Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993, he should have got an Oscar, but didn't even get a nomination). Kilmer's accent in the film is based on an old recording that he obtained from Tim Monich, a dialect coach, of a very slow talking "Southern gentleman" from an era now long gone.
This was one of the cases where two similarly themed films were being made at the same time - the other in this case was the Kevin Costner starrer Wyatt Earp. The producers of the latter film engaged many Hollywood costumiers meaning they were unable to work on Tombstone. Tombstone's costume designer, Joseph Porro, hired other firms including some from the UK/Europe, who produced colourful Victorian era clothing which gave the film and its characters (Doc in particular) a unique look. In some cases this may even have been more period correct for Tombstone of that time.
Written By King Williams, (@iamkingwilliams) on Twitter or Instagram
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Name: Tim Monich
Department: Dialect & Speech
Position: Dialect Coach
Next Project: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Director: Martin Scorsese; Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Margo Robbie (Pan AM) & Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0598106/
The ability to hear and experience sound is one of the most undervalued senses we have, sound changes our perception of the world around us with each and every passing moment. Everyday we experience a multitude of sounds, ranging from traffic jams, ticking alarm clocks, crying children or the roar of an ocean; sound gives us so many unconscious cues to our life. In film the speech of a character is often one of the most forgotten aspect of character lost on audiences, when done right it brings a level of unspoken authenticity and authority; but when done wrong it becomes annoying as a tack in a shoe.
Foto from www.altfg.com
Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo ‘The Apache’ in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ft7kkXO98c
Whether it’s a Francophile slave owner in Mississippi Calvin Candie in ‘Django Unchained’, deep south World War II Lieutenant Lt. Aldo ‘The Apache’ Raines in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ or a suave impersonating high society aristocrat known as Jay Gatsby in the upcoming remake ‘The Great Gatsby’. Mr. Tim Monich is simply the voice of modern day film. His influence on voice and dialect can be seen in recent critical and commercial hit films such as: Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ (2012), David Cronenberg’s ‘Cosmopolis’ (2012), Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award winning ‘Hugo’ (2011) & the Coen Bros, ‘True Grit’ (2010).
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Monich as he has been working on director Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, written by Terrence Winter, creator of HBO’s ‘Boardwalk Empire’. The film based on the immensely popular book of the same name detailing the notoriously lavish rise and fall of Wall Street bad boy Jordan Belfort. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Margo Robbie (of the ABC series Pan AM), alongside Kyle Chandler (of TV’s Friday Night Lights, Super 8) & rounded out by Jean Dujardin winner of Best Actor this previous year for ‘The Artist’.
Foto from www.caughtonset.com
“…they have these ideas that you must have goals & long-term plans. And everything that has happened to me has been the exact opposite…” – Tim Monich
“ …To tell you the truth, I got into the movies by accident.” – Tim Monich
Mr. Monich now approaching 30 years in film this year, kindly took out some time out of his rather busy schedule to give a little insight into what he does as the preeminent dialect coach working in film today. Monich, who at about 6’1 and built like a retired NFL player seems who seems more of a nurturing football coach upon first meeting him. He speaks very distinctly and directly; immediately able to talk with anyone on just about anything, aiding in his ability to really listen and understand voices. These things all help in his ability to teach even the hardest of dialects to actors. And with that we begin.
King Williams: How’d you even become a dialogue coach in the first place?
Tim Monich: Well I started off doing a few plays in high school, but I have to say I didn’t plan on it. But after I graduated, I went to the UC Riverside for a year but then I decided to go to Carnegie-Mellon for drama. When I was there as an undergrad, I majored in directing. After graduating at CMU, I stayed as a graduate assistant for further train with Edith Skinner. Once I graduated from CMU, I was hired to teach at Juilliard where Edith also taught and I taught there for 12 years from 1975-1987.
Edith Skinner
Edith Skinner was the renowned dialect and speech coach of the Juilliard School of Performing Arts as well as a professor at Columbia University. She was and still is considered one of the most important contributors to the modern understanding of spoken English phonetics. She is also associated with the American Theater Standard associated with her 1942 work ‘Speak with Distinction’, which is considered by many to be the most important texts in teaching drama. She was also the first instructor recruited by Orson Welles collaborator John Hausman for the Drama Institute at The Juilliard School in 1968.
Speak with Distinction
Edith Skinner’s seminal 1942 work ‘Speak with Distinction’ is considered by many to be the most comprehensive study on speech and dialogue. Commonly associated with the teaching of theater to top drama schools as well a public speaking courses, it is taught as a way to teach dialogue in classics and elevated texts. Coincidentally, Monich would later help revise this work in addition to already been a former student of Skinner.
Monich is the living personification of the tenets of the work of legendary dialect and speech Columbia University and Juilliard professor Edith Skinner. Monich is the student of the legendary dialect and speech teacher Edith Skinner, who was the student of the great Columbia University professor William Tilly, who was the student Henry Sweet, whom was the basis for the character of Henry Higgins in the literary classic “Pygmalion”…
KW: — So how did you get into movies?
TM: I worked in the theater & taught at drama school years before I was in movies. I worked at Juilliard for 12 years prior to even arriving in film…to tell you the truth I got into movies by accident.
I got into movies by coaching Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonia (1985) during the ADR sessions (Automated Dialogue Replacement recording).
Conan the Destroyer Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeXWsXrs_00
KW: How do you go about actually doing what you do? That is how do u even identify proper dialogue…how do you even know what a person should sound like?
TM: — You try and work back and imagine in an educated what people sound or sounded like.
KW: — Yea, like in the case of Gangs of New York or what you did for Leo [DiCaprio] in Django, how did you go about that?
TM: For me, I’m always recording. I go to places and make recordings and interviews with people… For ‘Gangs of New York’, I worked back and made a strong educated guess as to what a person in Boston sounded like in 1750…Jumping ahead to The Great Gatsby {due May 10th, 2013}, I gave Leo older recordings of older people. Because people don’t talk the same way now as they once did.
Foto from www.hitfix.com
TM: — And in the case of {Calvin} Candie in ‘Django Unchained’, I had Leo listen to recordings of old Mississippians, but I wanted Leo to provide youth to the voice. It was two men, one man in his 60’s and one man in his 70’s. It was important as he listened, that he used that voice but to make sure not to add in the voice what happens when you get older. The young, upper class white Mississippian voice doesn’t exist anymore in young people.
Leonardo DiCaprio as ‘Calvin Candie’ in ‘Django Unchained’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQASoZP2RIo
Foto friendsamongoodfriends.wordpress.com
TM: But I have to say I’m most happy of the work I did with Leo in ‘Blood Diamond’ (2006) and Matt Damon in ‘Invictus’ (2009). Both were these distinctive South African accents and both of them came out so incredibly.
Matt Damon as ‘Francois’ & Morgan Freeman as South African President
Nelson Mandela in ‘Invictus’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z286w5pRSo
Leonardo DiCaprio as ‘Danny Archer’ in ‘Blood Diamond’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xmFbefCHs
KW: That’s good you bring up those two movies in particular because it would be so easy to just phone in a generic accident but the really put in effort to make those believable.
TM: —Yea, audiences are much more sophisticated now. Audiences have heard these accents. Expectations are much more fine-tuned. You can’t generalize for audiences anymore...I have a collection of over 6,000 recordings. Recordings from everyone, average people to J.R.R. Tolkien to Ernest Hemingway to Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter. If you were to take a listen to then entire collection it would take nearly 2 months to do so.
TM: I also record TV. Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose are good places to get foreign accents of different types of people.
Matt Damon as ‘Francois’, ‘This is our Destiny’ ‘Invictus’ 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE-ok-meF3E
KW: So how do you get an actor ready to perform using an accent?
TM: I prefer that the actor speak the way they would normally speak, in addition to consulting with the director. I usually give the actor 4 or 5 choices for the character and then they select one, from there I make tapes according to the dialect. I also talk to the actor about their thoughts on the character and delving into the background of the character.
Foto from www.NYTimes.carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com
TM: For example with Brad Pitt in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ he had a list of over two dozen phrases to learn for his character that I drilled him on. We also used a special phonetic style using real phonetics and sound approximations. It’s the repetition of practice that leads to getting an accent right.
KW: So what would advice would you give to those aspiring actors/actresses who want to get into the business?
TM: Studying with a great teacher really helps. But do voices, do voices everywhere, at the supermarket, at the movies. Oh, and you really need to understand language, phonetics; a little bit about geography really helps too.
TM: I’d say also if you really want to go further look at migration patterns, that will add more depth to your speech.
TM: …for example if look at the history of the construction of the Erie Canal. The history of its construction, the people who worked on it, it explains a lot why accents in Chicago sound similar to those in upstate New York and all along the Great Lakes.
KW: Well do you have anything to say in closing?
TM: I love what I do, theater and film. I have a healthy obsession with it. I only dreamed at being better for myself. Once I started in high school doing drama, I didn’t plan on going to teach at Julliard, it just happened; I never dreamed of films it just happened. I only dreamed of being better myself, my desire was to learn and explore and get good at it.
Foto from mckellen.com
King Williams @iamkingwilliams, is a filmmaker, writer and generally cool guy to know. His first documentary film The Atlanta Way: A Documentary on Gentrification and novel of the same name will be released this spring. In addition to this blog, he also is a contributing writer for Mixtape Magazine and is releasing his first novel fall of 2014.
‘Free Film University’ is brought to you by a collaboration between Psyentific Films & Mixtape Magazine.
