The Passion of Jekyll & Hyde
A cinematic presentation of music composed by Daron Hagen, in combination with the original 1920 public domain film "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and concert footage filmed and edited by H. Paul Moon of the live performance by Tramp Orchestra conducted by Erin Freeman at the world premiere.
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H. Paul MoonDirectorSamuel Barber: Absolute Beauty, The Passion of Scrooge
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John S. RobertsonDirectorThe Fighting Blade, Shanghai Lady
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Daron HagenComposerOrson Rehearsed
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Clara BerangerWriter
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Thomas Russell SullivanWriter
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H. Paul MoonProducerSamuel Barber: Absolute Beauty, Quartet for the End of Time
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John BarrymoreKey Cast"Henry Jekyll"
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Charles Willis LaneKey Cast"Dr. Richard Lanyon"
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Martha MansfieldKey Cast"Millicent Carewe"
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Nita NaldiKey Cast"Gina"
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Project Type:Feature
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Runtime:1 hour 25 minutes 12 seconds
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Completion Date:October 31, 2019
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Production Budget:0 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Shooting Format:Digital, Film
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Black & White and Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
H. Paul Moon (zenviolence.com) is a filmmaker, professor and attorney whose works include short and feature-length documentaries, featured and awarded at nearly two hundred film festivals worldwide. He teaches editing at Docs In Progress and George Mason University, and manages a network of online communities at focuspulling.com and docofilm.com that keep pace with new camera technologies and documentary news. Recent works include "Sitka: A Piano Documentary" (sitkadoc.com) about the craftsmanship of Steinway pianos, and "Quartet for the End of Time" (quatuor.xyz) about Olivier Messiaen’s transcendent WWII composition. Moon's first feature, an award-winning documentary about the life and music of American composer Samuel Barber (samuelbarberfilm.com), premiered on PBS, and he is currently finishing another documentary feature about Western poetry (westdocumentary.com). His latest film is an operatic adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (scroogeopera.com), awarded "Critic's Choice" by Opera News as a "thoroughly enjoyable film version, insightfully conceived and directed" with "first-rate and remarkably illustrative storytelling."
Somewhere between a new concert film, and an old silent film with new music added, "The Passion of Jekyll & Hyde" fuses cinema with music performance, in a new kind of movie experience that pays tribute to the medium's rich history of film scoring. This art form of tastefully aligning music with moving images, is a language that everyone knows, just from watching movies—but the hybrid experience here of watching the music itself being performed, within view of its timed combination with film, becomes a testament to musicians as a central part of the art form, hidden in the history of soundtracks. Put another way, this project reveals the normally unseen musicians behind movie magic, matched with the timeless skills of a classically-trained composer, and a conductor's musical direction (and my further camerawork and film editing) that bring it all together with dramatic precision—now, arguably exceeding the impact of watching the original silent film alone, that's widely described as "America's first horror movie."