Ben Model’s blog

  • In the last week I’ve played three Immigrant shows for school groups at AMMI out in Astoria. Shows went well, and I got a refresher in how to play for this film at 21fps; hadn’t played for it there in a while, as I usually request it at 24fps. It…

  • Played for The Beggar Maid (1921, dir. H. Blache) this afternoon at the Met. The film preceded a lecture on Tiffany and the Tiffany estate, and the house was packed with museum-goers (plus a bunch of people I recognized from my e-list). The film was shown in a 16mm from…

  • Pleasantville NY, Feb 19 (Mon) — Played for Victor Sjöstrom’s Korkarlen (Thy Soul Shal Bear Witness, or The Phantom Carriage) this afternoon in Pleasantville, NY. The Jacob Burns Film Center is running the 50 years of Janus Films series that is touring the country, and this is the only silent…

  • [FYI…I have now fixed the setting on this blog that allows you to post comments so that it works now.] Played for DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1914) twice last week, and brought my MD recorder to the second show to make a reference recording. We ran the film at 20fps…

  • Presented a program of comedy shorts at MoMA Sat Feb 3 that featured slapstick teams. We showed Fatty and Mabel Adrift, Big Business and Idle Roomers (Three Stooges, dir. Del Lord). This was #2 of the 3 “Watch This! Films for Tweens” programs I programmed and introduced, working with MoMA’s…

  • I attended a theatre organ concert at Radio City Music Hall last Tuesday. This was the third time that NYTOS (the New York Theatre Organ Society) had held this annual event. I had gone the first year, then missed it in ’06 because I had a show, and was really…

  • Today’s show wraps up a rather busy December; 10 shows plus some scoring for DVDs. Two rather successful school shows of The Crowd at AMMI, a vaudeville show in Manahawkin NJ, and the Silent Clowns “Buster’s Stunning Stunts” shows are among the highlights. Played for Peter Pan (1924) at the…

  • November 17 – Wesleyan University, Middletown CT — Performed my score for Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. at the dedication/naming of the Goldsmith Family Cinema. The cinema is part of the university’s new film building, and I’d played for Safety Last there in January. I’d been invited to perform for the evening…

  • Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. Am on a busy schedule, averaging 4 or 5 shows a week, plus the usual ‘being-my-own-agent’ workload. Here’s what’s been goin’ on since 10/24… Sat Oct 28, NYC – Bruce Lawton and I did a program of “spooky silents” for the Turtle Bay…

  • While taking my daughter to school this morning, a boy who looked like he was around 11 (and who attends her school) came up to us. He asked me, “Are you the guy who showed a Buster Keaton movie at school last year?” I said I was (I had showed…