One of the questions people ask me is “Do you ever accompany a film that you haven’t seen before?” The answer is “yes”. Although it happens less often than it did a decade or so ago, because now most films… Read More »“Sight-Reading” a Reginald Denny Comedy
In this episode: Ben talks about accompanying Laurel & Hardy’s pie fight in “The Battle of the Century”, for a decisive moment for Keaton’s character in “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”, for Ozu’s “A Story of Floating Weeds”, and for Raymond Griffith… Read More »ep. 64: The Fierce Urgency of Silent Film Music
Episode 64 Show Notes: The Fierce Urgency of Silent Film Music On this episode, Ben and Kerr talk specifically about the importance of spontaneity in providing musical accompaniment to performances of silent film Laurel & Hardy shorts (restored) in the… Read More »Episode 64 show notes: The Silent Film Music Podcast
The “cue sheet” was the most common type of film score during the silent era. These were road maps for the conductors and musicians in movie houses. They were rarely if ever made in collaboration with a film’s director, and… Read More »Silent Film Cue Sheets for Comedy Shorts
Every year in December, 25 films are added to the National Film Registry for their being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, and are selected by the Librarian of Congress and the National Film Preservation Board. Given the connection to Batman that… Read More »Let’s get “The Bat” on the National Film Registry!
Had it not been for the fact that I was on vacation for about two weeks in June and my seeing a slew of LinkedIn messages congratulating me when I got home, a big anniversary of mine would not have… Read More »40 Years At MoMA
The Il Cinema Ritrovato is held every year in Bologna, Italy and is a prestigious international festival of classic and silent film. The festival has an awards competition for Blu-rays and DVDs that were released the previous year. 5 awards are given… Read More »An award for the Raymond Griffith Blu/DVD!
It’s always fun finding another nugget of evidence as to how far back the practice of silent era sped-up film projection went. During the pandemic, I made a reading project of going through issues of the Moving Picture World from… Read More »Projection Speed-up Cited in 1915 Article
Not all of my home video projects are initiated by me. I’ve co-produced and released Blu-rays and DVDs for projects who were the brainchild of fellow film accompanists Jon C. Mirsalis and Andrew Earle Simpson, historian-educator-author Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, and my… Read More »You Can Help Bring 2 Tom Tyler Silent Westerns Back to Fans
On Saturday May 18th I will be giving a presentation entitled “Laughter Restored: Discovering Rare Gems of Silent Film” at the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Restored and Rediscovered Festival. This will be a first for me, as I’ve not given… Read More »Interview with Ben Model about his “Laughter Restored” presentation