Tag: miditzer
-
The Sounds of the Silents — Theatre Organ Accompaniment in NYC, part 3
When I meet people from other parts of the country and tell them I’m a silent film accompanist , they are often surprised when I tell them there are (currently) no theater organs in Manhattan. There are instruments around the west coast, several areas in the Midwest and the southeast US that get used for…
-
Bringing the Movie Palace Sound To A Theater Near You
Some shows I do are B.Y.O.O. — Bring Your Own Organ. Perhaps I should say “bring my own organ”, as it’s usually my idea to bring a portable Wurlitzer to your theater. Who thinks of that? Usually, the request is “can you bring a keyboard?”. But thanks to virtual instrument software and some basic MIDI…
-
Hooray for Hollywood and the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival
Three Songs You Won’t Hear During My Accompaniment to “Show People” — and Why One of the bugaboos in film accompaniment that my mentor Lee Erwin (1908-2000) had, and one I share, is the use of “song title puns”. In fact, anything that make an audience member’s brain say “Hey! She’s/he’s playing ______!” instead of…
-
Newsday: “Silent Films Amass a Quiet Following”
—
by
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 big laughs in “Seven Chances,”…
-
3 weeks of daily silent film screenings at MoMA in June
—
by
I will be rawther busy in June. Here is the schedule for the repeat-showings of nearly all the silent film programs in Charles Silver’s Auteurist History of Film series. It’s going to be a blast revisiting all these, and in three weeks of daily screenings of silent film. This go-round, the shows will be held…
-
Auteurist series at MoMA moves in the 1920s
—
by
Well, we’re out of the woods, now (meaning films of the ‘teens), and the pictures just get better and better every week. The series screens on Wed/Thur/Fri at 1:30pm; the dates below reflect the fact that I only play on Weds and Thurs. In 2010 I will use the Miditzer for accompaniment more, as by…
-
Oct 27: “Nosferatu” in Huntington
—
by
We ran a really nice, tinted 35mm print of Nosferatu at the Cinema Arts Centre for this show, and it looked great at 21 fps. What was nice was that the projector technician who’d engineered our ability to have 21 fps as an alternate speed was in the audience to see his handiwork in action…
-
Oct 3 – shorts & Zorro in Sag Harbor
—
by
My third time performing at the Bay Street Theater found me with the Miditzer in tow. This was a request from Bay Street, and they covered a rental car for me to bring the instrument out (I don’t own a car, and the Hampton Jitney wouldn’t exactly work). The other thing new was that in…
-
April update
—
by
Today Steve Massa and I were at MoMA screening Thanhouser films with Charles Silver for a program we’re working on for October. The program will help the Thanhouser Film Corp. celebrate the company’s centenary; Ned Thanhouser will be doing a program with the LOC as well as at MoMA during the last weekend of October,…
-
John Gilbert in “The Cossacks”; audio from “Two Tars”
—
by
Today’s show at MoMA went well. Both prints were in 35mm. Two Tars looked okay…I’d be curious to A/B it against a good Blackhawk 16mm. The Cossacks looked fantastic, and while the audience really enjoyed it I found its 10 reels felt like 15. It’s a big Hollywood star vehicle for John Gilbert and Renee…