Episode 63 Show Notes: Scoring Decisions and Transitions
Ben continues exploring the various techniques and shadings of the matter of scoring the action going on inside a character’s head in silent film.
Ben discusses his busy schedule this spring, which kept him away from some of the long-term schedules (Accidentally Preserved Volume 5, Episode 100 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party, etc.)
Shoes (1916) directed by Lois Weber at a Cinema Studies class at NYU. Ben talks about his history with the pianos in the Film Dept at NYU. Ben discusses the way film creates inferences, and scenes about decisions without titles to explain.
Live-performance excerpt: Shoes (1916), presented during Prof. Antonia Lant’s silent film course at NYU.
Ben mentions a moment in The Gaucho (1927) with Douglas Fairbanks, as well as moments in Harold Lloyd films which involve thinking and deciding. Kerr talks about using film to teach students to learn to read inference, and, as Ben says, applying our own human experience to cinematic storytelling to fill in what’s deliberately left out by the filmmakers. Ben offers to assist in providing livestream accompaniment of a silent film for any university film course that would find such accompaniment helpful.
Out of the Inkwell with Koko the Clown (note: the linked video is NOT restored) at the Museum of Modern Art (Second show) as part of the Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored project. Ben discusses creating themes beginning on sequential tones of the scale, using that as a mnemonic. Ben tells about referring to his notes on the films on his iPad when the running order changes. He points out the variety among the films, despite the formulaic premise.
Live-performance excerpt: restored Koko the Clown cartoon, shown at MoMA in March 2024.
Sangue Blue (Blue Blood, 1914) at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Merimo and the Department of Italian Studies of NYU as part of Drama Queens: When Melodrama Meets Film, presented by Angela Dalle Vacche, author of Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema. (Curated by Mila Tenaglia in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna. Preserved by Eyemuseum.) Ben reflects on the emerging grammar of film, including titles that summarize the scenes to follow, and flat cuts between sequences (rather than fade-outs or crossfades). An early example of a strong female protagonist with much agency. Ben learned information from Professor Dalle Vache’s introduction which influenced his score. Making music sound like it’s emerging from the film rather than being over it.
Live-performance excerpt: Sangue Bleu (1914), shown at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Merimo NYU
Upcoming projects/events likely to be discussed in future episode:
- The release of Accidentally Preserved Volume 5, films originally prepared and accompanied by Jon Mirsalis for Cineconline, which includes three features, Lorraine of the Lions (1925) with Patsy Ruth Miller as a female Tarzan, Hoofbeats of Vengeance (1928) starring Rex the Wild Horse, The Fourth Commandment (1927) starring Belle Bennett, and Love At First Flight (1928) a Sennett two-reeler starring Lige Conley,
- What Happened to Jones? (1926) at the Silent Clowns Film Series in NYC
- Accompanying Paths to Paradise (1925) with Raymond Griffith and Dad’s Choice (1928) with Edward Everett Horton at the 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, introduced by Leonard Maltin together with Ben.
- Ozu’s A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) at MoMA
- Clara Bow in Get Your Man (1927) at the Cinema Arts Centre