Meet the Founders of

NEO-SILENT FILM

How it all came to pass.

The five of us - Sprague Anderson, Sam Gill, Louise Giusto, George Hall and David Kiehn, were having lunch at the Essanay Cafe in Niles, CA while discussing the next phase of our silent newsreel "Triumph Over Disaster", when the subject came up about what we should call the film we were making. The date was June 2, 2006, and Charlie Chaplin never ate at the Essanay Cafe, because the building was a clothing store during the time he was in Niles. Nonetheless, the result of our conversation was the term "Neo-Silent Film" plus our Artist's Manifesto. Since we are all historions, we decided to have a little fun and claim that we were inspired by meeting in Charlie Chaplin's favorite booth and changed the date to June 12th, because that is Louise's birthday. Just to see if anybody was paying attention, we called our meeting a "barnstorming" session rather than "brainstorming", so now history will report that...

The new school of NEO-SILENT FILM was founded on June 12, 2006 at a barnstorming session in a booth at the Essanay Cafe in Niles, California where Charlie Chaplin never ate lunch.

The purpose of NEO-SILENT FILM is to use an understanding of past cinemagraphic techniques to unlock a new form of artistic expression.

L. Sprague Anderson

Cameraman

Forget the "barnstorming", great ideas, and inspiratin from Charlie Chaplin-- it all began with a camera. Here is L. Sprague Anderson with his hand-cranked 35mm Bell & Howell Model 2709 that was made in 1922. This is the camera we used for our Neo-Silent Newsreel, "Triumph Over Disaster". This still was taken the day we filmed the Golden Gate Bridge for our establishing shot. Sprague also used this camera for the remake of "A Trip Down Market Street" in 2005.

Louise A. Giusto

Artistic Supervision

and

Movie Star

Here is Louise playing with a Zoetrope in an Earthquake shack recreation at the Randall Museum. The Zoetrope is an important optical toy not only in the history of the movies, but also in its use as a teaching tool even today. This footage plus Louise's great hat will appear in a later production, but in "Triumph Over Disaster", Louise is merely seen visiting an Earthquake tent recreation at the Presidio of San Francisco. A San Francisco native, an Art and Art History graduate of UC Davis, plus an Art Therapy MA graduate of JFK University, Louise supervised the graphic art and edited the written textural material plus spun the Zoetrope!

Sam Gill

Historical Supervision

Sam is Archivist Emeritus of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is to our great benefit that he is in Niles, Cailfornia at the moment continuing his work. He provided valuable suggestions as to how intertitles would have looked and read in the "silent" days, plus his understanding of film history and what makes any given "silent" film artistically successful has been a major influence on our film production..

David Kiehn

Film Editor

David has written the definitive book about Broncho Billy Anderson and the Essanay Film Company. He edited "Triumph Over Disaster" using a Moviola Midget from about 1932 and projected the rushes with a hand-cranked 1921 Powers Cameragraph at the Niles-Essanay Film Museum. Check out his book at http://www.nilesfilmmuseum.org/kiehnbook.htm .

Professor Hall

Producer and Musician

That's Professor Hall on the left with Daniel Oppenheim on the right in a scene that was cut from "Triumph Over Disaster". The historical significance of the event this film documents is much more important than the person who made it possible, and that's why Mr. Oppenheim's picture is shown. He participated that night, and as we were working on the film, he became known as the "Kazoo Guy" (and was included). In real life, he is a Head Coach for Special Olympics, which kind of puts things in perspective.