Nia Farrant Get in touch

Nia Farrant · voice and dialectPink revision · 08.26

I get actors to the point where nobody in the room is thinking about the accent any more.

Voice and dialect coach. Fourteen years, six of them in-house on a long-running drama, which is where you learn to work fast and be quiet about it. I am on set more than I am in a studio.

Tell me what you are working on See the marks I make
Based
Cardiff
Works
On set, UK wide
Replies within
2 working days
First call
20 min, free
A line, as I mark it

Right. ’ I'll putpʊt the kettle on.

Sheffield. The definite article goes, and it is a held stop rather than a little t.

The whole scene, as written and as coached
Nia Farrant, drawn in contour lines An illustrated profile portrait facing left, built from horizontal contour lines clipped to the outline of a head, shoulders and neck. It is a drawing rather than a photograph.
Drawn, not photographed

Sc. 41 · two-hander · interiorBuff revision · the work

This is what I actually do to a page

Six lines from a scene I coached last year. An actor from Cardiff playing a woman from Sheffield, which is a harder job than it sounds, because the two accents disagree about a vowel that turns up in almost every sentence. Press the switch.

41. INT. FRONT ROOM, BELLHOUSE ROAD - DAY

Joan

You said you'd comekʊm Sunday.

Mick

I did´ comekʊm Sunday. ’ You weren't in.

Two of those vowels are the same sound here and Cardiff wants to split them. Get “come” and “Sunday” matching before you touch anything else.

Joan

I werewə upstairs.ʊpstɛːz

Mick

There's nowtnaʊt upstairsʊpstɛːz butbʊt boxes.

Joan

There's forty yearjɪə upstairs,ʊpstɛːz ’ Michael´.

Breath before the name, not after. She is deciding whether to say it. That pause is the whole line and it is nothing to do with the accent.

Mick

Right. ’ Well. ’ I'll putpʊt the kettle on.

The definite article goes. Not “t' kettle” with a little t, which is a stage northerner. It is a held stop and then straight into the k.

kʊm the sound she makes ´ where the weight lands ’ breath ⌣ link, no gap the dropped

Five marks, and only two of them are about the accent. That ratio is roughly honest for the job. Most of what I do on a set is stopping an actor from thinking about their mouth while they are trying to act, and the fastest route to that is making the sounds automatic before the camera turns over.

Working practiceBlue revision · how it goes

Three situations, and they need different things

Usually this week

You have a self-tape or a recall on Thursday

One session, ninety minutes, and I will be blunt about what is achievable. If the accent is a long way from yours we work on the four sounds that appear in your actual lines rather than the whole system, because a casting director is listening to two minutes of you and not auditing your phonology.

You leave with recordings of the lines at three speeds and a written list of what to watch. If the tape is tomorrow morning I will do it tonight, and I would rather you asked than assumed I would say no.

Booked, dates known

You have the job and you have the scripts

A block of work before the shoot and then me on set, or on the end of a phone, for the duration. We go through every scene, mark the pages, and build a sound you can hold at four in the morning in week six when you are tired and the scene is emotional. That is the real test, not the read-through.

I work to the production, not to the actor's diary, so I talk to the first AD and I get out of the way. I have never held up a unit and I do not intend to start.

No deadline

It is your own voice you want to work on

This is the work I like best and the work people put off. Breath, placement, and the reason your voice goes when you are nervous or when the room is big. Nothing to do with accent. Six sessions spread over three months does more than six in three weeks, because the body needs time between them.

I hold a reduced rate for graduating students and for actors between jobs who are paying for this themselves. You do not have to explain your finances to me, just say so.

Accents heldGoldenrod revision · the list

What I hold, and what I would send you elsewhere for

Accents I coach without preparation
South Wales valleysFirst language, and I can hear the difference between Merthyr and Aberdare
CardiffWhich is not the valleys, and actors conflate them constantly
RP and heightened RPIncluding the older, tighter version for period
EstuaryThe default modern London that most scripts mean
Multicultural London EnglishWith a note on when it is the wrong choice
Yorkshire, west and southSheffield, Leeds, Bradford as separate jobs
GlasgowWorking and middle class, which sound very different
Belfast and DublinNorth and south Dublin as separate jobs
Standard AmericanAnd the small set of things British actors always miss
New York, outer boroughsRather than the film version of it

And the honest part

I do not coach a Nigerian, Ghanaian or Caribbean accent, and I will not pretend otherwise because a production is in a hurry. There are coaches who have those in their body rather than in a notebook, and the difference shows on screen. I will give you three names the same day you ask.

The same goes for South Asian English, for most of continental Europe, and for anything where the character's community matters as much as the sounds. Getting the vowels right and the rhythm wrong is worse than not doing it.

What I can always do, whatever the accent, is the breath and placement work underneath it, and I am happy to sit alongside a specialist coach doing exactly that.

ReferencesCherry revision · on the record

References, held on file

Every production asks for these, so here they are without the asking. Full contacts on request.

ReferenceProductionOn the record

Producer

Returning drama, series four9 days, on set

She got a very frightened actor through a Sheffield accent in nine days, and I never once heard her raise her voice or take up more of the day than she had been given.

Lead actor

Six-part seriesBlock prep and shoot

I have worked with coaches who make you self-conscious. Nia does the opposite. By the second week I had stopped hearing the accent as a thing I was doing.

Casting director

Independent featureRecommended, not booked

She told me she was the wrong coach for the job and gave me two names. That is exactly why she gets the next four.

Nia Farrant is a fictional practice and this site is a portfolio piece by Iron Oak Web. These three references were written for the design. On a live site they would carry real names, real productions, and a phone number.

Rate cardSalmon revision · money

Rates, published, because asking is awkward

Single session, 90 minutes

£95 to £130

Remote or in Cardiff. The lower end is a first session on one accent for a self-tape, the higher end is a session that needs me to prepare a script I have not seen.

Block of six

£480 to £620

Booked over up to four months, so you are not forced to use them in a fortnight. This is the right shape for voice work rather than accent work.

On set, day rate

£420

Ten hours plus travel, invoiced to the production. Overnights and continuous days by agreement and I will always quote before, not after.

Prep before a shoot

£340 per script day

Marking up scripts, building the sound, and the recordings the actor keeps. Usually two to four days for an hour of television.

Reduced rate

£55

Held for graduating students and for actors between jobs paying for this themselves. Four of these a month, first come. Say the word and that is the end of the conversation about it.

Ranges, not a menu, because the work varies. I will give you a fixed number after twenty minutes on the phone, and it will not move afterwards. Productions get an invoice on thirty days. Individuals pay after the session, not before.

ContactGreen revision · get in touch

Which of these is you?

Three routes, because the three situations need different information from you and a different answer from me. Pick the closest one. I will not make you fill in anything I do not need.