04-19-2007, 02:48 AM
Chairete,
I feel your pain, Yannis, and I sympathize. As someone who has done a fair amount of extra work and consultation work for the History Channel (and Discovery and Nat'l Geographic as well), I must say that, yes, they ARE cheap and incompetent. Those of us in Legion VI in Los Angeles have taken part in a lot of these productions because we are geographically close to their bases of operations. Basically, there are about three to four production companies that make these documentaries and then sell them to the History Channel. They do not employ real scholars to do the writing or research most of the time, but professional writer/producers, who have no more knowledge of the subject than the average person who has just opened a book on the subject at hand. They then occasionally check with real scholars for support.
On more than one occasion, I have rolled my proverbial eyes at directors giving absurd commands to the extras - directions that showed they did not know anything about the period or the scholarship associated with it. My favorite moment was one scene in which we were portarying Roman soldiers guarding the cross of Jesus Christ. The director asked me to spear Jesus in the side, as per the gospel stories, and he then told the actor playing Jesus to "react" to the thrust. Obviously, the director had never read the gospels, which state that Jesus was already dead by this point. I had to correct him.
Essentially, the History Channel and the several channels like it, are only slightly better than pure entertainment. They educate the amateurs and hopefully encourage the masses to read a book. But the Hist Channel is certainly not representative of "good scholarship".
But it sure is a heck of a lot of fun being an extra on these programs - sitting around for hours, waiting for your scene, chatting with your closest reenactor friends, being fed by the caterers, and then doing about an hour or two of actual work. The worst that can happen is that they spread fake blood all over your best armor!
All my best to you, koinonoi,
Diogenes
I feel your pain, Yannis, and I sympathize. As someone who has done a fair amount of extra work and consultation work for the History Channel (and Discovery and Nat'l Geographic as well), I must say that, yes, they ARE cheap and incompetent. Those of us in Legion VI in Los Angeles have taken part in a lot of these productions because we are geographically close to their bases of operations. Basically, there are about three to four production companies that make these documentaries and then sell them to the History Channel. They do not employ real scholars to do the writing or research most of the time, but professional writer/producers, who have no more knowledge of the subject than the average person who has just opened a book on the subject at hand. They then occasionally check with real scholars for support.
On more than one occasion, I have rolled my proverbial eyes at directors giving absurd commands to the extras - directions that showed they did not know anything about the period or the scholarship associated with it. My favorite moment was one scene in which we were portarying Roman soldiers guarding the cross of Jesus Christ. The director asked me to spear Jesus in the side, as per the gospel stories, and he then told the actor playing Jesus to "react" to the thrust. Obviously, the director had never read the gospels, which state that Jesus was already dead by this point. I had to correct him.
Essentially, the History Channel and the several channels like it, are only slightly better than pure entertainment. They educate the amateurs and hopefully encourage the masses to read a book. But the Hist Channel is certainly not representative of "good scholarship".
But it sure is a heck of a lot of fun being an extra on these programs - sitting around for hours, waiting for your scene, chatting with your closest reenactor friends, being fed by the caterers, and then doing about an hour or two of actual work. The worst that can happen is that they spread fake blood all over your best armor!
All my best to you, koinonoi,
Diogenes
AVLVS ARRIVS DIOGENES
L. Arik Greenberg, Ph.D.
L. Arik Greenberg, Ph.D.
