300 Features and 40 Shorts 

TRT: 12:35

Cinematography, direction: Jennifer Lauren Smith

Audio montage: Marcelo de Oliveira

Original score: Steve Sterner

2015

300 Features and 40 Shorts is a meditation on the physical experience of sound, told through a documentary portrait of New York-based silent film pianist. After attending numerous Buster Keaton and Alfred Hitchcock silent features at FilmForum in the West Village, I mustered the courage to ask the resident accompanist, Steve Sterner, if I could observe his daily life for a few days, to see how, if at all, his technical ability to “see” sound in otherwise language-less imagery permeated other aspects of his world. The film observes a solitary man, enthusiastic about crossword puzzles and gambling, living in a time capsule of bachelorhood. His score for my film weaves between creative responses to images of himself solving the daily crossword, to the 300+ scores he has composed for film and commitment to memory.