Film concerts: Performing movie music live

The worst way to watch "Jaws" is without music.A good way is to watch it with John Williams' famous score coming from your speakers.

But the best way to watch "Jaws" might be with a live orchestra playing that iconic score.The New York Philharmonic plays for four movies a year at Lincoln Center.Almost every showing is sold out."A live orchestra absolutely reaches people in a way that no recorded sound can even approximate," said the Philharmonic's former acting CEO Debra Borda.

"It's like you're sitting in the middle of the orchestra."In the silent film days, live music always accompanied movies, and movies were events."Over the years, theaters got smaller," said Steve Linder."Then, people started watching it on their television.

Then they watch it on their computer.Then they watch that on their phone." Linder is the cofounder of Film Concerts Live, one of several companies that rent out the sheet music and equipment that orchestras need to perform one of these movies.

"What we do is we bring moviegoing back to what it was originally intended to be, with live music, and in a communal experience." But for Borda, one of the best features of live movie scores is the way they attract new and younger audiences to the concert hall."Almost 50% of the people who come to our film series are first-time attendees of the New York Philharmonic, and the first time in the hall," she said.

For the conductor, these shows are tricky.You have to keep one eye on the musicians, one eye on the score, and one eye on a special monitor running the film.

But how does the conductor know exactly when to bring in the orchestra in sync with the action? That's the purpose of moving vertical bars called streamers.Those streamers and the bright dots are like countdowns to important musical moments. Anthony Parnther conducted the Philharmonic's screenings of "Jaws." But his main gig is conducting the actual Hollywood recording sessions for films, such as "Oppenheimer," "Avatar: T...