Home Movie Music Records

In the study of movies, there is an important aspect that even ardent students often forget.  Silent movies were never actually shown silent.  Movie houses were entertainment venues well equipped to add live music, sound effects, even spoken narration to puncutate silent films.  The same should be true for home movies.  You can watch them in stunned silence if you want, but it's better if viewers (especially those who are "starring" in the film) feel free to point out things that they recognize.  I wish that I'd made tapes of my father narrating the details of his old home movies.  Now when I watch them they are sadly as anonymous to me as films shot by strangers.

In the absence of folks to chronicle the goings on in the film, you can at least play some music to add atmosphere while hopefully drowning out the rattle of the projector.  In the 1950's and 60's there were a lot of LP's expressly for playing along with home movies.  Titles like "Water Activities" and "Mystic Vista" give you a good idea of what these music tracks suggest.  Ideally you could try to sync up tracks to whatever is going on in the film, but I find it fun to just throw these records on and see what syncs up randomly. 

Every year I bring a pile of these records to my local chapter of Home Movie Day, along with a boom box with a built in turntable.  The addition of music, no matter how unrelated it is to what's going on screen, multiplies the fun of the home movie experience.  Over the years there have been countless hearty laughs when something on screen inadvertently matches a music cue.