'It's when cinema becomes live': Andy Cannon on the art of the film explainer

Making its debut at the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema in March 2012, The Lost Art of the Film Explainer is an event blending theatre, live music and archive film led by storyteller, Andy Cannon.

In days gone by the Film Explainer, part narrator and part actor, stood next to silent movie screens in Japan, across Asia and parts of Europe enhancing films with a mix of background information and interpretation.

As Cannon and musicians Wendy Weatherby and Frank McLaughlin started a short tour of Scotland with an event at Edinburgh's Filmhouse, a show I called "an exciting and compelling rebirth of a forgotten tradition", I took some time to speak to him about the origins of the art of the film explainer and why he felt it necessary to revive it for modern audiences.

listen to ‘The Lost Art of the Film Explainer’ on Audioboo