Australia-Voice Of Madness?

[loup-garou]

During the recording session for a flash I'm voicing at the moment, I suddenly wondered about the Australian accent as being a sign of weakness.

I ask this because I had one potential project maker interested in my voice for the sole purpose of it being Australian. However when I sent this person the demo, they accused me of lying and that I wasn't really Australian. I said the demo line in my natural Australian accent. He tried to tell me how Australians should sound!

Perhaps he just wanted that stereotypical accent for a reason, or maybe he was just an idiot.

So I was wondering how other countires and flash authors from other countries veiw the australian accent with regards to voice acting, and whether it has any potential as being something that could catch on.

Your thoughts?

(Oh and by the way, My accent does not restrict me from voice work where I am of a different nationality, I can disguise it just as any other decent actor can do.)

[Omahdon]

Funny you should say this. I've lived in Australia for almost half my lifetime and I've never picked up an Australian accent. In fact, I have a broadly American one (although some of my American friends insist I have an English accent, which I find rather odd).

In any case, I don't really think having an Australian accent is necessarily a weakness. I do think that for most people watching flash on Newgrounds however, an American accent would be considered the "norm" with all other accents increasingly "unnorm" and riddled with stereotypical assumptions. If you're going to have an Australian accent in a flash, it'd have to be as exagerrated as possible and stringing together as much Australian slang as a sentence can possibly hold.

Some break the rule however: like The Decline ofVideogaming series, in which the characters are quite obviously English, but aren't having afternoon tea with scones and a pot of Earl Grey. Well, except in the outtakes at the end. But you know what I mean: They're ostensibly meant to be normal teens.... with admittedly an unhealthy obsession with video games but that's normal for teens in general I think.

And then there's foreign language flashes which is a whole different kettle of fish all together.