“End of the Year 2021 Recap” – in the first half of this 2-parter, Ben Model recaps the past pandemic year of silent film live-streaming, rediscovering the meaning of providing entertainment for fans, the return to in-person accompaniments, and ponders… Read More »ep. 42: End of the Year 2021 Recap – Part 1
“Live-Scoring for the Virtual Cinema” – in part two of this conversation, Ben Model discusses what it’s been like to accompany silent films throughout 2021 via live-streams he’s produced and presented out of his home. Ben and co-host Kerr Lockhart… Read More »ep. 41: Live-Scoring for the Virtual Cinema (part 2)
The silent comedy film series that Steve Massa and I and Ron Magliozzi put together in the late 2000s had two hooks. One we utilized to organize the shorts into programs and the other was the real inspiration for the… Read More »Screening Slapstick, Unrestored
Several years ago, I ventured into podcasting as a way of making it easier for me to blog. I figured talking into a mic instead of writing things out saved a bunch of steps, mentally, and would be more efficient.… Read More »Back in the Podcast Saddle, Again (…Again)
“Live-Scoring for the Virtual Cinema” – in part one of this conversation, Ben Model discusses what it’s been like to accompany silent films throughout 2021 via live-streams he’s produced and presented out of his home. Ben and co-host Kerr Lockhart… Read More »ep. 40: Live-Scoring for the Virtual Cinema (part 1)
I’ve scored a few films over the past year-and-a-half for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Spirals”, a 2½ minute “art film” made for the Met in 1970 by Joyce Chopra, is the first one I’ve done for the museum that… Read More »Scoring “Spirals” for the Met
I hope this series of posts that I began in January 2021 has been useful, educational, thought-provoking or food for thought. In providing answers to questions about silent movies that I’m asking in interviews, I have tried over and over… Read More »Why We Like Silent Film
Like the other points I’ve made about the culture and styles of the era of the 1910s and 1920s being unessential for Silent Film, the same should be held for storylines and story tropes. As ubiquitous as many typical plots… Read More »Stories for Today, Just Like in the Silent Era
I’ve covered what I’ve observed in titles cards in silent movies from the ‘teens and ‘twenties in a handful of posts earlier on in this series. I’d like to go over a few points about intertitles again to clarify which… Read More »Intertitles for Modern (Contemporary) Times
Making a silent movie sounds like a fun idea, no? Lots of people with movie cameras — 16mm, 8mm, super 8, and probably also 9.5mm — have done it. Either as a novelty, or as die-hard fans in tribute to… Read More »So, You Want To Make a Silent Movie…