The week or so before Halloween was busier than usual for me. Five shows, two of which were out of town overnighters, left me a little winded but with a greater appreciation of Lon Chaney’s talents. Three of the shows I played were Phantom of the Opera (Oneonta, NY), The Unknown (Huntington NY) and Hunchback of Notre Dame (NYC), and two of those were on organ.
Am now staring into the rest of the year, and mainly at an orchestral score commission from the Boise Philharmonic for a Nell Shipman film called The Light on Lookout. Their youth ensemble, the Treasure Valley Youth Symphony, will perform this as well as my score for Keaton’s One Week (composed in 2004) at their annual fundraiser in Feb 2008. I will be there for the event this year, and will accompany Arbuckle’s Love (1918) on the theatre organ at the Boise Egyptian Theatre.
Today, began plowing thru the 1927 Wings, which I’m accompanying on Sunday at the Silent Clowns series, making story notes and noting visual cues so I can anticipate story points. Am using a video with a score by Gaylord Carter on it. Was listening to it, but need to mute it as after the first 20-30 minutes it gets a little repetitive in theme use and noisy in the amount of sound, not as subtle as Lee Erwin’s style (although a lot of people find Lee’s playing a little uninteresting). It’s good to listen to Carter’s playing, for style and theatre organ registrations. I’ll be scoring the film on Sunday with the Miditzer virtual theatre organ.
Got a couple calls about shows for 2008 here in the city (not at MoMA, but somewhere else cool), and have already booked at show of Peter Pan (1925) for January at the Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY.
Cancelled my MySpace page a month or so ago. Found the site annoyingly cluttered and spam-ridden. Have got a page on Facebook, but don’t pay loads of attention to it. There’s an interesting group on it called “Death To Talkies” with a few hundred members, started by a student who’s trying to get Edna Purviance a star on the walk of fame. It’s nice to see so many people under 25 so interested in silent film.
Still percolating my notion of a website to sell downloadable scores for silent films that synch with DVD’s people already own, as alternate tracks. Just need the time to record some, and to set up the site.
Next up for recording is a score for William S. Hart’s Sand, for Unknown Video. Have you bought your copy of What Happened to Rosa with Mabel Normand from them yet? It’s a new release and has a theatre organ score by me on it.
Stay tuned, and see you at the silents!
Ben
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