Spent the afternoon yesterday recording a piano score for The Gusher (1913) for Kino. Am assuming the set this is for will come out later this year. An interesting and fun short, one of those Keystones where you really have to watch everybody to see what the story is, as much of the plot is contained in talking. Used the music to help follow this and to point the audience in the right direction. (Click here for another post on this topic, discussing scoring an Edwin S. Porter western.) I finally got Ford Sterling’s persona last summer at Slapsticon: he’s sort of a comedy or satiric version of the villain of melodrama…except that he’s usually the “good guy” in the films he’s in. Mabel has little to do in this short; I spotted Charles Inslee as the bad guy, plus Polly Moran, Hank Mann, and Mack Swain in the background. Lots of great locations, out in oil fields (Edendale? L.A.?) too.
Here’s a trailer for the Houdini set:
Homework: review Langdon shorts, Wings, and Ben Hur for next week’s shows. The Immigrant at AMMI will take care of itself (playing once on 2/28 and twice on 2/29).
Oh yeah, and…here are photos taken by Melissa Harris, Boise State Univ. Photographic Services, of me showing how the theatre organ works to attendees of the reception for the launch of the Nell Shipman Scholarship Fund at the Egyptian Theatre in Boise.
Will report again next week if/when I come up for air…
See you at the silents!