Tag: undercranking

  • Faster Than the Speed of Sound

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    Ben Model
    in

    An Important Figure in Talkies Leaves Us an Intriguing Clue About Projection Speeds in the Silent Film Era As much as one may look at silent film the 1920s and feel like they are being run too fast, it’s important to be aware of what was actually happening in theaters at the time. The running…

  • Undercranking’s “smoking gun” courtesy of Milton Sills

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    Ben Model

    I knew it.  I just knew it. I’ve been looking for years for written evidence that silent film actors had to adjust the way they moved to compensate for the speed-up of silent film. It has always appeared to have been the case to me when I’ve slowed down silent film segments to the speed…

  • new Chaplin clip deconstructed – “The Immigrant”

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    Ben Model

    I sit about ten feet from the screen when I play for Chaplin’s “The Immigrant” at the Museum of the Moving Image at their education programs. Watching this film in a sharp 35mm print several times every year, I’d started thinking about the shot of the rocking boat in the film’s opening. Not the one…

  • Mar 6: The Freshman at MoMA

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    Ben Model

    Mar 6: played for Lloyd’s The Freshman at MoMA. Had a pretty full house and the film went over really well. This is the 3rd time I’ve gotten to play for it in the last several months. While it’s one if the iconic Lloyd films, I still like Kid Brother and a couple others a…

  • Chaplin undercranking study – boxing

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    Ben Model

    Here’s a clip I just (finally) uploaded to YouTube. It’s one of the studies I did for my talk at the Clown Theater Festival last fall, Undercranking: The Magic Behind the Slapstick. There are a few others I need to record narration for, render and upload. Chaplin seems to be the master of this technique…

  • undercranking clip: Keaton

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    Ben Model

    Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I’ve been making a study of silent comedy filmmaking and how undercranking was utilized. I’ve discovered the comedians not only knew the film they shot would be shown faster, but they used this to their advantage, making many of their gags dependent on the increased speed…