Having recently watched the Visual Bible's Acts I found the strong American accents so distracting there I doubt I'll be able to use it in any corporate church setting. Is this just my anti-americanism, a natural Uk reaction, or something that's more widely felt, and what is the best way to tackle the accents issue.

Matt

WE don't have accents, you do. (Well, New England and the South have accents, but they exceptions.) How could one do a visual bible without it being set in a particularly accented language? (Unless you had Mel Gibson make it)

Now you know how we American's feel when we have to wade through all those British accents in biblical films of years past.

There's no such thing as speaking without an accent really, is there?

I guess it depends on who you think is going to watch the film, as to what is appropriate. But for what it's worth - I say let's have some Welsh Jesus's, and a couple of disciples from Birmingham.

I think consistency is important though, a weird range of accents could be distracting. And I object to using a certain accent as an easy way of stereotyping character (e.g. British commanders on the Death Star). I seem to remember Peter in Miracle Maker having a broad Yorkshire accent to get across his blunt earthiness, which is maybe a bit lazy. On the other hand though, I like the idea of putting unexpected accents in to challenge preconceptions of what a character is going to be like.