Tesla

[sergebroom]

My darn steampunk-movie talk for next week's FiestaCon/WesterCon isn't done yet. I thought it was, after yesterday evening's rewrite, then I read the whole thing out loud. It clocked in at 45 minutes, and I was probably speaking a bit fast to be understandable. That leaves little time for the hour's 2nd half, during which Michael Contos will talk informally with the audience about the future of steampunk movies. So, I have to slow down my delivery and chop at least 10 minutes out of my meanderings.

By the way, one of the movies I include in my talk is The Prestige. Officially, it's about two unpleasant stage magicians trying to one-up each other, but it really is steampunk, thanks to the non-incidental presence of Nikola Tesla, played by David Bowie.

There are a few biographies of Tesla out there, but is there one that you recommend?

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

It's been a while, but IIRC, the usual assumption for academic talks is one page per minute. Also remember the rule for layreaders and other public speakers: half as fast and twice as loud. (Even if there's a mic, you have to project instead of mumbling.)

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

One page per minute? Hmmm... My talk is 11-page long, which means I took 4 minutes per page. That's 4 times the rule of thumb for academics that you mention, and twice the expected speed for public speakers. And this even though I was speaking quite fast. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Oh, wait. My text is in a 9-point typeface, which is probably way smaller than the norm.

I really wanted to keep that joke about mad scientists, but it'll have to be excised, I'm afraid.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Keep the joke. Laughing people are interested people.

And yeah, the standard is 12pt type, so you can read it without huddling over the lectern.

[(Anonymous)]

One hundred twenty-five words per minute was how I got it in my boot camp/charm school/methods class. It's never failed me, as long as I don't gabble.

Serge, are you including any visual aids? (Slides, film clips, etc.) Because you'll want to rehearse with them.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip.

There's a slideshow. I ran thru the text by itself first, to see how much leeway I have, in case I want to post more than one photo for certain movies. Not much leeway, obviously. On the other hand, I won't be showing any photos for some films so maybe it'll even out.

Goodness, this is way more work than I expected.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Laughing people are interested people

Good point. I'll throw out the borderline movies like "Around the World in 80 Days". Keep the jokes, throw out the bores.

The slideshow should also amuse them, even the photos that don't show a naked Pat Boone covering his naughty bits while nuns chastely avert their gaze.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

No, no, you don't want to drive them mad! Oh, wait, maybe you do. :-)

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed The Prestige, and the other Victorian-era magician movie out at the same time, though I can't remember what it was called offhand :)

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Might you be referring to Edward Norton's The Illusionist? I liked that movie quite a bit.

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

That's the one. I liked both movies. It's a shame they ended up competing with eachother.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It probably was a case where someone in Hollywood thought that "The Prestige" was going to be a Big Success, what with the main actors being Batman and Wolverine, so they thought they'd release their own stage-magician movie.

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

True, true. And I suppose if you saw one, you'd most likely want to see the other, so in that sense, maybe they each helped the other's gross.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Or people said "Nah, I've already seen one magician movie" even though the two stories were different in every other respect.