What Does a Transatlantic Voice Over Sound Like?
VOPlanet.com - Professional voice actor J. Michael Collins gives a brief description and demonstration of the Transatlantic or Neutral English voice over accent.
Learn more about the Transatlantic voice over accent and read more about how it’s being used in voice overs at VOPlanet.com.
Transatlantic Voice Overs
The internet has made the world seem like a smaller place. Through social networking, travel and trade we have become a global community. We are increasingly sharing our way of life, our food, our music and even the way we speak.
Approximately 1.5 billion people in the world speak English. However, only a small portion of those are native English speakers. This means that as businesses and brands stretch across continents, there’s a growing need for Neutral English voice overs for commercials, eLearning and corporate narrations. The demand for a neutral international sound has popularized a voice over accent that is not quite American, British or European. Transatlantic voice overs, also known as Mid-Atlantic English, International English or Neutral English, are in demand and voice actors who have mastered the accent are being cast with increasing frequency. Voice buyers and voice actors alike are sometimes unsure of what exactly Neutral English is.
What is a Transatlantic or Neutral English Voice Over Accent?
When most people think of a Transatlantic accent, they hear the accent that was made popular by old Hollywood. When Ingrid Bergman croons, “Play it Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’,” she’s speaking with what became known as the Mid-Atlantic accent. Actors in the early 1900s were taught by acting and preparatory schools to speak with a slightly British accent to sound more worldly and cultured. They meshed together the accents between Britain and America and gave rise to a unique blended accent. Over the years the accent has evolved far from the stereotypical movie accent to become a respected and highly sought-after global voice over style that can be difficult to nail down.
To get a firm idea of exactly what Transatlantic, or Neutral English, is we went to the experts. We asked two of the top voice actors who book Transatlantic voice over work what the accent is, how it’s being used and what exactly it sounds like.
Juliette Gray is a British voice actor who relocated to the US more than twenty years ago. We also spoke with the prestigious J. Michael Collins, renowned demo producer extraordinaire and an America living abroad. Collins and Gray frequently book voice over work in the Transatlantic or Neutral English accent.
“It’s an accent that is very hard to define regionally. You can’t necessarily say it’s American. You can’t necessarily say it’s British,” says Collins. “It’s meant to be indefinable.”
Gray says, “I have also heard the expression geographically agnostic. Which can also include bilingual people from other countries say Holland, Scandinavia, France, who have that je ne sais quoi accent in English.”
Learning this unique accent can be a smart move for voice actors looking to book voice over work internationally. As technology connects more and more people around the world, brands are looking for a way to easily reach broader audiences with a touch of class.
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If you’re interested in casting a professional Transatlantic or Neutral English voice actor for your next project, cast your voice over for free on VOPlanet.com. It’s completely free to cast and hire professional voice actors.
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