An evening of silent film entertainment, part of a collaborative project involving the University of Rochester, its Eastman School of Music, and the George Eastman House, will include a series of short films scored by Eastman School of Music students.
Titled “Film Lost and Found: The Experience of Pre- and Silent Cinema,” the collaborative project encompasses four days of public events which combine the resources of the three institutions and includes film programs, discussions, demonstrations, and other events.
The project kicks off at the Eastman School on Thursday, March 18, when film scholar and musicologist Rick Altman presents “The Living Nickelodeon” at 7 p.m. in Room 120. Using a reel of period films and song slides, he’ll give contemporary audiences an idea of the programs that were presented in neighborhood nickelodeons at the beginning of the 20th century.
Eastman Professor Emeritus Donald Hunsberger will join Altman on Friday, March 19, to discuss the music that accompanied silent films. Their conversation will take place at 4 p.m. in the Ciminelli Lounge of Eastman Commons.
A recreation of a typical film program of the silent era will be presented at 8 p.m. that same evening in the Dryden Theater of the George Eastman House. The evening will begin with a program of silent short films — animations, actualities, comedy — for which Eastman students wrote musical accompaniment.
The student composers are in a year-long Film Scoring Techniques class taught by Michaela Eremiá