Category: Uncategorized

  • A (Wednes)day in the Life, in 60 Seconds

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    Ben Model
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    I’m posting this in May 2024, and I realize that it’s entirely possible that if you’ve found this post later in the year or some time in 2025, most of the embedded videos may be blank. For now, a brief story about how some TikTok videos I made after teaching class sessions led to my…

  • Kickstarting and Pre-ordering

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    Ben Model
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    I’ve heard Kickstarting a home-video project referred to as, essentially, pre-ordering the Blu-ray or DVD. It is, and it isn’t. For the fan or consumer, in the sense of the definition of “pre-ordering”, backing a Kickstarted Blu/DVD project certainly looks like that’s what you’re doing. You’re sending in money for the product in advance of…

  • Ernie Kovacs’ Enduring Theme Song

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    Ben Model
    in ,

    Although there have been several comedians from TV and radio who were associated with a particular song or theme song, Ernie Kovacs’ association with his theme runs through his entire television career as well as for every series he had. More than playing “Thanks for the Memories” when Bob Hope strode out onto a stage…

  • Scoring “Spirals” for the Met

    Scoring “Spirals” for the Met

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    Ben Model
    in

    I’ve scored a few films over the past year-and-a-half for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Spirals”, a 2½ minute “art film” made for the Met in 1970 by Joyce Chopra, is the first one I’ve done for the museum that was not a silent movie, per se. But I drew on my accompaniments to other…

  • “The Story of the Star Spangled Banner” (1921)

    “The Story of the Star Spangled Banner” (1921)

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    Ben Model
    in

    I’m trotting out this rare silent short for the holiday weekend. It’s “The Story of the Star Spangled Banner” (1921). Best I have been able to figure out is that it was released by Pathé Exchange and was made available for the non-theatrical and education markets in 16mm not long thereafter. You may have better…

  • (My) Best Laid Plans…

    (My) Best Laid Plans…

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    Ben Model
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    I started blogging as daily as possible back in late January, getting my ideas about the Language of Silent Film and my impressions and understandings of it “on paper” and out of my head. My plan was to try to write these pieces in a deliberate order. Which worked fine for a couple months. I…

  • Hey…Your Eyes Are Up Here

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    Ben Model
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    There’s a reason a lot of home movies or home videos are hard to watch and that so many photos look like “snapshots”. Most of the time the person taking these isn’t thinking of how this will look to whoever is looking at it. They’re thinking of what’s in the shot. So many videos look…

  • The Blue Dot After a Flash Photo

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    Ben Model
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    I’ve become interested in the idea of conflated memory. It’s taken me down an interesting rabbit hole with my silent film and Ernie Kovacs research. And now, it appears, it seems to have become part of the social media experience. Some of the stereotypes people know and believe about silent film involve scenes where a…

  • Directed by Terry Jones

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    Ben Model
    in

    John Cleese said a lot of things during three days I spent in Dallas in the first week of December, during various events large and small with him held by the Dallas Videofest. A sidebar to an answer to a question he’d been asked, referencing Terry Jones’ directorial style, stuck with me. Specifically, it was…

  • Pie-Eyed – In Search Of The Pie Fight’s Origins

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    Ben Model
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    Several of us classic comedy film fans have been trying to dispel the myth of pie fights and custard pie-throwing in silent movies. I’ve been pondering the myth’s origins for a while and have a theory. No factual or documentary evidence, but it the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit. In case you haven’t…