There are two things I often have to ask a theatre to adjust when I arrive at a new venue. One is that the piano be turned around so it’s not facing the audience, and the other is to turn… Read More »Live Accompaniment and Air Conditioning
There’s a reason a lot of home movies or home videos are hard to watch and that so many photos look like “snapshots”. Most of the time the person taking these isn’t thinking of how this will look to whoever… Read More »Hey…Your Eyes Are Up Here
Believe it or not, I have not been able to find answers to two basic questions about YouTube live-streaming. They’re issues I’ve been noticing for the last four weeks on the Silent Comedy Watch Party, and I can’t believe that… Read More »Over-scans and Purple-Green Bands
John Bunny enjoyed a popularity in his day that has evaporated with time. To some extent that process began right at the end of his screen career. The mid-‘teens saw the rise of slapstick in the manic Keystone comedies and… Read More »Revisiting the Films of John Bunny
Programming shorts to a theme is often useful if you need to draw a potential audience’s attention or if you have a hard time making choices from a long list. And sometimes it just happens without any planning at all.… Read More »Two Weddings and a Sandwich
“Can I tell you about today’s specials?” Okay, it’s been a couple weeks since someone’s asked you that question. But in the case of The Silent Comedy Watch Party, it applies. With people hosting movie-viewing watch parties on social media… Read More »Adding a Page to Watch Party Menu
Last week’s premiere episode of “The Silent Comedy Watch Party” was a success, so it seems I was right about going ahead with doing the stream. I was also wrong about something. Luckily that was easily correctable, and it was… Read More »Opening the Gates and Letting the Laughs Out
The premiere episode of “The Silent Comedy Watch Party” streamed live on Sunday March 22 at 3:30pm EDT (New York, east coast USA). Hosted by silent film accompanist Ben Model and film historian Steve Massa, the one-hour program will present… Read More »“The Silent Comedy Watch Party” – *premiere*
Turns out I have a few silent films on hard drives here that I’ve never published or released. While looking for, oh heck I don’t even remember what it was, I came across a William S. Hart western I’d scored… Read More »William S. Hart in “Three Word Brand”
A farmhouse in Ireland, a park bench in Manhattan, living rooms in Denmark and Australia and Texas and Nebraska and Kansas. These are some of the locations people watched the pilot of “The Silent Comedy Watch Party” yesterday afternoon, a… Read More »I Threw Spaghetti at the Wall – and it Stuck