

Nothing against my friends from beautiful Belgium, but that’s like listing a North-American under Australian talent, or mistaking a Brazilian for someone from Portugal. Now, most people can tell a Yankee from a Brit. But would you be able to differentiate between a Frenchman and a Québécois, or tell a Swiss actor from an Austrian bodybuilder? And if you can’t, don’t you expect a voice-over site to know the difference between cheese and cheez whiz? Just because something smells like cheese, doesn’t mean that it is cheese.

AMAZING RACE
Not so long ago, my daughter’s school held an international event modeled after the reality show “The Amazing Race”. Different classrooms had been turned into different countries, and volunteer-parents from various parts of the world dressed up in their national costume, served local treats and were asked to speak their mother tongue. Picture me, wearing clogs, waving our red-white-and-blue flag, surrounded by posters of windmills and tulips…

The first thing the contestants had to do was identify the country they had just entered, based on all the ‘subtle’ clues. In order to get full marks, they also had to locate that country on a globe. At this point I should tell you that the teams were made up of children and their parents. So, how well do you think most of them did? Keep in mind that all of this took place in an average elementary school in Pennsylvania.

Well, as soon as I opened my Dutch mouth, some kids looked at their parents and said: “That man sounds very weird, why can’t he speak English?” There and then I realized that many of them had never been exposed to anything else but (American) English and perhaps some Spanish.

One dad thought he had figured me out. “I recognize that accent”, he said with a proud smile on his face. “I was stationed at the Ramstein Air Base for years. You must be from Germany.”

“Not quite”, I said. “My country and Germany are neighbors.” “Oh, now I get it”, said the Dad. “You’re from Sweden! That’s why you are wearing those clogs.”

Some were less clueless, though. As soon as they had spotted the windmills, they shouted: “This must be Holland”. “Well-done”, I said. “Now let’s see if you can find my country on the globe.”

Granted, my homeland is not the easiest to spot because it’s so small. So I thought I’d help the teams a bit by revealing that Holland is part of Europe, counting on the fact that people would certainly know where to find Europe. Wrong! ”

You told us Holland is next to Germany”, said the airman. “I must be blind because I don’t see it.” Then his wife interjected: “Here it is, honey. Right next to Belgium.” “But it says The Netherlands”, the husband answered, “We are looking for Holland…..”

THANKS BUT NO THANKS
Based on my quick survey, some voice-over sites aren’t doing much better than the average American parent. I’m not the type of person that enjoys complaining about things without ever doing something about it. So, I emailed the companies in question, and I respectfully pointed out that the voice-over talent they had listed as Dutch, was actually from Flanders. The result? Seven out of ten websites ignored my helping hand and never even bothered to respond.

When I checked in a week later, their talent listing was unchanged. One site did respond, informing me that they had spoken with their pseudo-Dutchman, and that he denied all charges. The last two sites thanked me profusely for my feedback, and within a matter of hours they had corrected their listing.

VOICE-OVERSIGHT
To a certain extent, ignorance might be excused, but there’s no justification for being unprofessional and misleading.

If I put ‘Champagne’ on a bottle of bubbly from Chile, chances are that I end up in a French court of law. Similarly, I can’t put the name ‘Gouda’ on cheese made in Michigan.

A voice-over site should have some oversight to ensure that if we request a native Dutch speaker for our commercial, we end up with someone from The Netherlands, and not with some faker from Flanders.

One last thing. The other day, a New York-based agency asked me for a Dutch demo. It might take a few days before you hear back from us, they said. We noticed that you’ve been living in the States for quite a while, and we just want to make sure that your Dutch is still accent-free.

That’s why they sent my sample to that small country next to Germany, and had an expert listen to it. A few days later it came back with a seal of approval. Now, that kind of professionalism puts a big smile on my face. And I don’t even have to say “Cheese”!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

GOING FOR A RIDE

There’s no doubt about it. The grand prize for the most annoying ride in amusement park history goes to Disney’s “It’s a small world”. If you’ve ever given in to your begging six-year old, and entered this house of childhood horrors, you know what I’m talking about. The song “It’s a small world after all” will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Even though I’m not a big fan of this ride, every time I connect to the World Wide Web, I am reminded of its powerful message. Whether we realize it or not, we’re all connected. However -to paraphrase George Orwell- some of us are more connected than others. I was simply lucky to be born in The Netherlands, and as a result I have had easy access to resources others can only dream of. Today I live in the USA where (almost) anything is available 24/7. Thanks to the current economic downturn, some Americans have only now started to realize that their land of plenty is actually part of a global network of nations. And because of our interconnectedness, the devastating ripple effect of the subprime mortgage crisis is not only felt in Detroit, but even more so in the smallest villages of Africa.

Believe it or not, all of this went through my mind when I read a recent discussion about the investment needed to have a career in the voice-over world. Many of us -myself included- take it for granted that we must spend hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars, to even begin to compete with the big guns of this business. Hey, it’s all tax-deductible so what’s the problem, you might ask. Well, if you’re already complaining about forking over 300 bucks to get a simple VO-website listing, imagine you live in Nairobi, Uagadugu or Cairo! In Egypt, the average per capita income is around $5,400 per year (compared to $47,000 in the US). Of course the cost of living is much lower, but if you’re only making five thousand a year, how on earth are you going to afford $5,500 in, let’s say, “professional dues”? That is, if you wish to compete on a global scale.

GOING DUTCH

Ready for some good news? Some of you might know that I used to work for the Dutch world service, known as Radio Netherlands. Every year, people from around the world go to their training center in Hilversum for courses that “aim to enhance the professional knowledge, skills and attitudes of people working in or for the media, such as journalists, program makers, trainers and managers.” And it gets even better! For nationals from 61 countries it is possible to apply for a Netherlands Fellowship (NFP), whereby travel, accommodation and course fees are paid for by the Dutch government.

50% of the available fellowships are awarded to fellowships for female candidates, and 50% of the available budget is spent on candidates from sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from this, priority is given to candidates from deprived groups and/or from marginalized regions. NFP is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the budget for development co-operation (source: RNTC).

One of next year’s courses is called Creative ways of informing people (Radio & Internet – Television & Internet) and there’s still time to sign up. Even if you are “just” a voice-over talent, this could be your chance to get the experience you need to make it, and compete nationally and internationally. One thing’s for sure: you’ll not only learn a lot, you will make friends from all continents, cultures and creeds in an open atmosphere that very much resembles a mini-united nations.

For more information on the Dutch worldservice and the international training center, click the images in this blog and your computer will take you there.

And should you decide to sign up for one of the courses, I can assure you this: you’ll be in for the ride of a lifetime!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com