Ben Model - Silent Film Composer

Ben Model is a musician, historian, publisher, teacher and presenter of silent film. He creates and performs live music on both piano and organ at MOMA and the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater. On this episode we uncover the tricks of undercranking, explore the delicate balance on playing for silent film, and how the pandemic shaped the online theatrical world. silentfilmmusic.com

---------------------------

Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, performing on both piano and theatre organ. Over the past 43 years, he has created and performed thousands of live scores for silent films at universities, museums, and historic theaters, and is one of the few exponents of this craft who is working at it full-time. Ben is a resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre, and he accompanies silents at classic film festivals around the USA and internationally. 

Ben’s Blu-ray label “Undercrank Productions” works with film archives and collectors to bring undiscovered gems of silent cinema to fans. Ben is a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, and is the archivist for the Ernie Kovacs Television Collection. His book “The Silent Film Universe” will be published in 2025. 

------------------------
Produced and Edited by Arts and Craft.
Theme Music: Sound Gallery by Dmitry Taras.

Transcript

all the things you think would make it hard to watch A Silent Film are exactly why it works and why you're so engaged but as an accompanist I feel my responsibility is to understand the world of the film sometimes understanding the the world and the Viewpoint of the director and get people drawn up into the screen and keep them there until the show is over 

he is one of the classic film world's leading silent film accompanists as well as a historian publisher and teacher he composes and performs live music on piano and organ everywhere from Moma to the library of congress's Packard campus theater Ben Model is our Not So Silent guest on today's episode 

my name is Nancy magarill, I'm a singer songwriter composer performer graphic and web designer and I'm Peter Michael Marino and I'm a writer producer Creator performer and educator we are new york-based artists you may or may not have heard of and we are here to introduce you to other artists you may or may not have heard of 

Ben Ben Ben Ben Model we met uh much later in in my in in my career than I had liked I wish that we had met earlier we met working on a parallel exit show called the final reel and that was a a live stage show that involved a human being from The Real World going into a silent movie and everything in in that part of the show which was the whole show was silent and you were tasked with creating a a score score uh and and one thing I noticed was like you know so this is brand this was brand new for me working with parallel exit was brand new for me working with you is brand new and what is parallel exit is that a theater company you can describe it Ben physical comedy but there's also elements of circus they do circus shows as well they're actually doing something called Sunset circus and they're also in Fizz fest with with a new show but they do all all sorts of things involving physical comedy and and circus and they've done fun they've done a number of theater pieces in in the 2010s that were unusual uh in terms of the structure and format there's a show I I did music for called everybody gets cake um which was in this little 12 by 12 theater it's like the smallest space at 59 he's 59th Street Peter did you see that show love That theater no but I'm very familiar with the history of that show yes you okay of course you are so the you know they they they're really um trying to find ways to bring physical comedy into 20th 21st Century Theater in in interesting ways and not just uh doing things like the the insert the blank fill in the blank goes wrong kind of a show yeah yeah although everything does go wrong in the show yeah yeah so in that show I was also I was doing all the music and I was performing it live but I was also kind of I in the in the music was a another character in in the show so this was the two cool things that I remember from that I mean I remember but two cool things I remember from that uh experience was there was some point in the rehearsal process which maybe was two weeks where I went oh each one of the characters has like their own Musical theme yeah there's like a thing happening here okay oh this B this B's cool and then the other thing was was that you would just talk to us about like silent movies and under cranking under cranking yeah and which is uh what under cranking is yeah well undercranking in a nutshell this is a practice done throughout the entire silent film era and no one ever really talked about it and they didn't talk about it in interviews later on but basically we all know that silent film looks like it's running it's film that's running faster but what no one has realized I mean I figured this out is that everybody making the films knew this they knew the films were going to be shown faster in theaters and so they moved a little slower and that's okay that's interesting two things about that one one is that it it allows you at least as a a comedian or stunt person uh the ability to create stunts and gags that aren't funny in real life but become funny when they're sped up uh you can you can also do things in that are uh safer when perform and then become something else the other part of it is that there's a movement style that they all they all used where you were not only moving a little bit slower not really slow motion but you were you were not only moving a little slower but you would put little pauses in in between bits of movements it's sort of like the analogy I came up with it's sort of like where in mime you have to put these little corners on your movement or or break things in into little pieces so that they read to an audience except you're doing it with the actual objects it's the same kind of a rhythm and so this was one of the things that uh happened this is so fascinating by the way so yeah well thank thank you uh this and something I I knew I mean I I'd been studying this I I it had caught my my uh my interest and I tried to figure out how it worked and I found a number of little smoking guns that where there were interviews that I found one from 194 or 15 and one from 1928 where there were actors at either end of the silent film era saying yeah this is exactly what we did and would they they'd have to really work hard and be trusting that that gag was going to work if they're having to do it that way I guess they probably worked enough new I mean it it it sort of kicked in in the in the early teens and once every we went figured it out it's it must have just spread cuz everybody hung out and talked with each other and I think that this kind of movement was something everyone was already used to from playing in giant giant theaters so you you know as a performer you Vaudeville people right right so your movements have to read at the back of a 2000 seed house cuz I I shot tests with some clown friends uh and one of the things we discovered was that we what we would do is we'd uh shoot it on video and then speed it up and watch it and then do it again and we'd see and there over the course of six seven or eight takes of the same piece of business there was a moment around the sixth 7th eth take where we would look at what we had shot sped up and it suddenly didn't instead of looking like video that had been sped up it looked like a silent film yeah and and uh my friend Jeff seal who I did some tests with he said it reminded him of the way he had to move uh when performing in a huge huge theater so I think every I think everybody had this in their in their muscle memory from touring and doing vaille 14 shows a week or if it was the circus and once everyone realized yes the camera is 12T away but we have to move like the camera is 12 you know 120 yards away yeah it it it was just oh oh that and then they just started doing it and what what is not clear and it was not a deliberate decision but there was a moment where the films were just shown faster and instead of trying to catch up by cranking the cameras faster because then you were using up more film it just sort of it just sort of stuck and there was there was cranking speed and then there was projection speed and so one of the things that that that happened in the rehearsal process with the final reel was there was a moment where everything had been blocked and everybody the actors were all talking talking okay oh yeah well you come over here I don't think this and blah blah blah go go and get me a whatever and then Mark uh Lan the director said okay because we're going to be performing a silent movie cuz the silent film was not video it was human beings on a stage he said said okay you have to stop saying things out loud and then we I think we did one run at at the scene and all of a sudden everyone realized I have no idea what anybody is doing or what they're saying and Mark turned to me he said well and I said there's this other another thing that I had noticed in silent movies is that in addition to all this adj adjustment to movements the way people would act in silent film is that they would use gesture not in a charades kind of a way but it it would sort of reinforce what they were saying so it's getting late I have to go now you might point at your watch while you're saying that once not in an obvious way but you tap it at one two three times and then with your thumb Point behind you I have to get going there's something out there and and once we implemented this to match all the things people were saying everyone else in the scene knew what what Peter was saying or Scott McCord or or or any of the other people in in the show but this is an observation I'd had and it's kind of like if you watch someone giving a speech and next to them is an ASL interpreter and they're not just gesturing and they're not just you know using ASL to use gesture to communicate words if you watch their face sometimes it's just they're just their very dead pan like like like when people on an airplane will perform the safety thing but the the ASL interpreters they're using their face they're using emotions it it it reinforces the things they're gesturing yeah to reinforce it so it's clearer so they don't have to use their fingers to spell out absolutely every word and so one of the byproducts of this once we adopted this is that friends of mine who came to the to see the show said that of all the things they'd ever seen that where they were trying to perform something that looked like a silent film the silent film sequences of the final real looked the most like an actual silent movie and on top of the fact that everything with the backgrounds were monochrome as was the costuming and everything and they had done projected titles that were in the the correct type face which I I I recommended a couple for that this is I mean if you if you want the silent film people to be impressed use that this sort of thing but we were sort of replicating what without needing to move slower to compensate for the speed up the same kind of performance technique that was happening in the 19s and 20s I'm thinking I uh I'm wondering about it's interesting that you mentioned about ASL cuz I'm wondering is like silent movies are silent movies like a thing for the hearing impaired Community is that even a thing I I don't know I know that there are fans uh of silent film who are deaf or heart of hearing I I have a home video label called under crank Productions over the last 12 years we've released 33 DVDs in blu rays of silent movies you never heard of but you should and uh one of the things we started doing instead because we can't do booklets is to do a video essay a 9 10 minute video essay about the movie director or star and I happen to know that one of our back our regular backers because most of my things are are funded by through by fans through Kickstarter uh somebody who I know is deaf and I thought I have to put captioning in and I asked him you know how to do this and I figured out a way to do it because there may be I don't know how many and and this is something when I I mean I mean I've been accompanying silent movies for over 40 years and you don't see a lot of people signing to each other after the show they may watch at home but I don't see a lot of this at shows per se but it is a form of of of film that you don't need to hear yeah you don't need to hear what's going on I mean it's if you ever watch silent film on like on TCM uh with the with the captioning on some I mean I think more recent releases sometimes you or you well maybe not with silent film but with with regular TV shows you'll see in Brackets jazzy music playing yeah of course Ben I also just have to jump on this uh undercranking thing maybe you already know about this but fun fact when they filmed the musical version of Little Shop of Horrors the plant is you know controlled by 10 puppeteers right like the lips can really make the shape of the word it's not just up and down like we get from those puppets and unfortunately and a lot of hydraulics are involved in that so unfortunately they couldn't get the plant to be you know in real time go if you want a rationale it is a very hard to see it's just too fast so they had to film it slow and the actors had to move slowly yes around it the exact it's the exact same princi and it's been it's continued to be used after sound came in for car chasing if you watch car chases and movies and oh my God that makes so much sense and if you don't if you take your eyes off of the the cars and look at the people in the background and you often you can see that people are walking around or moving a little too fast and you oh oh this is what's happening every once in a while you'll see a shot like I was watching the first Men In Black movie when they take off in in this car I like oh yeah they're undercranking like hell there you know just to because there's just no way to do this and it would be a cheap to do it with CGI so they film you you crank you shoot it at 20 frames per second and it comes up to 24 and it looks like you're moving a lot faster than you really are wow we're basically ruining films and TV for everyone yay no it's it's just a the illusion still works even you know even if you know slight of hand Works magic the you and the Illusions you see a magician do are still work because it again it's you know we're we're suggesting something to you that you are interpreting with your brain and we're tricking into thinking what you're seeing is actually happening so I'm a little confused because I want to know how with all of this amazing knowledge you have about all this and the work you clearly have done with clowning and all of this work yeah how did you get into composing for this that's kind of where I I mean I I I started with with that and the the stuff with performance and working with clowns came later because I I in really again during the 2010s I became very interested in how how these films were made uh from the perspective of the the actors and what was going on in their minds and their bodies uh to make these things instead of just looking at them from the outside which is the way most film historians will I've always been a huge fan of silent movies from the time from I was a toddler you know yeah how did that I I I are you a Tri-State person you're a New Yorker right so you I think grew up with wpx yeah which yeah so we to see silent stuff we got to see H roach stuff we got to see a lot of that yeah and the public television station which uh not every PBS affiliate ran this but in the 1970s there was this a show called The Silent ears U produced by Paul Kilim which had new Restorations at the time with beautiful new musical scores by a guy named William Perry who was M's film accompany so I I would see films that way as a kid as a kid yeah growing up and and I would you know you would save up paper route money and lawnmowing money and buy 8mm copies it was the only way to see things uh at the time I also oh like you had a you got a like you were like asked your parents for a projector yeah and showed movies in the basement yeah or I bought a projector and you know and and camera and film and all that so I was a super R filmmaker uh growing up a film collector to some degree I I grew up in Westchester County and in a town called Larchmont and when I was 12 uh I got as a pres was Bar mitz for a present a book called The Silent Clowns written by Walter Kerr who was the drama critic of the New York the New York Times uh and the heral Tribune prior to that I to read I devoured I devoured the book and Walter Kerr and his wife Jean um lived in that please don't eat the Daisy's house at the end of Beach Avenue uh right on the shore in Larchmont and my my mom remembered that they they lived in our town and my dad remembered hearing a reading somewhere that Walter K had a huge 16mm film collection and would show movies to you know their friends when they come over for dinner and I'm this 12-year-old kid and I wrote him a letter of course he did telling him I was very interested uh in seeing more silent film and of my in told him of my my deep interest in it and four days later he called and so well you know yes uh you can you know and so for the next 15 maybe or 20 years I would go to his house always on a Monday night because he wasn't at the theater right reviewing I was there on dark I'd come over and he'd say well what do you want to see so I I arrived at Film School having already seen all the Buster Keaton features Harry langon Harold Lloyd Charlie Chaplan a comedian named Raymond Griffith and Walter Kerr had these two projectors uh you know going back and forth he had a realtre tape recorder with musical scores that he'd Cobble together from uh records and he was sitting in the back of the room smoking cigars oh my goodness so I I mean cigar the smell of cigar smoke is a very visceral thing for me between that and the fact that both of my grandfathers were cigar smokers my father was a cigar smoker so it has that and so between that and all the great comedians like Ernie Kovac and and George uh you know George Burns and grro marks I mean you're Associated at any rate I went to film school as a Film Production major at NYU okay yeah production and they were showing you were playing m you were also like Lear piano right yeah I was also to have yeah so there were these these concurrent things running at the same time I was interested in silent film I was interested in making films and I also uh was taking piano lessons and I wasn't I wasn't Conservatory material or anything but I could play and I had a good teacher who made me play certain things but also allowed me to play other things I was interested in taught me a little basics of improvisation you know the the basic film history course at NYU for many years the first semester was silent film second semester sound up through around 1950 and this is again before video so we're watching 16 mm prints in dead silence and I don't know what possessed me because I was incredibly comfortable around people uh but I I got this idea of volunteering to accompany the silent films in this film history class my sophomore year and the head of the department loved the idea and I and I I started and the the the made the thing that made it easy sort of I with two things one is well everyone's watching the movie so they're not going to be paying attention to me as much but also I was helping these films which was the main thing did you already have a repertoire of the music from that not not really I mean I I had I knew knew some classical music I had played uh some rack time and I knew some basics of improvisation uh what I did is I tried to meet every person in New York City who was accompanying silent films wow and there were five or six people D I was going to say there were people doing that was there was more than one oh yeah well I think Donald S was playing Steve sterer uh a guy named steuart odman who since passed uh William Perry at the M Museum of Modern Art I got I met him and he answered some questions and I met guy at a place that doesn't exist an old uh a Repertory Cinema called The Carnegie Hall Cinema which is now zankel Hall but at the time it was an a Repertory house and had a worlder organ in it that was played by a man named Lee Irwin who was a movie organist from the 192s and he became a friend and a mentor to me and was a a staunch improviser brilliant musician and composer and so basically I was you know while I was in college trying to learn uh or develop my film making chops uh I was in what I call silent film accompaniment boot camp playing for two or three classes a week uh between the basic film history class and then there was a guy named William K everon uh bill everon is at the time very well-known uh historian someone who saved a lot of film wrote a lot of books and he would teach a class that would meet twice a week and so I was playing for two features a week for everson's classes plus this other thing and in between either of these things I'd go over Lee's house say listen I'm playing for this uh next week what do you think I was going to do this what do you think and he would share things with me I would ask him things and I just tried to absorb as much as I could so that's how I got started were you remembering the music are you playing by year or how are you yeah I was playing I mean I taught myself more you know improvisation I think I at the beginning I started off with I had more music in front of me um I I mean I continued to do that uh but but uh lee was very who's very helpful in terms of improvisation uh and and and uh how to underscore film and not just lining up a piece of music with something in a way that sort of mirrors the onc screen action oh yeah what is the key to underscoring a film like yeah well different kinds of films historically in the in the teens and 20s it was a lot more on the surface so you would have uh music that would just sort of mirror what was happening on

screen yeah or you would have what I call song title puns where you'd play a song whose title matched what was happening on screen and you see this carried on in the Warner Brothers cartoons well Carl stalling who scored all those SS had been a movie organist plus Warner Brothers loved you know plugging their own song catalog so when bug's bunny sits down with Daffy Duck and they start having lunch you hear on the soundtrack a cup of coffee a sandwich and you yeah or or oh you beautiful gal or a she sweet these are all Warner Brothers own own songs so it worked at the time but even though Lee had been playing in the 20s he had a much more contemporary Sensibility about film scoring being aware of today's audiences and so what I learned from him is the importance of uh disappearing and he always said the best thing you can hear from somebody after a show is I forgot you were playing and so from the music has to come from inside the film and so the idea is to support the emotion or the drama more than to mirror it and to What a fine line yeah it it is a fine line and it's not easy I'm still and I what was brilliant about Lee is that I would go to hear him play and I thought okay this time I'm going to really pay attention and I'm going to listen to what he does and four minutes in I was completely sucked into the movie and I forgot to pay attention and so I have recordings of his scores now that I listen to as as examples but the idea is that to to not let the audience know you're there to not let the audience know what you're doing to smack the keys when somebody falls down or or something like that unless it's part of the joke and I always feel like when the go off I'm working for Douglas Fairbanks or Lon Cheney or eisenstein these people work really hard I don't need to you know have have a light on me while I wave at the audience hey look what I'm going to do now what do you think the audience when they're coming to A Silent Film do you think that they want that true experience of what it was like when that film was created or that like does it even matter to them what kind of music like I'm curious I think if I were to go to a silent film I would want to have that experience of what it was like when silent films were created so you kind of like have to make a balance right yeah I and I think you know there there's a there's a range of expectations I I mean there are people who will say oh I don't like that boring classical music and they'll only go to see a silent film if there's a a band of some sort and and and I don't really have a a problem with that that kind of scoring I I I've I've seen punk bands do an excellent job scoring a silent film and I've seen quote unquote traditional pianists uh wreck a film so it goes I mean if you're really scoring the film and moving with it and and going on the emotional ride in the Arc of the the dramatic action if you're playing you know Jug Band with the washboard you can do a score that really helps the film I you have to know the film I would think it really you need to know it and uh and really get on go on be willing to go on the ride that's happening inside the film my own preference is to play music that sounds like it's from the era because anything that's outside of the era then that's one more thing that the audience has to line up yeah and it pushes them back a little bit um so are you talking about like when Queen did Metropolis um yeah that that that's an an example because that that's a score that exists outside of the film and there there are some uh performances like like this with with quote unquote modern scores where the The Ensemble is fully lit and the screen is upstage from them and you're you're not sure if you're watching a concert with a movie going on or vice versa it's interesting I'm thinking about that like you have so much responsibility I mean right you're like you're like restoring um gosh forgive me for not um remembering right now it's the exper it's it's the experience I mean silent film is an experience it's not just movies you watch and it's not just movies with no sound and that's the I have a book coming out in the spring uh called the silent film universe that is all about how this entrancement happens uh when you watch A Silent Film you that all the things you think would make it hard to watch A Silent Film are exactly why it it works and why you're so engaged but as a as an accompanist I feel my responsibility is to understand the world of the film uh sometimes understanding the the world and the Viewpoint of the director yes and get people drawn up into the screen and keep them there until the film until the show is over and so anything that I do that sticks out pulls people out yeah and so you you have to strike that balance but also like you're putting or again I can't think of the name of it it was um uh You released it on DVD around the time we did parallel exit so five years ago maybe and it was a female playing a female was a king or a there was a a female is this Beverly of grark with Mary and Davies oh that's it that's it that's it that's it her her cousin who is about to ascend the throne has a skiing accident and the Entourage who have come to escort him arrive the cousin is in another room Maran comes out with a ski hat on and it's covering her hair and also Maran does look a lot like the actor playing her cousin kraton hail they mistake her for her own cousin and off we go and it's a it's a it's a really wonderful film and uh uh so that there a Blu-ray out with my score on it that was a scan the the original nitrate print that belonged to Mary and Davies that's been preserved by the Library of Congress but you then are you're creating the score for this film that probably I think it was like a lot of people hadn't seen it right it was pretty pretty like regular people very rare you're putting your stamp on this thing and then this thing is being printed on diss yeah so you are the official soundtrack for that film right that's a huge responsibility on Blu-ray and when they they just showed it on on Turner Classic Movies for Mary to Mary and Davy's birthday oh wow last week so uh yeah although the the idea of doing something like this where we released something on Blu-ray uh is that to get it back into classic and silent film fans Consciousness so they can book it and do shows and let somebody else play for it but what I'm saying is like the director and the producer and the studio are no longer in existence right you are making these executive decisions about here's what her theme is here's what you know you're making these huge decisions with I'm assuming no one's really overseeing that I am I am huge responsibility how do you deal with I mean I know that you're very fastidious um do you like just really agonize over like notes and or at this point I I don't I mean trust your instincts your experience and the other I mean uh yeah one of the things really opened me up in terms of composing and improvising was I studied improv in the the late 80s with a group called The First Amendment they were creating a new offshoot uh group called The Comedy Elite which never materialized the whole operation folded before anything it happened but I learned improv having never performed or done anything like that I just dared myself to go on an audition I saw listed in backstage and I got in and I still think they were one of the best improv troops in the city and so and then in the '90s I also went through the Gotham City improv program but those those are things that have really uh opened me up in terms of my composing so you know I I a lot of sometimes it's something I'm not even it's a flow I'm not even aware is happening I'm looking up at the screen the images are coming into my head and my hands are on the keys the sound is coming out and then I'm hearing it and there's it Cycles around and around and around um so you're trusting your instincts let me ask you a question though when you're recording so there's one thing about when you're going and performing in in movie theaters and all in playing when you're recording for the DVDs and for these projects what's the different setup I imagine you're not in a big theater you're probably in a recording studio so how does that affect the experience for you while you're composing are you just are you recreating what you've been doing or are you also it's kind of a mix of all all the above so first of all for the most part there were no original scores for these films it was up to the local conductors and musicians to create their own scores if you were a soloist and this was a you know improvisation was a big part of the organ playing tradition you could do that so folks like Lee Irwin who I knew and and there were uh through the 1990s there were a number of older people who had been movie organists in in the 1920s like Bob vaugh and John muy and Gaylord Carter and rosar Rio and that was their practice they either had a repertoire or they would improvise but for Ensemble and there were a lot of anywhere from five or six pieces up to a full Symphony Orchestra you had a library of music production what we would call library music today and the local conductor compiled the score so there was no with the exception of some super Productions the idea that we know today of a piece of a score being locked to a film and how and the idea of well of course you're going to you're always going to hear that music didn't happened it was always different so so the difference for me the main difference is that it's because it's being recorded the stakes are much higher at a show I know well as soon as it's over everyone no one will remember any of it and that's fine right that's why I'm saying you have a huge responsibility press right the pressure is much higher and then of course then that makes you choke while you're playing and I more clam even more clams than I usually do I have to go back and punch in and re-record uh stuff like that uh but the the the process at this point has uh I have something set up in my in my uh in my living room when I when I do the recordings and I'm either using uh a digital keyboard with high-end Steinway concert D samples or I also use Virtual or theater organ software and this uh I use two keyboards and organ pedals it it it it's the same functionality of an organ console only it's something I can stick in pieces behind a file cabinet and under a bed and stuff like that or throw into the throw in in you know gig cases and take in in a rental card to a venue but the samples are of an actual wheter theater pipe organ what are the samples who are you using there's software called hedw workk ha PT w r k which hosts the samples and then you can load any kind of an organ you want there's there I use theater organ samples by a company called Paramount organ works and this is samples of an actual worlitzer which is one of the main Brands uh and then I have a video projector so I'm looking at a big 8ot image in my living room and not a television Monitor and that's something I started doing helps a lot it it did and I realized maybe 10 12 years ago that what was frustrating me when I was recording is I wasn't able to get into the film the same way and so I I got a a video projector and made a huge difference and I will record either in large swaths for maybe an entire 10 or 15 minute segment or I will more likely now I will stop and start uh for a scene because I know I can and then stop at a fade out and then pick it up uh later I mean that's how I did a Beverly of grar and when I did so this is Paris the erence luich film and uh something we released in this past October a film called the bat from 1926 I would do it in in scene by scene I can't even imag imagine how you manage all that cuz I know when I'm recording and you're you're dealing with the keys the computer how are you doing that with a projector as well um are you like jumping up and down like Octopus arms yeah well um that's a lot it keeps I keep I keep trying to improve on it and so yeah I have a Blu-ray player uh I was doing well at first I was using the dis and then I would use files uh and I have a remote next to me ah and I would hit play and then back up and there's time code on the screen so I can know know exactly where to start then I start playing and I'll I'll when I start feeling like oh this is not working I'll stop back it up and start all all over again and now I load the video file into U my I use Reaper as a recording program then you can have that so then it's all in one piece so I I started do all in front of you so you can trigger it all in front of you so I just I just hit you know command R off it goes and I and I have a punch in moment where okay and then I start here so I just just record I've recently recorded a handful of scores for newly restored um fler cartoons in the 1920s and I worked I worked it that way so I just have a brain for this sort of yeah you really do you have an amazing so to you Peter I mean I think that when when everything shut when everything shut down in the middle of March of 2020 both just in case anyone's forgotten yeah yeah nobody wants to remember but there are some of us who work like hell uh to create entertainment for other people and I think I think both I think Peter both you and I within the same week launched our respective live streams yes yeah yeah yeah because because you do what you do in the live at your live shows and I've seen your live shows at uh Lincoln Center and the center at West Park I just saw your M and Nas veratu which I just saw and you always open with like here's a little history about this movie you know like you you like tease us into it you know it's it's just and then and then the the show that you did during pandemic it was on Sundays is that right was it on it was every Sunday at 3:00 it was called the silent comedy watch party watch party yeah and and one of the things one of the things I learned is never name anything more than three words because people who are devout fans of the show still get the name of it wrong yeah I almost messed it up myself no no no don't feel B everybody get yeah it was actually reminiscent of those wpx shows where they would have like someone telling you a little bit about this Buster Keaton thing you just watched or you know this Laurel and Hardy silent coming up oh that was a great one that I saw that you did at the Lincoln Center was the uh the restored Laurel and Hardy side right yeah and so yeah the show the show was kind of modeled on these hosted shows and this is why uh it's so important I think even for TCM to have the the the the the recorded human beings taking you on on a trip thought and so the with the watch party myself and my friend Steve Massa who I would remote in from his he would talk about the film and but everything it was always live we left it up for folks who couldn't who had missed it or whatever and the scoring was also always on live and I had software called mimo live uh which is it's it's sort of like streamyard and OBS but it's a little bit more involved and it allowed it was sort of like having a television control room in my laptop right it also projected the films onto the wall over my piano and would automatically dissolve from One mic to another from the the laptop the iPhone camera we always had from day one I felt it was important to start with like a shot of me and then tilt up to the image of the film on the wall and then dissolve into it and then at the end of the film dissolve back and pan my wife who had never operated a tripod in her life who really just always credited her we always knew she was there yeah cuz she you wouldn't she wouldn't she wouldn't be on camera you should always chime in and speak and I always thought of uh on Mr Rogers uh when they would have a segment called picture picture and you would you'd be in his little living room set now let's go take a visit to some so here's where they make crayons and they'd pan up to this uh picture frame and the film would start to run and then they would zoom in and then dissolve into it and they would do the same thing coming back out yeah it feels very very authentic but it was sort of a oneman band kind of uh Tech because I was working with uh my wife and and and Steve and his wife none of none of them and they will tell you that they are not techsavvy at all and I was fing all of this at the same time but the the idea um is there's some of us who her brain whose brains are just wired like that and Peter I think that the the the the the two shows that two live stream shows that you did during the pandemic it was you know you were like okay I'm in my apartment we're all in our apartment I have streaming accounts and what can I create and how do I make this work and I I thought you did was brilliant I know if that if that [ __ ] happened today I don't know what I would do like I remembered how turning this very room I'm in right now into like lights hanging here and then using a soundboard and then downloading all these programs and all this stuff and like you know it's very nerve-wracking people are paying and they're coming from all over the world and you don't want to [ __ ] it up and right right because you're not only are you the writer and star of the show and the director but you're also the stage manager you're calling the show you're the techician and if it and if the if if something locks up you've got to solve it because people around the planet are watching and yeah uh it's and you don't know if if it's even working you know I remember there was one episode there was one showing of Planet of the grapes live a live show and and it was over and I I I recorded every single one of them which is probably why my computer died and I watched it and I like called my stage screen manager that's what they were called screen managers and I was like hey why did you not tell me my mic was off the whole time she's like it sounded fine and I was like no it didn't sound fine it sounded like I was in a room talking to a laptop it didn't sound like what we've been doing for the past 48 performances where there's a microphone clip to my [ __ ] body yeah right right and we had this this whole system where where so mana and Steve's wife Susan would were really co-piloting The Show by text while Steve and I were on and and would something on a blue 5 by8 blue card and say Steve's mic is off there's an echo tell tell Steve this or and so they were they were really they were they were just as involved with with the whole process uh and sometimes yeah we would we would lose the stream and then we would point at each other go get this wire in my other room while I we could bring I mean it was the great thing was everyone was very forgiving during that time oh my God and it was like oh it's just like early live television yeah right right and you know I think the beauty of it also is everyone was so happy to have entertainment people were so you know everybody was home people were so stressed out they just uh they just was just so happy to have it and that's what kept it kept uh us going not just for um them but also uh it kept us going people yeah absolutely all of us you know the worst thing I don't think you experienced is because you have a family uh but the show is over and you're all alone there's no you're not meeting at the bar you're not going to the lobby there's no hey there's none of that energy and it that was that it is it is it is still different because you're it took me a couple of years to realize what was kind of bugging me about doing these and why I was so stressful and I realized that there's no applause at the end of the performance that's it and not like uh it's some you know ego driven thing oh I need to have the Adoration but you're you're so used to the the interaction with other human beings and then as soon you know as soon as the the the was over vom it's like it's like literally a vacuum suddenly you're performing for a few hundred people around the planet and then and uh it you know it was it's energy like you feel the energy of the audience you feel the like at naratu you feel the energy by the way folks we're talking about the original naratu one that already has music in it um I have to ask it was yeah because you're because what was happening is you're performing in a vacuum yeah I read or heard the story that the first time Bob Hope ever went on the radio and he didn't have an audience there and they're he's doing his monologue and the the sound engine engineer would hear and finish a joke and they would hear clun clun and what was happening is that every every time there was supposed to be a laugh he would kick the microphone stand just because of that Rhythm wow because because you're performing I mean also I'm you know we're showing comedy films and also your your show Peter there's there's comedy to it you know you're killing but you're also it feels like you're bombing it feels like you're just bombing death and and that's why we would finish the show and you go on social media and You' inhale the comments that God exactly oh here's the audience that's when you learn about yourself as a performer am I doing it for me or am I doing it for the accolades for the love whatever it is yeah and this was like we were getting people I mean people come up to me at shows at and uh they have the shirt the shirt or the hat or the tote bag with our logo and they will tell me your show got me through the pandemic oh God that's so wonderful but how great that you got to be able to do that and to give that to people I actually had an injury just as I was about to settle in and go okay I'm going to start performing my shoulder to totally went out I couldn't play guitar I couldn't do anything I was so bummed because like of all times to like be able to just do concerts and things in your home I couldn't do any of it yeah is killing me so I so admire that you guys did that I'm envious yeah Ben yeah taking a big turn here we're going to be wrapping up shortly you're a visiting professor at Wesleyan University you teach course on silent Cinema yeah do kids these days care about silent films yeah um good my class is typically anywhere from 10 to 16 students uh this and and the thing is that in my class there's live I I accompany absolutely everything we see oh uh I tell my students if nothing else you've gotten to see 13 silent film shows with live music which I don't think you get anywhere else in any other film school but I have noticed the last couple of years the the students who were signing up for my class have been more and more enthusiastic and interested in the medium than ever before and I think some of that me I'm not really sure why I'm thrilled uh but there's definitely interest um what's nice about West is that they encourage uh students from different disciplines to take courses outside of their major or minor there are some universities where if you're a dance major that's it or if you're a a biom major that's all you do but I have students who are film students someone who's a psych major all that all that kind of stuff so there's there's a mix of people but there's definitely an interest in in silent film that I I see building uh a little bit so I've been teaching the class for is a course I I created a and I've been teaching for 10 years there now really really cool have you found any young Ben Modells no all right you got this I love it you got this there will never be another Ben Modell hey thanks for checking us out links to today's guest can be found in the show notes don't forget to subscribe like us rate US and tell all your friends about arts and craft