Author: Ben Model

  • Author! Author!

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    Ben Model
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    I think it might be useful that DVD authoring be taught in film schools and film preservation programs. Not to everybody, and not as a requirement. But it would be a useful elective to offer, or as a sub-section of another course. Because until the streaming world offers a distribution medium as accessible to independents…

  • Thanks for Reading My Blog in 2019

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    Ben Model
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    The year is winding down and I wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading my blog during the past several months. I’ve gotten a lot out of blogging, and found that what I’d heard about blogging from two podcasts I listen to is true. Most importantly, for me anyway, it’s helped me…

  • There Ain’t No “Santa Claus” Silent Film

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    Ben Model
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    If a venue and I are looking at a December date, I get asked the same thing other film accompanists get asked. Is there a good Christmas silent movie we can show? It’s easy to program to the calendar with films from the 1940s onward. There are a couple perennial Xmas favorites, thanks to Laurel…

  • Four Seconds

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    Ben Model
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    The pause between songs on a record album or CD is usually four or five seconds. I don’t know how this was determined back in the early days of long playing records, but it is just enough time to mentally take a deep breath before the next track begins. I’ve found the same is true…

  • “Little Old New York” Released on DVD

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    Ben Model
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    Marion Davies’ 1923 Historical Rom-Com-Drama is Now Avaiable in a New DVD When Marion Davies’ own collection of nitrate 35mm prints of her films came to the Library of Congress in the 1950s, she couldn’t possibly have predicted that her silent films would ever be available again to the general public. The motion picture elements…

  • Arthur Kleiner – Mid-Century Silent Film Pianist

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    Ben Model
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    On Wednesday, Nov 20 at 7pm, there will be a presentation at MoMA about Arthur Kleiner, silent film accompanist. It’s a name classic film fans aren’t familiar with, but he was “the sound of the silents” at the museum for the first three decades of its movie showings. In 1939, four years after the founding…

  • Bob Hoskins and “Musty Suffer”

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    Ben Model
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    I first saw one of the “Mishaps of Musty Suffer” at the annual, now-defunct Slapsticon festival. I assumed it was another obscure comedy shorts series no one knew about. I found out later that some of these had aired on PBS in the early 1980s. Really? Out of all the public domain silent comedy one-reelers…

  • When a Whistle Isn’t a Whistle

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    Ben Model
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    I make mistakes during shows, and usually I’m the only one who notices. As an artist, often that’s all I come away with from a performance. On Tuesday I used the “toy counter” on the virtual Wurlitzer I often accompany silents with in a few spots, and one use undercut one of the gags, I’m…

  • Revisiting What Goes Last on a Laurel & Hardy Silents Show

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    Ben Model
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    Running a group of shorts in chronological order at a show isn’t always ideal. For a film class where you’re looking to present a segment of a body of one comedian’s work in the order in which is made, then perhaps yes. For a show, though, you want a progression. You can almost follow the…

  • Because Not Everything Will Stream

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    Ben Model
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    With a number of new major streaming services launching or about to launch, on top of the established Amazon and Netflix platforms already in people’s homes (and on their phones), as a niche-market distributor I can’t help thinking this is cable TV all over again. Except that with cable, VHS was always there as a…