Summary
Learn directly from the dialect coach for Russel Crowe, Arnold Schwarzenegger Zoe Saldana, Liam Neeson and more!
PLUS! Get a vowel and consonant pronunciation guide to help you practice your accent or dialect.
The entertainment industry has broken down borders and more and more international co-productions are being made now than ever before. There are a number of reasons you might want to learn to reduce your accent or to perform in a requested dialect. Maybe you are an actor who wants to be able to expand the type of roles you could reasonably be cast in. Or perhaps you are a director or producer who wants to learn how to communicate more clearly to your actors and crew. Or you might not even be in "the biz," and are a CEO who wants to reduce your accent to be more understood when you speak. Whatever the reason, Stage 32 is thrilled to be able to help with this webinar from one of our most popular instructors (seriously, check out the testimonials!).
As productions become more international, the ability to adapt your speech becomes more and more important. We learn our first language as children, absorbing the sounds without any awareness of the process. But as adults, the new sounds are competing for dominance with the old sounds. Luckily there is very cool science for breaking down and understanding the sounds, the mechanics of the sounds, the relationships between the sounds, and the nature and rules of stressing, rhythm and intonation, and a technique for rewiring your brain so you can speak these new sounds effortlessly while you are acting.
Leading you in this exclusive Stage 32 webinar is one of the top dialect and voice coaches in the world, Jon Sperry. He has coached on over 100 films and TV shows. His star-studded list of former clients and students includes some of the finest actors on screen and stage from all over the globe, including many Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated actors including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Russell Crowe, Melanie Griffith, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Liam Neeson, Zoe Saldana, Juliette Lewis, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sofia Vergara, Sophia Loren, Eugenio Derbez (Mexico's biggest comic actor), Emilia Clarke, and Anitta (Brazil’s biggest pop star) just to name a few.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn to reduce your accent or master a dialect from one of the best dialect coaches in the world. You will learn the science of speech and leave the webinar with greater confidence in your ability to adapt your vocal instrument.
PLUS! Get a vowel and consonant pronunciation guide to help you practice your accent or dialect.
PRAISE FOR JON'S TEACHINGS:
"Jon's webinar was very interesting today. The feedback from our questions were very good and helpful! He is very kind indeed. Now we have to do the "homework" by practicing pretty much every day. The good thing is that we have the possibility to see the video the whole year and check back on the exercises he goes over. That will for sure help me. Thanks Jon!" - Daniel Sebille, Webinar Attendee
"Thank you for the fascinating class. I will know when I have finally got it, when my American husband doesn't burst out laughing as he does at the moment when I try our my British attempt at an American accent. I will keep practicing!" - Catherine B., Webinar Attendee
"Excellent! Absolutely fantastic and helpful session. It is fantastic that I can be sitting in my office in Melbourne Australia and watch Jon in his office in LA! I got great value out of it and will be enlisting Jon's services in the future! It was very cool to be able to ask a question - he not only answered the question, but offered up so much more! Excellent session would recommend to anyone." - Chris Hilton-Wood, Webinar Attendee
"It was an incredible experience with an amazing professional. I hope I can take another one of this soon. Now, practice, practice, practice..." - Esteban Balbi, Webinar Attendee
What You'll Learn
What is an accent, and why do we have one
- Why this is more about your brain than your ears
Key steps to reduce and eliminate your accent
- How to learn the sounds and rewire your brain
A guide to the general qualities of American English pronunciation
- How American culture has influenced American English pronunciation
The difference between spelling and speaking
- Why English has such an especially crazy relationship between the two
Understanding what makes a vowel a vowel
- The difference between pure vowels and diphthongs (and how to pronounce “diphthong”)
- Front vowels
- Mid vowels
- Back vowels
- The long diphthongs
- The R diphthongs
Understanding what makes a consonant a consonant
- Fricatives
- Continuants
- Stop-plosives & affricates
- Nasal consonants
- Glides
How to break down the sounds of speech and reassemble them into various accents and examples of various accents
- Proper British, AKA RP
- High British
- Cockney
- Scottish
- New York
- Texas
- German
- Russian
- Indian
Q&A with Jon
Who Should Attend
Actors of all levels who wish to either reduce their own accent or take on a dialect.
Producers and Directors of all levels who wish to reduce their accent.
Screenwriters of all levels who wish to better understand dialects to improve their crafting of regional characters.
Executive
Jon Sperry is one of the top dialect coaches in America and one of the world's experts on the American accent. With over 35 years of teaching and coaching experience and over 100 credits in film, television, and theater, Jon’s star-studded list of
former clients and students includes some of the finest actors of screen and stage, including A-list Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and Palme d' Or-winning actors from all over the world. Jon has lived, coached and taught acting, voice, dialects and accent reduction in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Athens, and Buenos Aires.
An accomplished actor himself, Jon, graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Theater, and studied at The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and
Circle in the Square Theater School in New York, two of the pre-eminent acting conservatories in America, in addition to teachers from Juilliard, The Yale School of Drama, The Royal Central School of Drama, The Actors Studio, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
In addition to his busy career as a dialect coach and acting teacher, Jon is also an actor and sometimes producer with his wife and partner, the Italian writer-director Ivana Massetti. They presently live and work between Los Angeles and Rome.
Actors Jon Has Coached:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Catherine Zeta-Jones
- Emilia Clarke
- Eugenio Derbez
- Geena Davis
- Giancarlo Giannini
- Harvey Keitel
- Juliette Lewis
- Liam Neeson
- Matt Dillon
- Melanie Griffith
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Russell Crowe
- Sharon Stone
- Sophia Loren
- Sofia Vergara
- Timothy Hutton
- Zoe Saldana
- and the Brazilian pop star Anitta
Films Jon Has Coached:
- Bad Boys 3 & 4
- Bugsy
- Collateral Damage
- Goldeneye
- King Kong
- Malcolm X
- Pulp Fiction
- Reservoir Dogs
- Shining Through
- The Piano
- Thelma and Louise
- And the Greek masterpiece Ulysses Gaze
Directors Whose Films Jon Has Coached:
- Alan Rudolph
- Barry Levinson
- Blake Edwards
- Francis Ford Coppola
- Guillermo Del Toro
- Jane Campion
- Peter Jackson
- Ridley Scott
- Robert Rodriguez
- Roland Joffé
- Stephen Frears
- Steven Soderbergh
- Spike Lee
- Quentin Tarantino
- Theo Angelopoulos
Testimonials
"Jon's webinar was very interesting today. The feedback from our questions were very good and helpful! He is very kind indeed. Now we have to do the "homework" by practicing pretty much every day. The good thing is that we have the possibility to see the video the whole year and check back on the exercises he goes over. That will for sure help me. Thanks Jon!" - Daniel Sebille, Webinar Attendee
"Thank you for the fascinating class. I will know when I have finally got it, when my American husband doesn't burst out laughing as he does at the moment when I try our my British attempt at an American accent. I will keep practicing!" - Catherine B., Webinar Attendee
"Excellent! Absolutely fantastic and helpful session. It is fantastic that I can be sitting in my office in Melbourne Australia and watch Jon in his office in LA! I got great value out of it and will be enlisting Jon's services in the future! It was very cool to be able to ask a question - he not only answered the question, but offered up so much more! Excellent session would recommend to anyone." - Chris Hilton-Wood, Webinar Attendee
"It was an incredible experience with an a mazing professional. I hope I can take another one of this soon. Now, practice, practice, practice..." - Esteban Balbi, Webinar Attendee