Ben Model’s blog

  • Last Friday I recorded a piano score for the 1910 1-reeler White Fawn’s Devotion which will be an extra on Milestone’s upcoming DVD of The Exiles. White Fawn was recently added to the National Film Registry, and this scoring opportunity gave me the chance to see the film. I missed…

  • Okay, this is a photo of the beautiful 200-seat auditorium at the Hewlett-Woodmere library before everybody showed up for today’s show of Safety Last. If I’d remembered to charge my camera battery there’d be a photo or two of me and Philip Harwood to post here as well. Piano was…

  • Here are some photos taken on Tuesday at Radio City Music Hall. I was there as part of an invited walk-through of RCMH held by SVA’s creative and tech teams for their annual graduation exercises. Last year I played piano for their graduation, improvising 15-or-so pieces of music while graduates…

  • Spent a piece of yesterday screening The Whirl of Life (1915) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910) at the NYPL for the Performing Arts. The legendary Donnell Media Center and its film and video collection as well as its staff (as of now sans Joe Yransky, who retired in…

  • Hey, isn’t that Al St. John next to the bone-head commander who thinks the Rock River bridge is strong enough to hold his train? Bruce and Steve were talking about this after the show, pretty certain it’s Al, and so I grabbed this frame from the DVD. Al’s not in…

  • I saw an article online this morning announcing the layoffs of eight staff members at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Sayre Maxfield, who programs the “Golden Silents” series at FilmLinc, is one of the staffers being let go, as is Will McCord who runs the “Young Friends of Film”…

  • Here’s a clip I just (finally) uploaded to YouTube. It’s one of the studies I did for my talk at the Clown Theater Festival last fall, Undercranking: The Magic Behind the Slapstick. There are a few others I need to record narration for, render and upload. Chaplin seems to be…

  • Just got these photos in from my friend, photographer Steve Friedman, who is also a major silent film fan and Buster Keaton maven. These were taken in the lobby near Titus 1, and the posters you see in the background are from the Batiste Madalena poster exhibit. photos by Steve…

  • Silent film accompanist and accomplished jazz pianist David Arner was at last Friday’s (Feb 6) showing of The Kid Brother. He came over and said ‘hi’ after the show and we chatted for a while. I couldn’t place where I’d known his name till he mentioned that he played for…

  • The Silent Clowns Film Series now has a presence on FaceBook and on MySpace! If you spend online time at either of these sites, join the FB group or become a MySpace friend. Click on the images below to go to the Silent Clowns pages on those sites.