Monday, February 29, 2016

Amusement Park - Miniature Golf

This storytelling style may strike you as a little strange, but it is a fun one: try imagining the story you want to tell as an amusement ride at a Disney-like park or miniature golf course with your story as the theme.

And hey, the famous Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise actually started as an amusement park ride at the old Disneyland... only later did it become a film franchise! You can read more about the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride in this Wikipedia article. It opened at Disneyland (the original one, in Anaheim, CA) in 1967, and it was the last ride which Walt Disney himself personally oversaw; Disney died just a few months before the ride opened. Here's an ad from the 1967 opening:


Many of the classic Disney rides are based on legends and stories; you can read about the original Disneyland in Anaheim in this Wikipedia article.

As for miniature golf, there are all kinds of themed miniature golf courses! For example, the Bible Mini-Golf in Kentucky has "three 18-hole courses: Old Testament, New Testament, and biblical miracles" — and you can see Jonah and the Whale here, plus the Ten Commandments:


The King Putt in Nevada is an Egyptian-themed miniature golf course:



At Mayday Golf in South Carolina, the course is themed around the story of a plane that crashes on a tropical island:



So, depending on the type of story you want to retell, you might have fun re-imagining it as an amusement park ride or a miniature golf course. Go wild! :-)