8mm Forum: New Musical Scores with Old Silents

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Posted by Ernie Zahn (Member # 274) on October 31, 2013, 02:45 PM:

Hey all. I have a 400ft Blackhawk digest of The Lost World and I was thinking it would be fun to sync it to the John Williams score from The Lost World Jurassic Park.

Has anyone tried this with silent movie digests or feature films before? Not specifically the aforementioned one. Did you edit the music to fit the action better?

Would love to hear thoughts!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 31, 2013, 09:13 PM:

I have a lot of silent films, and I was trying to find a way to make them work nicely in mixed shows with sound ones. I tried showing them with CDs playing, but the effect was the music changed the mood on screen, and if I didn't choose the same music each time it was like watching a different movie. Even between different passages in the same music it was enough to influence how I felt about what was happening on screen.

-I'm not saying this can't work very well, it's just with the random music it just got weird! I have a couple of my own silents that I've had striped and I've put music tracks on them. Same music every time: same mood. In these cases the films were actually made with the music in mind from the very start so it works fine.

The best solution I found to the original problem was to let silent films stay that way, and project them separately from the talkies.

Posted by David Singer (Member # 3953) on November 01, 2013, 06:13 AM:

Steve I see you that you have striped some of your silent film and added music (I assume this is 8mm), can you describe the process for me?

Thank you.

Posted by Ernie Zahn (Member # 274) on November 01, 2013, 08:47 AM:

Hi Steve, yeah I want to avoid placing in music without taking it correctly. I wanted to see if anyone has edited newer scores and mixed multiple scores to better fit the film.

I might try a rough telecine and give it a whack myself.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on November 01, 2013, 09:25 AM:

David, you can strip silent films yourself only if you have a special machine to do that. Otherwise, a lab can do it for you (but I think less and less will offer this service). Once the film is stripped, you can add sound via your projector.

Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on November 01, 2013, 09:34 AM:

No, old films require old music, like those of Carter, Perry and others

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 01, 2013, 12:45 PM:

I personally agree with Shorty. I remember a rock version of Metropolis, and I personally couldn't get into it. (I'm sure that others would disagree with me on that one) ...

and then, on the other side of the "reel" (get it, "coin"? "reel"? Heh heh! ehhh, skip it!) ....

I have a DVD of Buster Keaton's "The General" with a soundtrack recorded by a modern group of artists, with a slightly modern sound, (I wish I remember who they were), and they're soundtrack does work well for it.

and yet, on the other side of the coin, I absolutely hate those "organ" scores on the Blackhawk films, which is ironic, as that was what they had originally!

Posted by Gerald Santana (Member # 2362) on November 01, 2013, 01:12 PM:

Ernie,

I use an analog Tescam to mix my tapes all with different songs of the period or one long score of my choice from youtube or a CD. You can use contemporary music but, like Steve says, the mood should be consistent. Even when it isn't, there are still a lot of very exciting "accidents" and the music will eventually sync.

You can easily chose one from you tube by selecting a song of your choice, downloading the youtube song as an mp3 file and adding it to a CD. If the feature is over an hour, you can split the CD up into two CD's as only approximately 1hr. and 20-30 min. will fit. You don't have to worry about that for the Lost World, the Kodascope and Blackhawk version run about 60 min on 20fps.

Here's an example of a short cartoon that I transfered then, added music to from the period. I added a song from that era and matched it to end -- the same running time, that is. You can also time the reels and have better success with a good sync.

The Land of Wooden Soldiers (1928) Kinex Studios, Kodak Cinegraph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIHNmK2ayE0

I don't like the organ scores that much either Osi, I always use my own anyway. It's the distracting sound effects that I don't like more than the score. I like the Giorgio Moroder score for Metropolis -- you can buy it for $1 sometimes in record shop value bins. It's really weird and very dated but, there is something about it that fuses art and junk together that makes it "entertaining' for me.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 02, 2013, 12:53 PM:

Lovely little film! Puppetoons before Puppetoons!

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 02, 2013, 01:20 PM:

Last week I watched the DVD of "Metropolis" which has a 5:1 mix of newly recorded orchestral score of the original Gottfried Huppertz score.

Buster Keaton "The General" DVD also has a 5:1 mix score by Joe Hisaishi and the Tokyo City Philharmonic 2004.

Both "Metropolis" and "The General" sound fantastic, when played back on a good sound system and adds so much to the enjoyment of watching those old movies.

Graham.

Posted by David Singer (Member # 3953) on November 02, 2013, 01:42 PM:

Thank you for your reply Dominique, coincidentally, a Bolex 8mm striper has just been listed on e-bay, it's in the U.K and it's 220 V which would require a voltage stepdown device to 120V to use in the states. It may also be 50 hertz. I was not aware that such a device existed. I learn the best stuff on this site!! My wife will be SO disappointed that I can't bid on it (not). [Frown]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 03, 2013, 08:43 PM:

Hi Dave,

In response to your earlier question: I sent my films out to be striped by a pro because from what I learned there is at least as much Art as Science involved in doing the job and once you mess up there are no second chances.

A friend of mine that had been doing his own for years didn't want to take a chance doing my films because he didn't want to be responsible for messing them up. That's how touchy this is! Instead he volunteered to receive the films back from the striper and check them out before I got them.

The job went fine and 9 years later the stripe is still where I want it to be.

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on November 04, 2013, 06:59 AM:

I took the cd of the complete King Kong score and edited it to the feature of the Lost World...and it works very nicely.

Posted by David Singer (Member # 3953) on November 04, 2013, 09:40 PM:

Thanks for your reply Steve and I appreciate your candor. Are you aware of anyone that is still striping commercially, i.e., can I send my film out to be striped?

Regards

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 04, 2013, 10:04 PM:

As far as I know there is nobody in North America doing it commercially any more. The last commercial striper donated his equipment to a museum of motion pictures and television and called it a day about 8 years ago.

I got mine done by EVT Magnetics in the UK. I've heard that the owner has retired, but his son may take over.

That leaves Andec in Berlin:

Andec

The shame of it is years ago Kodak was actually considering selling all of their Super-8 camera film striped and it it came close to happening too!

-how useful that would be!

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