Ready For Her Close-up: La Jolla’s Silent Past Shines In Free Film Screening

This is KPBS midday edition. As the great fictional silent screen star Norma Desmond would say, we didn't need dialogue, we had faces. It even more than faces in La Jolla in the 1920s. They had great architecture, fabulous scenery, and a troop of able amateurs eager to produce their own movies. When several of their short silent homes are screened tonight, the mood will be less Sunset Boulevard and more, hey kids, let's put on a show. The silent movies by the La Jolla Cinema league our trip back in time and a surprisingly modern interest expense. Joining me to talk about these silent movies is Scott Paulson, exhibits coordinator, UC San Diego Library. Welcome. These films are a delightful. We're so lucky to have access to them with my job at the library right did an exhibit about the films and the filmmakers, just a small exhibit. It really caught people's attention to now I'm on the road performing an and using all the bells and whistles you can stand. La Jolla Cinema league was part of a larger movement of amateur silent moviemakers. They ended up joining the amateur Cinema league and altered their own name to align with that group. That's provided a wonderful reference material to any member had a very fancy magazine that came out with a would talk about your work. The word amateur meant something different back then. These are professional quality films Ashley Dunn that people used the word to mean they were in it with their hearts. Like what we would called independent film makers. Yes. He was an idea what that is about. Some of them are slapstick. Some are quite moving and sad. Mostly, melodramatic. Wonderful acting and photography. Delightful storytelling and that is very exciting. To have the audience help with some musical gestures and sounds, it's not all slapstick and crazy. There will be a harp and a piano as well. Will be respectful of the reviews and we will not be making fun of them. There's a big issue of old. Being destroyed with age, how did he survive? The matter what you try, they can dissolve. You need to put them through a projector once a year to air them out. That's how the silent film series I do, we would put the films through a projector and let's to run the length and invite people over. Eventually they deteriorates you have to transfer them to whatever is available at the time. Most of these films came to me as VHS. The films were given to historical societies and the atom sisters who gave the fellows also gave a set for me to use at the library. It's basically a DVD of a VHS but I have been able to work with those and enhance them a bit. The La Jolla historical society is putting on this screening what is the historical value? They are a wonderful viable cultural art form and a chance to enjoy and celebrate some storytellers, ways past, some wonderful people who have some extra money available to them who can buy some good camera equipment and the ticket very seriously and got a lot of trading. These aren't home movies. These are professionally made movies with a wrote the scripts and develop the films themselves. They edited them and there were bills and females involved with most of it. You can see old La Jolla as well. The old strips campus, where we are screening outdoors, you look around and you will see some of the same trees. You have written music for silent films, which is a silent movie score need to convey to an audience? You want to stay out of the way of the movie. You just what -- want to supported. You what to help the story telling so sometimes there may be a need to help with a flashback. Sometimes the film may be quite light and some very slapstick. You may need just the right sound like a marble she can write in someone's head, etc. etc. It just brings it to life. Tell us how the audience is going to be involved. They are surprisingly well behaved. I to them -- I tell them what to play and they don't play until told for some it's obvious what they ought to play. He seahorses, into the coconut shells, we see the car, you do the horn. You see the drawbridge go up, you to the ration. We see the Mike -- microscope by, you do the bicycle horn. It just depends. All these regimens are side effects are going to be given out to audience members tonight? Can you believe I've never lost a single one? I've been doing this since 2002 at the UC San Diego library and I have too much stuff. You would think someone would steal something but no, everything comes back. All of this is available to everyone and I will even let people play on my heart. You have actually written music using sound effects and instruments for silent films. When did you start to get to love silent films? As a child, I didn't know I liked music. I loved cartoons, apparently I was really loving was the music because the greatest bassoonist in the world are playing on those cartoon soundtracks. I realized I like this music and that's the attitude I take what I'm composing or compiling. For most of these homes I am using known tunes of the ear and I am compiling them. If it's a small child, I will plan a separate recorder, that the rate big guy, maybe a saxophone. With more experiment told films, then maybe it's more composition. Silent movies are putting a lot of people off. It don't get or understand them. How do you learn to love silent films? For some people, they stumble across it. My screenings in the library, hundreds of people walk by in a baby the doors open important clients up, they stumble across it and it can be a surprise to them. It even her from professors who students want to watch black and let -- white movies let alone silent. The storytelling, there's something about taking away the sensational sensation and something magical happens. Even that just a moment right same thing, it's like a firework show. It's the darkness in between the big explosions of color and light. That's the magic. In the music, it's the rest. That's what the magic happens. In the heyday, their screen movie palaces with live audiences. It's a very different experience from the way most people encounter silent films now. Back then, cinema was Theatre. Just before the big movie palaces it was misbehaving jazz trio the little sheet tacked up on the wall. The producers were getting upset with how the movies retreated so then came the big theaters. I think we'll achieve a little bit of both tonight at Wisteria cottage. What's the quality of these productions? The quality varies. Some of the short expand mental films are in great shape. They are 15 seconds law. The best one right now, people are forgiving because they know we are lucky to have them at all. That's just these domes, it's amazing what the keynote people can do with Metropolis we can stumble across a silent version of Lady Windermere's fan. It looks like it was made yesterday. They figured out how to work directly with the negative and enhance and fix, they drink such wonderful work. So much is lost and that's why it's so wonderful people are putting up every effort they can right now. A small pit orchestra is something you do on a regular basis. That has to do with sound effects, that we have heard. What are other kinds of regimens are involved in that? I will have my theremin with me. I can also use my slide whistle. But a theremin is better. I'll plug that in. All these sound effects were gathered for the idea of doing a slapstick silent film and after I gathered them all up, I realized I better start taking radio drama and I do a lot of radio drama work where the sounds can convey even more meaning, it's only the sound telling the story. It's always fascinating to me whether it's the smallest increment of sound I can relate meaning, and it's amazing what happens regulators these sounds. In the meantime, it's so much fun to let the audience give it a shot. You'd be surprised how well they do. I'm also the whole idea of interactive is such a modern concept to be using during the screening of silent pills. The is meant to be live. This group were adventuresome wonderful people and we want to celebrate them and that's what we are doing. Are you hoping the screening will encourage people to seek out more silent pills. Yes. There are silent film nights here in San Diego and they are usually well attended. I would like to continue to show more of these films at the La Jolla people start showing some Carol Dempster films, she was very famous was like Joan Collins versus Elizabeth taper -- Taylor. She was amazing. She retired in La Jolla. The screening of silent Hill spot of the La Jolla -- silent films tonight. I've been speaking with Scott Paulson, exhibits coordinator, UC San Diego Library.