Author: Ben Model
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Helping Make More Showings of the 1931 Dracula Happen
There’s another by-product of my doing a live score for the 1931 Dracula, one that I think is a little more important than the issue of whether or not the music should be added or whether it works. It ties in with one of my main interests in silent film. When my daughter was younger,…
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Dracula (1931) – a Horror Movie Without Horror Movie Music
It may be sacrilege to add music to the 1931 Dracula, and it might also be a great idea. It wasn’t until ten or fifteen minutes into a sound-check/run-through last year that I realized…hey, this is gonna work. The two shows I did last year at both the Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater and…
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My New Vlog – And Theda Bara
I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I’ve started a vlog. I may not have the patience or stamina to stick with it, and I value blogging. Making myself write on a regular basis has helped me a lot. But I wanted to see if doing something similar on YouTube might be…
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Scoring a Chaplin Mutual –What’s in a Name?
In revisiting one of Chaplin’s best comedy shorts, one of my and many others’ favorites, I noticed something slightly unusual about its title. I wrote my first orchestral score for a silent film – this one – about twenty years ago, and it was time it got a gut-renovation. But, where to start? I knew…
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A 1950s Baby Grand for 1910s-1920s Films
“It was Blanchette Rockefeller’s piano,” I was told when I was introduced to the instrument in 2003. This was at the Gramercy Theatre on West 23rd Street, and when I arrived was greeted in the auditorium by Ethel Shein. And by the Steinway baby grand. This was during the last round of renovations for the…
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MoMA’s Arthur Kleiner – Moods on Vinyl
When I was in college, I played for a silent film course taught by MoMA’s Charles Silver. Charles loaned me a few LPs to listen to, since I was new to this. One of the records was Musical Moods from the Silent Films, by Arthur Kleiner. When I gave the album a spin, I realized…