The Tell-Tale Poster Shines on a Big Billboard over Broadway

Last night Ed and I travelled to Times Square to watch the poster for my gothic musical short film “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” be broadcast over Times Square.

Here a quick clip of the moment it happened:

And now for the whole story, including more pics and video.

My musical Poe adaptation is part of the Shockfest Film Festival 2020. As such it has also been included in their Poster Competition.

Last night Shockfest commandeered (or rather, rented time on) “the most technically advanced screen in the United States, Silvercast Media’s ‘Godzilla Billboard’ located smack dab in the middle of Times Square, the largest billboard in all of New York City.”

Part of their presentation was featuring all the entries in the poster competition. Ed and I could either watch the Shockfest show live on-line culminating in the airing of the billboard presentation. Or we could go to Times Square and catch that part live in person.

We decided to go to Times Square.

It would be only my second subway ride since mid March, when the Covid 19 lockdown began. Even though New York City has so far weathered the worst of the pandemic and is slowly, responsibly opening up, subway ridership remains low (and well masked) and Times Square is sparsely populated, nothing like the mass of tourists that thronged the area all day long in the past.

The Shockfest billboard presentation was scheduled for 9:30pm. We arrived at Times Square around 9:20pm and perched ourselves across the street and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

Around 9:45pm I was wondering whether our trip to Times Square would be a bust.

Around 9:50pm Shockfest announced on their Facebook page that their Billboard presentation would start at 10pm.

So while we wait for that, a few more Times Square impressions, especially those that reflect the brave new times we live in.

Finally the Shockfest billboard presentation began:

As you can see from the end of this clip, commercial ad breaks punctuated the Shockfest billboard presentation. Their show went on for quite a while – I won’t be able to share it all – but eventually we got to the poster presentation:

Here is a longer clip of the moment “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” poster joined the lights of Broadway:

And there you have it. My one second of Broadway fame. Only require 899 more for my proverbial 15 minutes.