Ben Model’s blog
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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 years ago. There aren’t a lot of good versions of…
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I Threw Spaghetti at the Wall – and it Stuck
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 show I broadcast live from my living room. This was…
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Doing a Silent Film Show While Working From Home
I’ve had the idea for this for a few years, as well as the tech for it, but was always reticent to give it a try. And for good reason. Streaming a live-accompanied silent film program defeats one of the core elements of silent cinema — the live theatrical experience.…
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Broadcasting to an Audience of One
With the absence of a live studio audience currently being enforced, hosts of entertainment programs on TV are faced with a challenge. But, ultimately, doing so will enable them to better participate in what Ernie Kovacs referred to on one of his shows as “an intimate vacuum”. It’s gotten to…
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Buster Keaton Washes Up in The General
I received notice Tuesday from the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts that that Silent Clowns Film Series screening of Keaton’s Our Hospitality on Sat March 14 was going to be cancelled. So were all public events at all branches of the NYPL I needed an image from a silent…
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Let’s Hear It For Alice Howell
Mabel Normand had a head start. I’ll give you that. Her association with Mack Sennett and with Roscoe Arbuckle has put her name in the consciousness of those with only a passing awareness of silent film. The Jerry Herman musical “Mack and Mabel” didn’t hurt either. Alice Howell, on the…
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Charley Chase Takes a Trip
The rehearsals and performance of my orchestral score for the Charley Chase short “Dog Shy” in February were probably the first time I’d watched the film several times in a while. My participation in the NYC Physical Comedy Lab in the time that has passed since the score premiered three…
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Remembering Diana Serra Cary
I never got to meet Diana Serra Cary, but I did have a couple of phone conversations with her. This was while I was producing the DVD release of one of her feature films, The Family Secret (1925). She passed away this past Monday, February 24, and I wanted to…
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“Rediscovering Roscoe”: Arbuckle Made More Films Than You Think
We classic film fans typically own several “The Films of…” books that cover the careers of important stars or directors. Unavailable for our shelves has been a “films of” entry for one of the main comedians of the silent era who, like Chaplin and Keaton, was both star and director.…
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Chasing Charlie in The Adventurer
I’ve heard the term “baby pictures” used when referring to a composer or other artist’s early work. They were made at a certain point in the artistic arc of a particular creative person, someone whose work has developed and matured and improved. Those early works don’t get revisited and revised.…