The combination of music and pictures has long fascinated people.

I remember a particular urban legend that did the rounds for several years which held that Pink Floyd's ‘Dark Side Of The Moon' was created so it would synch with the 1939 Judy Garland film of ‘The Wizard of Oz'.

Award-winning international organ composer Nathan Avakian. Photo: John Thiele.

The story goes...

The story went that if you played the album twice it would directly correlate with the scenes happening on screen revealing...

Well, that was the thing, no one was quite sure what it actually meant, and all but the most extreme conspiracy theorists might conclude it was sadly nothing but a fancifully circulated idea, possibly encouraged by the fact that ‘Dark Side of the Moon' was infamous for the amount of weed consumed while listening to it.

It is, however, inarguable that music is an incredibly important factor in film.

It tugs the heartstrings, it sends shivers up the spine; it causes spirits to soar, and it goes ‘Duh-duh-duh, Duh-duh-duh' if a giant shark is swimming through the water.

Breaking the mould

Some films break the mould. The Coen brothers' ‘No Country For Old Men' had a mere nine seconds of music; ‘Koyaanisqatsi' had nothing but music.

Film critic and author David Thomson recently examined this in his book ‘How To Watch a Movie'. He proposes an experiment.

What he suggests is to watch an early silent film –specifically F W Murnau's ‘Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans' and more specifically a particular scene from that film – with various alternative soundtracks, ranging from Frank Sinatra's ‘I've Got You Under My Skin' and Donna Summer's ‘Love To Love You Baby' to Debussy's ‘La Mer', an extract from Shostakovitch's ‘Tenth Symphony', and a raga played by Ravi Shankar.

And I'm sure that would be interesting and instructive. I actually have a copy of the film and access to the music he posits but, frankly, life is just a tiny bit short for such abject frippery.

But it makes me think of those early American silent film directors, who sent their films out around the country with no idea what musical accompaniment it would receive.
Because back then the music for films was arranged by the band leader attached to each individual cinema, and often chosen from the band leader's particular musical library. So different screenings in different places had different music.

And if that seems odd, the whole process will be happening in reverse later this month.

Silent Film Festival

That's when the International Youth Silent Film Festival comes to Baycourt. The IYSFF, which has been running since 2009, is a competition specifically for youth that challenges those aged 20 and under to create a three-minute silent film.

They get two things: a genre and a musical score.

You can actually have a listen to all the soundtracks on the festival website.

They fall into these categories: sci-fi, hero, Western, noir, discovery, action, slapstick, horror, mystery, and romance. I'm not sure that ‘hero' and ‘discovery' are exactly film genres but there's plenty to pick from. The advantage for budding film-makers is that, as these are silent films, there is no sound editing or syncing required making for a much cheaper and easier result.

The three-minute soundtracks were all composed by 25-year-old Nathan Avakian, an American instrumental virtuoso who's won international competitions and awards for organ composition and performance.

Now entrants aged 20 and under from all round the world are creating films, using Nathan's musical scores as inspiration and accompaniment.

The mighty Wurlitzer

The Wurlitzer organ is the ideal, and traditional, accompaniment to silent film and Nathan is actually coming to New Zealand in person to perform his compositions at the NZ regional final of the IYSFF, to be held at Baycourt Theatre.

And 2016 is the first year NZ has joined this competition.

Screenings of the top films from around NZ will show on Saturday, October 22, with Nathan playing the Wurlitzer and Jon JP Palanuk, the founder and president of the IYSFF board, presenting the first, second and third place winners.

The three winning films will compete in the international competition held in Portland, Oregon, USA in June 2017.

watusi@thesun.co.nz