Ben Model’s blog

  • Chapter 3, “The Fact in the Fantasy”, reminds us that Silent Film – although silent, monochromatic and slightly faster – is still a capturing of reality on celluloid. Regardless of the aspects of the medium that are either what make it a unique expression or are seen as handicaps, it’s…

  • A friend of mine once enlikened watching a silent film, especially in a theater, to being in a sort of trance state. An apt distillation of what Walter Kerr discusses in chapter two of The Silent Clowns’ Part One, “The Unique Experience”. The experience he writes of is a mix…

  • Walter Kerr opens his book The Silent Clowns with five chapters on the core aesthetics of Silent Film itself. Perhaps not an obvious choice for a tome on comedy films from the ‘teens and ‘twenties, but I believe that understanding these basic concepts is important — essential, even — to…

  • We’ve all heard of or referred to Silent Film as a universal language. It’s not just because the films are wordless, although that certainly levels the playing field. But it’s true. But it’s because of that same leaving-out that is at the core of the medium’s communication and storytelling. There…

  • We use our imagination to fill in the elements left out, with Silent Film. As obvious as this may be to adults who’ve seen silent film, it’s ironic that there’s an assumption that kids won’t go for silents. Ironic, because children are in way better touch and access of their…

  • People who haven’t seen Silent Film — or experienced it — are always surprised to know there’s an interest in it. When I tell people kids eat it up when I show Keaton in schools they are amazed. They shouldn’t be. But it’s because they’re thinking of the wrong side…

  • I wasn’t sure when I first heard about Patreon, but a recent NPR piece about it that interviews its founders Jack Conte and Sam Yam mentions their launch year of 2013. So, this was during the time in the early 2010s that I’d been researching what people in the music…

  • Over the last several months of doing live-accompanied live-streams of silent films, I’ve noticed the validity of something I’d read that Charley Chase once said. That he’d learned from his years in vaudeville that every seven years you get a new audience. As much as Steve Massa and I have…

  • “Adventures In Sound!” – Ben tracks his own journey to find the digital devices that best re-create or at least evoke the classic theater pipe organ experience under modern screening conditions. Topics Ben discusses the “temporary” theme for the podcast, “Those Keystone Comedy Cops” Ben’s instrumental evolution  Learning to play…

  • I often bring rugelach from Zabars as a professional gift. People really like it, and Zabars is 8 blocks away from our building. When I tossed bags of the stuff to Frank Santopadre and Gilbert Gottfried while unpacking my keyboard gear, Gilbert exclaimed “Ooh! You’re our new favorite guest!” Which…