Ben Model’s blog
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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…
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When a Whistle Isn’t a Whistle
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…
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Revisiting What Goes Last on a Laurel & Hardy Silents Show
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.…
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Because Not Everything Will Stream
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…
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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. …
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…