Yes, indeed, the Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap.

Bosley Crowther, NY Times, November 27, 1942 

Last night, November 1, 2019 I took my youngest daughter Hilary Stewart to a performance of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra directed by the suave assistant conductor Andrew Crust. We were there to see Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca. The VSO played the Max Steiner score.

With Hilary Stewart

Having ranted and raved of previous performances of live music performed in the projection of films, see here, here and here,  I was not prepared for the subtle pleasure of watching a film and listening to the dialogue while enjoying in a quite low key a never intrusive orchestra.

I was intrigued by a clock on a computer monitor on the right of conductor Crust.

I was able to satisfy my curiousity. I feel lucky to know quite a few of the musicians of the VSO. Add to that what to me is a Vancouver custom of knowing that musicians put on their pants one leg at a time and never deny access to we mortals who are not musicians. They are always there at the intermission or before the performance to answer questions from the obscure to the dumbest.

Sydney Greenstreet - not

Perhaps the last VSO musical family, that of bassist David Brown, his violist brother Andrew Brown and David Brown’s violinist wife Mary Sokol Brown is always a pleasure to behold. Last night Sokol Brown was not there but I chatted with Andrew and David. It was David to whom I addressed my question on an explanation of the computer screen clock. Here is his answer:

When film scores are recorded some kind of timing method is needed in order to match the musical cues to the action. In the past, with recorded tv shows and films shot on celluloid film stock, an edited version of the film would have a visual banner that move across the screen indicating the start point of a musical cue.

Later SMPTE code (which I believe was developed for space exploration) was embedded in the film. This is a running code which gives an exact time reference for each frame. A film and the audio recording equipment could be synchronized and shuttled back and forth to an exact cue point which greatly aided the recording process.

The SMPTE code can be synchronized with a metronome to indicate an exact tempo. The musicians recording the film score wear headphones and hear a click track (metronomic pulses) which indicate the tempo, number of beats in a bar and also cue any speeding up or slowing down of the music. Composers like to hit action points in a film with sound effects and musical cues which emphasize the action. Click tracks enable this to be very precise.

Now when you want to recreate a score for a preexisting score, as we did tonight with Casablanca, then the prerecorded music is largely removed and then some kind of a clock or click track has to be created in order to count in the cue start point keep the tempos correct so that the live performance remains synchronized with the film. We didn't wear headphones in this case but just followed our conductor Andrew Crust who had spent a lot of time studying the film and becoming familiar with all of the idiosyncrasies of the score. For example there were some night club scenes where the band playing on screen speeds up and slows down quite a bit and we had to do the same in order to match the film. Hope this is helpful in giving you a little insight into this process. The VSO has done a lot of films like this over the years from Harry Potter, Star Wars, ET to older silent films like Nosferatu, Charlie Chaplin films, Wizard of Oz, Psycho to name a few. I think audiences, who may not have previously considered how much the sound track factors into the overall experience of a film, really enjoy the experience of a live performance of an orchestra recreating the original soundtrack of a classic film.  

I had one doubt as to how Crust and the orchestra handled the solo piano and singing of Sam (Dooley Wilson). I called up VSO violinist Jenny Essers who explained that in that situation the orchestra did not intrude and we in the audience were listening to the film track.

The switching back to me was flawless. In fact I almost forgot that the orchestra was playing and that I was watching a very good film with a premier sound system.

At age 77 I fear that my memory may be slipping and I am now saving money so my wife can put me in some assisted living place without going bankrupt. But I am pleased to report that this may not happen for a while. There were many moments in the film that had slipped my memory and I was happy to find out that my 45 year-old-daughter was in the same situation.

Thanks to the VSO I can now ascertain that I have almost seen and heard a grand film for the first time.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship (with the VSO)