“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre”

wins Best Music Scoring

at the Pitch To Screen Film Awards in New York

“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre“, my (deep breath intake) short film musical adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story, was nominated in three categories at the Pitch To Screen Film Awards, music, editing and cinematography. The awards gala was last night.

Ed and I arrived early at the Dolby Theater on 6th avenue and 55th street.

Joining us were Stolis and Christine Hadjicharloambous. Stolis edited both “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” (and therefore nominated tonight) and my first short film”The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre“, also a (breath intake) short film musical adaptation of a classic Edgar Allan Poe story.

UPDATE: P2S just sent me some pics from their official photographer:

This was actually the first time Stolis and I were in the same room since 2016, a weird tidbit considering in that time we had made two movies together – but all that work was done via the internet. Stolis did come out to do the Q&A for the ChainNYC film festival with Ed, but at that time I was in Cleveland for the Indie Gathering Film Festival.

The awards presentation began, hosted by Andreia Gibau – 8 categories with 4 nominees each.

Jason Chua was nominated for cinematography.

Stolis did not win for editing, sadly. I really would have liked to share his thank you speech.

I will share this clip from the nominee reel though, for the guy who exclaimed “Oh!” at the end of our segment, as the blade is about to cut… Not sure if it comes across on the video, but in the room he sounded genuinely disturbed. (Which pleased Stolis and me – insert devil horn emoji here.)

My category got called. That’s Stolis calling out “Yes!”

I walked up with absolutely no idea what to say … and it shows.

A live performance capped off the evening – a clip show of the nominated films was accompanied by an a cappella rendition of “Climb Every Mountain” (sung by Kristiana Roemer). I filmed the last half, during which you can see at least three clips from P&P.

That’s the trophy. I didn’t get to take it home, as Pitch To Screen still needs to put the winner’s names to them. Supposedly mine will be mailed to me.

Stolis was beginning to have too much fun with my phone…

He may not have won tonight, but he did not go home empty handed, since I could finally hand him his award from The Artist’s Forum Festival of the Moving Image, which coincidentally also was held in the Dolby Theater, albeit in 2022.