bookmark_borderWhat rides should they have at Napoleonland?

French history buffs are planning their own theme park to compete with Disneyland, and honour France’s best known soldier.  Napoleonland will bring history to life, in ways that could even make fans of “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer” blush with embarrassment.

Et alors, can pure amusement be educational?  It worked for King Arthur’s Labyrinth in Wales, and that’s History.  Or, it’s a story.

So why not have Napoleonland!

If they do it though, better do it right.  Here’s some rides we’d like to see at Napoleonland: Continue reading “What rides should they have at Napoleonland?”

bookmark_borderWhat is the secret of success?

painting of Admiral Nelson contemplating what to do next.
Lord Nelson in the cabin of the Victory, by Charles Lucy

Eisenhower once said that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Yet, biographers of Napoleon seem to quote Cromwell in saying that those men who go farthest, don’t have a plan.

There are so many other secrets put forward. But one seems consistent. Continue reading “What is the secret of success?”

bookmark_borderShould screenwriters use camera directions?

Herbert G Ponting's cameraConventional wisdom* among amateur directors and beginning film lecturers is that camera directions should “never” appear in a film script.  Yet, the camera is probably the one thing that separates a screenplay from a stage-play.  (Okay, so there’s CGI, logos and subtitles, as well as editing overlays, but the stage can have its own version of these effects.  Even animation can be achieved with a giant flip book.)

I’d wax lyrical about Universal studios turning 100, but that’s irrelevant. In the silent era film scenarios looked different than they do today.  Let’s take a look at our experience, and at other scripts for well known films, and at why the myth persists. Continue reading “Should screenwriters use camera directions?”

bookmark_borderAn experiment based on Kuleshov’s work with political icons

Karl MarxMost film students will know of the Kuleshov experiment by their second year in film school.  And most historians will know who Karl Marx, Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon and Napoleon Bonaparte are.

Well, why not mix the simplest film experiment in history with four of history’s most debated icons? Meanwhile, we can test someone’s historical knowledge.

Try showing the following video to your friends, students or peers.  (Kids, try this with your parents.) Ask them how the other images in the sequence makes the famous people feel. Continue reading “An experiment based on Kuleshov’s work with political icons”