Voice Casting

Rob

Dr. John Robert Lerner, founder of the International Space Foundation is a Mechanical Engineer who has given the last twenty-five years of his life supporting the quest for a self-supporting private colony on the moon.

Accent for Rob Lerner

Rob has a "middle American" accent which is not very distinct to any one place. His travels and practice have given him a plain-sounding media-friendly accent.

Readings (PDF): Speech - Is Space Safe?, Anya, Josh, Rob Breakfast Chat

Hiromi

Rob Learner’s wife, Hiromi Aoki Lerner is a Japanese American homemaker, but homemaker takes on a whole new meaning when one’s home is a moon base.

Accent and Language for Hiromi

Some fluency in Japanese is highly preferred for this part, so that we can inject a few Japanese lines. Hiromi herself would be completely bilingual, having grown up in a bilingual household in the USA and having lived some of her teenage years in Japan. Her mother is a Japanese immigrant. Her father is a Japanese American whose family has been in the USA for several generations.

Hiromi's earliest accent would be from her home town of Torrance, California, though she might have some early influence from her mother's accent. She has since lived in the USA, Japan, and Canada (Toronto). Most recently, she lived with her husband Rob and daughter Georgiana in Arizona (not far from Casa Grande, between Tucson and Phoenix).

We can accept a fair range of accents for Hiromi, since it's plausible that she's picked up habits from any of these places -- and if we can get somebody fluent in Japanese, it might be worth fudging a bit on the accent -- but a California accent is the most realistic.

Readings (PDF): Interview from "No children in Space" - Pilot, Hiromi's phone call to Rob from "No Children in Space"

Anya

Anna Titova Farmer is the competent, aggressive, Russian business manager of the colony.

Anya's Accent

She should have a Moscow accent. She's lived near the city in a wealthy household and attended college in Moscow. A native-speaker with an authentic accent and Russian fluency is strongly preferred. It will sound very odd if Anya comes off with an American accent in Russian!

Readings (PDF): Anya Makes a Sales Video, Anya, Josh, Rob Breakfast Chat, Opening from "Cyborg"(Tim with Anya)

This part includes some Russian, which should pass for a native (strong accent in English but fluent). Specific dialect should be from Moscow.

Josh

Dr. Joshua Farmer has a doctorate in Space agriculture. He makes sure the crops come in on time.

Josh's Accent

Josh has a true Midwestern accent. He was raised in the Midwest and attended college at the University of Iowa. He speaks in a slow, considered manner, but gets a little faster on familiar technical grounds.

Readings (PDF): Joshua Farmer Interview, Anya, Josh, Rob Breakfast Chat, Tim talks to dad from "Cyborg"

Tim

Igor Timothy Farmer is the son of Anya and Josh. He is in charge of keeping the communication lines working in the colony and has his own successful web show even though he is only fifteen.

Tim's Accent

Tim's accent in English is pretty "middle-american", but he's also lived in Moscow and would ideally know some Russian.

Readings (PDF): Opening from "Cyborg"(with Anya), Tim talks to dad from "Cyborg"

Allen

R. Allen Emerson is an award winning conceptual artist. He came to the colony to film a lunar eclipse from other side.

Allen's Accent

Allen is originally from a small town in Ohio , but he left as soon as he could and most recently lived in New York City although he has moved around a lot, spending time in Europe, Canada, and the USA. His accent is highly affected, as he has actively tried to adopt an accent he views as "elevated" or "proper". The result is probably sort of "mid-atlantic" -- with British influence on an otherwise Northeastern USA dialect. You can have some fun with this one, because in a way, it's not supposed to be any real accent.

Readings (PDF): "'Art Now!' Interview"

Allen is introduced in Episode 2: "Earth".

Sarah

Dr. Sarah Allison is a geologist. She loves science, and she loves the moon. She has clocked more hours on the moon’s surface than any other person.

About Sarah's Accent

Sarah does not speak with a stereotypical "Black" accent, which means Do NOT do a Southern accent. She's from New Mexico. Many people seem to think that New Mexicans speak with a Southern accent. They do not! Here is a collection of REAL New Mexican accents from "accent challenge" videos on YouTube (a valuable reference!): AMC2208, NikkiMonique, iliketosinganddance1, xxmickynicole.

It's a rather flat, fast dialect with few dipthongs and not much tonal variation. It's not unlike the accent spoken in rural parts of California, or throughout Nevada, Arizona, or western Texas. I'm not a linguist, but I suspect that some of the characteristics of this accent (such as the simple pure vowels) are borrowed from Spanish.

Sarah is a particularly fast talker when she starts getting excited about something. The passage here has a lot of false-starts and repetition that is meant to be from her trying to talk too fast and tripping over her words.

Remember also that Sarah has a DOCTORATE -- clearly her pronunciation will be educated. You can bet she says "NOO - klee - err" when she sees "nuclear", and as a lunar geologist, she's not going to trip on words like "anorthosite", "feldspar", or "gravitational potential". Sarah is a very clever person who thinks quickly and sometimes "gets ahead of herself".

Readings (PDF): Sarah takes a tour of the colony from "Rocks"(with Rob)

Sarah is introduced at the end of Episode 3: "Cyborg".

Georgiana

Rob and Hiromi’s eight year old daughter, Georgiana Lerner is the first child on the moon.

Readings (PDF): 'Union Negotiations' with Tim

Georgiana will most likely be played by Ariel Hancock (our daughter). This is mostly to avoid any consent issues with underage actors -- we know we've given permission.