The reason why History majors don't like attending the cinema and film critics scoff and jab at most historically-based Hollywood productions is that the scripts are rarely... well... historical.
Yeah, there was a war during that time, and yeah, I'll believe that guy was alive and even involved in that war, but he most certainly didn't look like that, talk like that, or do half of what you're claiming he did.
The non-movie folk shake their heads and think, "Why did they do that? Why did they ruin perfectly good facts and try to lie to the world?"
I'll tell you why.
One: Movies are easily inspired by real events. Ideas usually come from somewhere.
Two: History is tied down by bothersome things, like dates and places.
Three: Sometimes, the ideas and the little things that make up history don't quite gel. Or, you know, one happened in someone's mind and one happened in real life.
Four: Creative people are more than willing to do what they want to satisfy their idea, rather than, say, historical accuracy. Who cares if it didn't really happen-- was the movie good?
And thus, problems.
I used to be one of the scoffers. But little by little, the dark side is beckoning. There they have fun things, like plot twists and romance and sudden deaths and unexpected births. You can create things, like castles and rivers and hilltops and whole continents that don't exist on the 'right' side.
And the reason why I am becoming thus swayed is that every time I do more research for my screenplay, some facet of my plot is inevitably proved wrong or impossible to have occurred.
Now, every writer is allowed some leeway, but I doubt I'd get away with giving a 40 year old man a daughter he'd have to have created at 14.
Little fun* things like that have been popping up all over the place.
Some examples of my research experience:
"I'll have them come from a small village in the countryside."
No, he's a lord, actually, and he has a manor called Townley Hall.
"I'll have his body taken by the girl to be buried in a field."
No, after the beheading, his body was cut into eight pieces and his innards thrown out, but good try.
"I'll have them escape to Glencoe to get away from the English signing."
Oh, really? Yeah, everyone in Glencoe was murdered in the Glencoe Massacre of 1736, but keep brainstorming.
Over. And over. And over.
So, yes, I am doing research. And yes, I am writing. But the delete button is in danger of sticking, so let's keep the, "Making progress?" questions to a minimum, please.
In August, the script will be done and all will be well, but until then... the dark side hasn't claimed me yet.
-B
*awful.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Scene 16: Hampton Court Palace
I went to Hampton Court Palace! If this surprises you, you obviously didn't read the title of this post. Allison voyaged with me, on Saturday, June 26th.
We left early, and by early I mean I had to be awake by 8am, and the train departed Waterloo Station at 10:36 am. I'd tell you what I had for breakfast, but you'd be so disappointed that I ate McDonalds abroad- oops, told ya- and I want to spare myself the shame.
The train ride was about 30 minutes out to... um... where Hampton Court Palace is.
We arrived at the station (literally, two train tracks with a toilet building and coffee/croissant stand next to it) and then walked a little bit over a bridge to the palace grounds.
This is me on that bridge:
Oh, at the station Allison spotted some little old ladies in red hats and exclaimed, "Red Hat Ladies!" Their club name is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, it's a group of older women who get together, wear red hats, and do whatever they want, excursion and attitude-wise. Allison has always wanted to be one of these women when she grew up, so she decided to tell a little lie and say her grandmother was a Red Hat Lady, and this is how she got a picture with them:
Lying is wrong, but aren't they cute?
We purchased tickets that cost 14 GBP that no one ever asked us for/checked/swiped/etc. and got our audio tour equipment and were on our way.
This is the front:
Dispersed throughout the palace are carved wooden figurines, usually doing things that don't make sense or that aren't kid-friendly.
This one sat in the inner court and looked very suspicious. I think it had something to do with whatever's in that jug.
I wasn't trying trying to take it from him, though I don't doubt he'd tell you otherwise.
He's not as bad as the wooden people passed out near the wine fountain, though. No, I'm not kidding. They were carved to show us Modern Timers what inebriation looked like in the 17th century.
Don't have a picture of those- sorry. Hey, I'll take a picture of people downstairs at the Blue Skies Hostel when I'm there this week and you can just imagine they're made of wood. That work?
Yeah, near the beginning Allison and I had a run-in with King Henry VIII and one of the wives he eventually beheaded. They were very much in character and I didn't know what to do with them, so I spouted off something about being from the United States ("States? Why, the little colonies are doing well, then?") and escaped up the stairs.
We toured and I learned many things and there was much to go "Oooh" and "Aaah" over. Mostly, though, I kept thinking, "I'm so glad I didn't live in this time."
Really.
But if I had, and if I had been born royal, and if I had ever gone to Hampton Court Palace, I would have appreciated these things:
The murals were beautiful, as was the woodwork and exquisite attention to detail. Even the chimneys were special:
Allison and I can't quite figure out how they did that.
It was overcast and a little dreary outside, so Allison and I didn't get to explore the numerous acres of gardens, or do the famous palace maze. People have been disappointed when I tell them I didn't do the maze, so think of it this way: I didn't get lost. Yay!
I did, however, find a random alleyway between the palace kitchens and... somewhere else. Don't ask me why I look so happy, I'm not sure, but Allison kept going, "Cobblestones!" and this seemed to generate enough excitement for me to take a picture.
My hands are raised in the victory of knowing that we were going to eat lunch soon.
Lunch was in the palace's Tiltyard Cafe, where Allison and I ate healthy and delicious vegetarian lasagna and plotted where to find something sugary and bad for our arteries once we returned to London.
Adjacent to the cafe was the only garden we passed through (and from necessity, let's be honest) and it was beautiful. It made me wish we had enough time to tour the grounds. Almost.
Look, four roses from the same stem:
This is Allison in the garden:
Oh, and one with her face in it:
We left the palace tired and fed, on to more exploring in London town. I won't tell you what dessert we eventually ate, because you might ask me what was in it, and I'd have to lie, and we established earlier that lying is wrong.
But I will assure you that my dessert was very good.
A final shot:
-B
We left early, and by early I mean I had to be awake by 8am, and the train departed Waterloo Station at 10:36 am. I'd tell you what I had for breakfast, but you'd be so disappointed that I ate McDonalds abroad- oops, told ya- and I want to spare myself the shame.
The train ride was about 30 minutes out to... um... where Hampton Court Palace is.
We arrived at the station (literally, two train tracks with a toilet building and coffee/croissant stand next to it) and then walked a little bit over a bridge to the palace grounds.
This is me on that bridge:
Oh, at the station Allison spotted some little old ladies in red hats and exclaimed, "Red Hat Ladies!" Their club name is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, it's a group of older women who get together, wear red hats, and do whatever they want, excursion and attitude-wise. Allison has always wanted to be one of these women when she grew up, so she decided to tell a little lie and say her grandmother was a Red Hat Lady, and this is how she got a picture with them:
Lying is wrong, but aren't they cute?
We purchased tickets that cost 14 GBP that no one ever asked us for/checked/swiped/etc. and got our audio tour equipment and were on our way.
This is the front:
Dispersed throughout the palace are carved wooden figurines, usually doing things that don't make sense or that aren't kid-friendly.
This one sat in the inner court and looked very suspicious. I think it had something to do with whatever's in that jug.
I wasn't trying trying to take it from him, though I don't doubt he'd tell you otherwise.
He's not as bad as the wooden people passed out near the wine fountain, though. No, I'm not kidding. They were carved to show us Modern Timers what inebriation looked like in the 17th century.
Don't have a picture of those- sorry. Hey, I'll take a picture of people downstairs at the Blue Skies Hostel when I'm there this week and you can just imagine they're made of wood. That work?
Yeah, near the beginning Allison and I had a run-in with King Henry VIII and one of the wives he eventually beheaded. They were very much in character and I didn't know what to do with them, so I spouted off something about being from the United States ("States? Why, the little colonies are doing well, then?") and escaped up the stairs.
We toured and I learned many things and there was much to go "Oooh" and "Aaah" over. Mostly, though, I kept thinking, "I'm so glad I didn't live in this time."
Really.
But if I had, and if I had been born royal, and if I had ever gone to Hampton Court Palace, I would have appreciated these things:
The murals were beautiful, as was the woodwork and exquisite attention to detail. Even the chimneys were special:
Allison and I can't quite figure out how they did that.
It was overcast and a little dreary outside, so Allison and I didn't get to explore the numerous acres of gardens, or do the famous palace maze. People have been disappointed when I tell them I didn't do the maze, so think of it this way: I didn't get lost. Yay!
I did, however, find a random alleyway between the palace kitchens and... somewhere else. Don't ask me why I look so happy, I'm not sure, but Allison kept going, "Cobblestones!" and this seemed to generate enough excitement for me to take a picture.
My hands are raised in the victory of knowing that we were going to eat lunch soon.
Lunch was in the palace's Tiltyard Cafe, where Allison and I ate healthy and delicious vegetarian lasagna and plotted where to find something sugary and bad for our arteries once we returned to London.
Adjacent to the cafe was the only garden we passed through (and from necessity, let's be honest) and it was beautiful. It made me wish we had enough time to tour the grounds. Almost.
Look, four roses from the same stem:
This is Allison in the garden:
Oh, and one with her face in it:
We left the palace tired and fed, on to more exploring in London town. I won't tell you what dessert we eventually ate, because you might ask me what was in it, and I'd have to lie, and we established earlier that lying is wrong.
But I will assure you that my dessert was very good.
A final shot:
-B
Scene 15: The London Eye (Hostel)
Despite what you may have assumed from the name of my hostel, it is not by the London Eye. Don't worry, I was unaware of this as well.
It's very nice. A large common room, a pool table, a TV, four computers for anyone who didn't bring a laptop, plenty of work seating, etc. etc.
You can't check in until 4 p.m. (it's 11:30 a.m. at the moment), but that's alright. I was planning to leave as soon as I got here anyway. And once the kind cleaning woman smoking outside helped me get into the luggage room, my suitcase was safely secured from harm. (If not necessarily other people who are given the key to the luggage room).
The hostel is good. It was not too far from the tube station and it's sunny outside and I'm not quite sure where I am (Lambeth North? Who named these places?), but that's alright. There's a huge concert in London this weekend and literally everything in the city was full, except this- praise the Lord- for two nights. It's expensive, but I have somewhere to sleep. I consider that an important travel staple.
I have a lot to be grateful for (acknowledged) but it's been a rough morning and I want to be in a bad mood about everything. A personality flaw, I know.
I won't complain here. I've found that if you don't verbalize negativity, it's a lot easier to get around. So.
YAY FOR THE SUNSHINE. I HAD COFFEE THIS MORNING.
It only took me five seconds to check out of my last hostel, and not too long to get to Paddington Station, and I had to top-up my Oyster Card (what I swipe in tubes/trains/buses to go places) in a queue that stretched about 10 yards, but I got to read more of my book, and Lambeth North is one short of the last stop on the Bakerloo Line, but I got to read more of my book, and I'll be traveling who knows where and doing who knows what until 4 p.m. today, BUT I'LL GET TO READ MORE OF MY BOOK!
I'm really glad that I spent an exorbitant amount of money specially ordering this book from Waterstones (a popular English bookseller), because they didn't have a copy in any of the stores and it's not released in the US until October and its written by one of my favorite authors and its very good and it came in to the store right when I needed to begin reading it.
Don't ask me how much it was, I'll only tell you how much I'm enjoying it.
I did a lot this past week, none of which I wrote about on here, and practically none of it what I'd planned to do with my time.
Don't worry, I'll fill you in. Mostly. I spent a lot more time in my head than outdoors, this week. Sorry.
Some uninteresting news for anyone not concerned with my safekeeping and well-being:
I secured housing for the duration of my time in London. This sounds like an easy and simple task, but I assure you that it wasn't.
For now, the London Eye Hostel. For the two days following that, Blue Skies, again. Don't look at me like that. It was all that was there! And better an evil I know than one that I don't.
After Blue Skies, the Astor Quest for 4 days. It came highly recommended and by the time I got around to clicking "confirm" on the slog-through that was hostelworld.com on Tuesday night, it could have been in Surrey for all I would have cared. Anyone who hasn't been to London won't appreciate that statement.
(I've become one of those obnoxious city people. You know, the New Yorker- type person, who looks across the river and goes, "Brooklyn? Seriously? But it's so.... far."
"Lambeth?" I find myself saying. "But isn't that across the Thames? It's so... far. And do they have Tesco there?"
Surrey, to me, is like New Jersey to a New Yorker. Incomprehensible. Only for the sake of better school systems.)
After the Astor Quest, I am back to Piccadilly, my first and favorite hostel, full of only girls and with purple duvet covers. After the 8 days there, I'm on my own for three weeks as I travel by national rail to who-knows-where (I certainly don't) and then I'm back to Piccadilly for the four days leading up to my stateside return.
As you can see, I defined and clung to some idea of comfort or home in London and it was Piccadilly Hostel. When in doubt, go home. Dash the expense.
(Except not really, I'm on a budget, but do I need to eat on Wednesdays?)
So, this week I must find out where I'm going come July 15th and make sure I can get there. I've found that living on the edge is quite my style. I travel dangerously*.
Until next time, when you actually find out what I've been up to,
Brooke
*Just to clarify, 'dangerously' to Brooke Odom is defined as 'without clear plan or direction and with no guarantee of breakfast or clean linens upon arrival at a place of rest.'
It's very nice. A large common room, a pool table, a TV, four computers for anyone who didn't bring a laptop, plenty of work seating, etc. etc.
You can't check in until 4 p.m. (it's 11:30 a.m. at the moment), but that's alright. I was planning to leave as soon as I got here anyway. And once the kind cleaning woman smoking outside helped me get into the luggage room, my suitcase was safely secured from harm. (If not necessarily other people who are given the key to the luggage room).
The hostel is good. It was not too far from the tube station and it's sunny outside and I'm not quite sure where I am (Lambeth North? Who named these places?), but that's alright. There's a huge concert in London this weekend and literally everything in the city was full, except this- praise the Lord- for two nights. It's expensive, but I have somewhere to sleep. I consider that an important travel staple.
I have a lot to be grateful for (acknowledged) but it's been a rough morning and I want to be in a bad mood about everything. A personality flaw, I know.
I won't complain here. I've found that if you don't verbalize negativity, it's a lot easier to get around. So.
YAY FOR THE SUNSHINE. I HAD COFFEE THIS MORNING.
It only took me five seconds to check out of my last hostel, and not too long to get to Paddington Station, and I had to top-up my Oyster Card (what I swipe in tubes/trains/buses to go places) in a queue that stretched about 10 yards, but I got to read more of my book, and Lambeth North is one short of the last stop on the Bakerloo Line, but I got to read more of my book, and I'll be traveling who knows where and doing who knows what until 4 p.m. today, BUT I'LL GET TO READ MORE OF MY BOOK!
I'm really glad that I spent an exorbitant amount of money specially ordering this book from Waterstones (a popular English bookseller), because they didn't have a copy in any of the stores and it's not released in the US until October and its written by one of my favorite authors and its very good and it came in to the store right when I needed to begin reading it.
Don't ask me how much it was, I'll only tell you how much I'm enjoying it.
I did a lot this past week, none of which I wrote about on here, and practically none of it what I'd planned to do with my time.
Don't worry, I'll fill you in. Mostly. I spent a lot more time in my head than outdoors, this week. Sorry.
Some uninteresting news for anyone not concerned with my safekeeping and well-being:
I secured housing for the duration of my time in London. This sounds like an easy and simple task, but I assure you that it wasn't.
For now, the London Eye Hostel. For the two days following that, Blue Skies, again. Don't look at me like that. It was all that was there! And better an evil I know than one that I don't.
After Blue Skies, the Astor Quest for 4 days. It came highly recommended and by the time I got around to clicking "confirm" on the slog-through that was hostelworld.com on Tuesday night, it could have been in Surrey for all I would have cared. Anyone who hasn't been to London won't appreciate that statement.
(I've become one of those obnoxious city people. You know, the New Yorker- type person, who looks across the river and goes, "Brooklyn? Seriously? But it's so.... far."
"Lambeth?" I find myself saying. "But isn't that across the Thames? It's so... far. And do they have Tesco there?"
Surrey, to me, is like New Jersey to a New Yorker. Incomprehensible. Only for the sake of better school systems.)
After the Astor Quest, I am back to Piccadilly, my first and favorite hostel, full of only girls and with purple duvet covers. After the 8 days there, I'm on my own for three weeks as I travel by national rail to who-knows-where (I certainly don't) and then I'm back to Piccadilly for the four days leading up to my stateside return.
As you can see, I defined and clung to some idea of comfort or home in London and it was Piccadilly Hostel. When in doubt, go home. Dash the expense.
(Except not really, I'm on a budget, but do I need to eat on Wednesdays?)
So, this week I must find out where I'm going come July 15th and make sure I can get there. I've found that living on the edge is quite my style. I travel dangerously*.
Until next time, when you actually find out what I've been up to,
Brooke
*Just to clarify, 'dangerously' to Brooke Odom is defined as 'without clear plan or direction and with no guarantee of breakfast or clean linens upon arrival at a place of rest.'
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