Episode 27: How to master slating your name 

Have you ever wondered how to pronounce your name for the U.S.  self-tape audition? 

Get the inside scoop on how to interview with confidence and ease.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll know:

• To slate or not to slate in your natural accent 
• How to pronounce your name in the American Accent 
• How to speak confidently and direct in your audition 

  WEBSITE| INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | YOUTUBE | TIK TOK

  ---

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

  Thanks for listening and see you next time on The All American Actor's Podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you are the first to know when a new episode airs AND to get VIP access to behind the scenes content that's reserved only to our subscribers.

  When you leave us a 5 Star Review you may even get featured as our start listener of the week and get a special shout out on the show.

  All you need to do is click here to review. Choose 'Ratings and Reviews' and then 'Write a Review'. Let me know what you loved about this episode! Your reviews help other listeners find this show and it's always great to hear from you. 

   

  ---

  SHOW TRANSCRIPT

   

  You're listening to the All American actors podcast, Episode 27. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to master slating your name that's coming up next. Ready to go behind the scenes and learn what it really takes to build a sustainable career as a working actor in the US film and TV industry. Join me Katherine Beck. You're all American accent coach, as I give you the insight and inspiration to take action on your career, learn my best tips and tricks to performing with an American accent and hear from working actors and other industry professionals. To give you a comprehensive overview of this biz we call showbiz. This is the all American actors podcast. Before we start today's episode, I want to give a big shout out to Pheiffermins88 who says a friend recommended Katherine's five day American accent challenge end of 2020 I thought why not? Katherine makes learning and refining this skill in an actor's toolkit fun and accessible. She's made it approachable, so excited for this podcast. And I've been binge listening episodes back to back good advice and insight into keeping the accent on a roll. Even listening to Katherine is a practice itself. Look forward to more content. And congratulations on the launch of the all American actors podcast that is so great to hear. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the review. I'm so happy that you're loving the podcast, you're getting so much out of it. And it's true. Even just listening to my voice is a great practice in itself. And the people that I interview too. I have so many more incredible episodes lined up for you in the upcoming weeks that I'm just so excited to share with you, you're gonna really enjoy them. And as you mentioned in the review about my five day challenge, well, I have had some actors ask me, What are you going to do another challenge. So the next one is going to be coming up soon. I will share the data with you soon. But it is happening next month. So make sure to keep listening to find out when and how to join the next challenge. And if you want to be featured as our star listener of the week, all you got to do is leave us a five star review of this podcast and I'll give you a shout out right here on the show. So if you liked this episode, go ahead and leave us a review. Alright, so I have been an actor since Oh, as long as I can remember. And over the years I have slated my name before an audition probably a gazillion times. And the more you do it well the easier it gets right. But when I moved to Australia and started to audition for Australian projects, I would audition with my Australian accent therefore I would slate my name in my Australian accent. Now this did not come easy. In fact, it was downright hard and scary because it was me not the character speaking slating my name and my agent as myself with my Australian accent. Oh, were they going to judge me? Oh, were they going to notice if I dropped out of the accent? Oh, so scary. So I had to practice the simple act of slating my name. And this is something that we often take for granted as being a simple task within the audition process. But it is a very important task. Nonetheless, whether you're doing it in your own natural accent or the American accent, but it really becomes that much more difficult when we layer in the American accent. Right? It gets a little bit more of a challenge there because we start to doubt ourselves a little bit when we're speaking as ourselves and not as the character. And you know, there's always that question of, should I slate or not slate in the American accent? Well, that's what I want to break down in this episode today. So here's my take on the question. There really is no right or wrong way to go about it. It's truly up to you. It falls down to what makes you feel most comfortable and confident. Now I will give you my advice of what I would recommend. But again, like I said, it really comes down to you what you feel most confident doing. So I recommend slating in the accent that you are auditioning in. So for example, the American accent this goes for a self tape audition, whether you're on a zoom call, or you're in the audition room, no matter what the circumstances are, I would start by speaking in your American accent slating your name in the American accent. And the reason for this is simple. We are setting the stage for your audition, we don't want to give the casting director or the director or the agent or whoever it is that's watching you to on some level, there subconsciously may be listening out for your natural accent or for you to potentially drop out of the accent looking for a reason why your accent isn't flawless. We don't want to give them one reason why they should not book you for the job. And number two, when you start speaking in your natural accent, and then jump into the scene in your American accent, there's always that slight chance that you will warm up your accent into the scene, we want your accent to be strong from that first moment we hear you, we don't want to warm up into it. So that's why we want to already be speaking in the accent way even before you press record or wave. And before you enter the room, so you're not warming up into the accent. When you start the scene. We want to make things effortless in the audition process so we can really shine and create our best work, we want our talent to be centerstage. Right, not the accent. So let's make things as easy and effortless as we can possibly make it. So with that being said, let's talk about how to slate your name in the American accent. Now the most important advice I could give you is to slate with confidence. One of the things American speakers are so great at is sounding direct and confident when we speak right doesn't always mean that we feel confident and direct when works speaking, but we're great at sounding confident. And that's the one tip I would give you. Another tip is to know how to pronounce your name in the American accent. So one obvious thing, obviously is to pronounce the RS in your name. You know, for example, if your name is Taylor, making sure you understand how to pronounce that are in Taylor. And from there making sure you know how to pronounce all the other sounds correctly in your name. You know names can sound different going from one accent to another Megan to Megan or Natasha to Natasha, for example. And another tip is to remove that upward inflection where it starts to sound like a question when you're stating your name. So when we remove that upward inflection, and we inflect downward instead, when we bring the pitch down at the end of your name, we start to take out that hesitancy or like we're asking a question and you start to sound a little bit more confident. The other thing you want to watch out for is that you don't fizzle out the energy so it doesn't sort of like drop down at the end. So if I was gonna say, Hi, I'm Katherine Beck, right, we lose that intensity, that energy there. Instead, we want to really drive that energy to the end of your name. Hi, I'm Catherine back. So you can hear there's a difference. There's a sustained energy and it feels powerful. You can feel the strength when I say my name. So then again, if I was going to do with the upward inflection, you hear the difference. Hi, I'm Katherine Beck. So you can hear it's not quite as strong with the upward inflection as when I inflect downward. Hi, I'm Katherine Beck. So you want to keep it strong, keep it direct, keep it powerful, really drive that energy through so we can hear that confidence coming through. So those are my top tips on how to slit your name in the American accent. Now if you are ready to start taking your American accent to the next level, then I want you to go ahead and grab my free American accent guide that's going to break down my step by step process to get you sounding all American. It's yours. It's free. Just head over to Katherine beck.com slash accent. And let me know if you love this episode. Take a screenshot share it on Instagram story and tag me in it at Katherine_Beck_ you can find me there send me a DM and let's chat. And coming up next week on the show I am chatting with the gals of chicken and chips casting, they're going to share with you their top tips on auditioning and give you some insight into the world of casting. Now make sure to share the show with all your actor friends. Let them know what's coming up next week and invite them to tune in with you and learn how to become an all American Actor so you can be the working actor you dream to be until then go practice your American accent and I'll see you back here next time.