Yesterday was the Silent Clowns program of shorts released by E.W. Hammons’ Educational Pictures. We’d planned 5 shorts, but then I turned up a lost one-reeler starring Wallace Lupino on eBay a couple weeks ago, and we threw it into the program. So, our audience was the first to see this film in several decades.
The program’s challenge for me was not so much scoring 6 shorts as it was the difficulty I had seeing the screen; my mistake, though, for not remembering an extra extension cord for the video camera for my monitoring set-up (it’s a baby monitor with video…the piano at the N-YHS can’t be moved all the way out so it faces the screen properly), so the camera wasn’t far back enough. I though it’d be okay, but since I was “sight-reading” several of the films it was a little trickier that unusal. I’ll be prepared next time. Actually our next show will have me seated in a different spot, using the Miditzer.
Today we had another screening at MoMA checking prints for our class. This afternoon I’m recording the last of the commentary tracks for the Chase DVD set with some colleagues. Tomorrow I’ve got 2 Immigrant shows at AMMI, and Weds I’ve got an Immigrant show at AMMI, then a 3pm showing of An Unseen Enemy with Lillian Gish at MoMA (a last-minute booking), and then Cruel and Unusual at MoMA, with our guest speaker Trav S.D. Thursday I’ve got two more Immigrant shows.
Big news is that I’ve submitted my programming list for the Kovacs DVD set, and now we can start bringing film elements and videotape masters to NY from LA for re-mastering.
See you at the silents!
Ben