Female Voice Actor Ellyeana

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I had to Wiki RP; guess this is it. I put it out there, particularly for those from the lands my ancestors were thrown out of (pretty much all of the British Isles): would that be a good Altmer accent?

Yes, it's 'received pronunciation' or 'the Queen's English' as it's taught in British schools. I use RP for my Upper Class Imperials so I'd go for that. Personally, I would have Altmer as a more, how would you describe it, 'earthy' voice? The vanilla voices for High Elves often have a more elder, distinguished sort of voice than simply RP.

Placing the voice

I was going to say that I didn't think Welsh would be a suitable accompaniment to the general Scottish theme of the Nords. If we were to re-script anything for the Bretons, I would like to have some actual Welsh / Celtic language content there and that means there would be a clash between Nord and Breton if Nord was being voiced with a Welsh accent and the Breton script had real Celtic content.

My explanation is as follows: The Welsh, for those of you who didn't know, are the most longstanding indigenous peoples of the British Isles. As we all know, the Celts are generally regarded as being a quite 'mystical' people - hence all of that bloody awful pan-pipe music that exploits the whole idea very, very badly. Furthermore, we know that the Celtic language inspired J.R.R. Tolkien in his creation of the Middle Earth languages, especially Elvish.

In consideration of that, Breton would be best for a Welsh accent because of the historic links with Elves and their renowned affinity for magic.

However, I still think Ellyeana might make a good choice for Nord. The reason being that there are indeed some relations between the Scottish and Welsh accents and I don't think it would sound too much of a contradiction to use the two together.

On the other hand, the Welsh accent could be best exploited by the Breton race although we would need to sacrifice the originality of slightly altered scripts for the Bretons if we chose a Welsh accent for the Nords in order to avoid clashes and confusion.

Without knowing who exactly is available for generic voice work, I would say that at the moment, AstionM would be my best choice for a male generic Breton. As he is South African, I am inclined to say that Ellyeana's best place is therefore Nord and to hell with the modified scripts.

Of course, she could just do quest work if she wishes.

Note to Ellyeana

I hope you don't mind me giving you some tips. I've been voice acting for quite some time now and I know a few tricks.

The first thing I would say is to make sure you've got good recording equipment. There are too many 'clunks' going on here so you'll need to test a few things in order to get rid of the unwanted acoustics. I use a totally free to download and use program called 'Audacity' and my headset is a standard one from 'Emkay', although if you can get hold of Shure or Sennheiser then it should be worth it.

Secondly, make sure you have a 'pop-guard' on your mike. Most mikes use foam, some of so well constructed that they really don't need them whilst other VAs I've worked with have made do with some fabric stretched over the top, which is often an old set of tights. This cuts down on the odd acoustic sounds.

Thirdly, try to soften your 'p' and 't' sounds in order to avoid the 'popping' effect whilst keeping your mouth and lips a fair distance away from the device without it actually badly affecting the volume.

Fourthly, you might like to practice by recording some very dramatic lines to boost your volume. For the Scottish accent, which is not my own at all, I often think of a few random phrases from the Scottish TV program 'Taggart' and say them with conviction in order to shoe-horn myself back in the right sound. Your little greetings files (hellos etc) lack this conviction especially. Try cutting them into natural speech patterns by repeating something in the chosen voice that leads up to the point where you're saying hello such as "Oh, it's that lovely Gwyneth. Well, there's lovely then!" (Sorry, my Welsh is crap!) then hit record quickly and do the 'hello'. this should help things to flow for the longer lines, too.

That's mainly technical stuff. The only other thing, really, is simple in principle but always the hardest thing in practice and that is to occupy the role. I find that knowing finding out about your character as much as possible always helps. Obviously, you didn't get the chance to do that here so it's more tough. If you don't know much, you have to do the guesswork yourself e.g. for the line that goes: "That ship belongs to my husband, that's why we don't have to work." you go for the nearest best emotional stimulus and the most natural voice pattern. Consequently, the first part has a noticeable hint of pride whilst the second part might be quite smug.

What people don't realise about VA work is that some people think it's so easy. It's not. Sometimes you have to be sat (or stood, if it helps) at your desk acting out the whole thing. Many's the time when I've been caught with my pants down (so to speak) hunched over the microphone, trying to sneer into the monitor whilst barking my angry combat lines as spit flies.

Experiment! It all helps.

[Ellyeana]

SACarrow - Unless I'm very tired, in which case I go a bit more London, I sound along the lines of Kate Winslet, which is what I meant by RP. For men, I guess you'd think of Jude Law or Hugh Grant.

Though, living in Wales for a while now has "Welshed" me a bit!



Ibsen's Ghost - Thank you for the constructive criticism, I will definitely take your advice and use your suggestions to the best of my ability when I re-record. I hope you can understand that these were just 1st draft recordings to give an idea of the accent, as I was inbetween putting my baby son to bed at the time. He's not been well today so I expected him to go down quite easily as he was tired, but this didn't happen! I'd started recording at this point, though, and once I started I thought I'd better carry on and do a few.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Ellyeana
I hope you can understand that these were just 1st draft recordings to give an idea of the accent

Absolutely! No problems. I just wanted to offer whatever help I could. =)

[Ellyeana]

Ibsen's Ghost - Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy you took such a lot of time to reply - it really made me happy that you care enough to give such great advice! I hope it didn't come off that I was being rude, if so I apologise and blame tiredness! I just got a chance to listen to them again, and I see what you mean about characterisation, tomorrow I hope to make you proud with my renewed efforts!

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Ellyeana
Ibsen's Ghost - Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy you took such a lot of time to reply - it really made me happy that you care enough to give such great advice! I hope it didn't come off that I was being rude, if so I apologise and blame tiredness! I just got a chance to listen to them again, and I see what you mean about characterisation, tomorrow I hope to make you proud with my renewed efforts!

Lovely news :goodjob: . I probably wouldn't take offense even if it were intended, anyway. Years of dealing with 'orrible teenagers for my job have made me thicker skinned than a Hippo with all-over body warts!

I'd check the technical set-up as well though, which was what I was more concerned about, TBH. Some great VAs can be screwed by their equipment.