Ben Model’s blog

  • From today’s Newsday: Silent films amass a quiet following January 3, 2012 by JIM MERRITT. Special to Newsday Tonight’s Keaton film is getting a warm reception from about 60 people sitting in a screening room at the Cinema Arts Centre. But, it’s not Michael Keaton or even Diane Keaton scoring…

  • I’ve long been a fan of Ben Ohmart’s “BearManor Media” book publishing outfit, and when I heard about what he had up his sleeve for the imprint about a year ago, I was re-impressed.  After self-publishing a book on The Great Gildersleeve in 2001 he established BearManor, doing for other…

  • Newsday sent a videographer, as well as a reporter and a (still) photographer to last night’s show.  The video piece is up on the Newsday website, and I’m posting/embedding it here.  We show silent film once a month, always on 35mm and always with theatre organ accompaniment.  In 2011 we…

  • I was interviewed by the one and only Joe Franklin for his radio show a week or two ago, and the segment aired today on his weekly segment on “Bloomberg on the Weekend” on WBBR-AM and on Sirius XM radio. Listen to my appearance on the radio with Joe here:http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf

  • (scroll down for photos…) Sharing accompaniment duties with Phil Carli at the Fall Cinesation every year is one way I stay fresh as an accompanist. Listening to someone else’s playing – especially someone whose style and philosophy mirrors mine – helps me push the boundaries of my own scoring vocabulary.…

  • I spent a great week in Tromsø, Norway (it’s above the arctic circle, cartographers) last week. I shot video and, while I’m waiting for it to get developed, here’s a radio segment on the “Stumfilmdager” festival (“Silent Film Days”) recorded at one of the senior centers I presented a program…

  • One of the perks of accompanying silent films is the opportunity afforded to discover directors whose work you have heard of or seen a little of…by playing for a retrospective series of their films. In May 2009 I accompanied several silents in a retro at MoMA of French director Julien…

  • In honor of Harold Lloyd’s birthday, I’ve uploaded a fun, rarely seen early “glasses” one-reeler with Harold to my YouTube channel. I scored this in 2008 for the American Slapstick 2 DVD set from AllDay Entertainment. The set is still in print and you can order the whole 3-disc set…

  • I sit about ten feet from the screen when I play for Chaplin’s “The Immigrant” at the Museum of the Moving Image at their education programs. Watching this film in a sharp 35mm print several times every year, I’d started thinking about the shot of the rocking boat in the…

  • Here’s my latest video blog. Take a ride to and from the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria with me on the N and the R as I head out to play for a school group screening of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Immigrant”.