Diables and Bestiari, adults and children dressed as devils or wearing monster contraptions, light firecrackers and sparklers and send shooting sparks careening into the parade watchers on Barcelona’s fashionable avenue, the Passeig de Gracia.
Teams of drummers accompany the semi-controlled mayhem.
In the evening all the devils and monsters go into the Porta de l’Infern, Hell’s Gate, erected in a northern corner of the Passeig. After a massive fireworks display, the devils come out of the Porta de l’Infern again and dance back south down the avenue, shooting swirling waves of bursting sparks along the way.
The day after the display of the Castells the La Mercé festival featured giant puppets dancing in Placa de Sant Jaume in Barcelona.
Huge puppets surrounded the plaza, then were marched by their handlers – balancing figures many multiples of their own height – into an open space in the middle of the plaza, where two to six of these giants, some of them depicting royalty, some regular folk or caricatures, some fantastical creations, danced elaborate choreography while a live band played traditional tunes.
Thereafter all the puppets marched and danced in a parade of the giants out of the plaza and through the city of Barcelona.
When Ed and I scheduled our time in Barcelona (to attend the Love and Hope Film Festival), we didn’t realize we would be there for the La Mercè festival, the biggest weekend of festivities of the year in Barcelona. So many amazing events take place throughout to the city!
Including the Castells, the Human Towers, which is a spectacular tradition unique to Catalonia.
On the Saturday morning of La Mercè we joined thousands of spectators in the Placa de Sant Jaume marveling at the Castells erected by multiple neighborhood groups.
Watching these incredible constructions be erected is breathtaking, marvelous and unnerving, especially when it happening only meters from where one is standing…
The Spanish and Catalonian flags.
First a serious of groups constructed a variety of human constructions on the placa stage.
Then there were parades of human columns.
The main constructions, the Castells that rise up to 9 levels of humanity towards the heavens, wound up being erected in the midst of the crowd, near where we were standing.
And we’re back, for a fifth installment of my never-a-finalist New Yorker cartoon caption contest submissions. Well, the jury is still out on finalist status of my last two submissions. I’ll update if one of them gets chosen.
The FFTG Awards announced the nominees and winners on their Instagram page in a series of reels, from which I took these screenshots.
“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” was nominated for Best Background Music, Best Post Production, Best Cinematography, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Film – Musical.
For this category they named the actual nominee, Jason Chua:
Note the spelling of cinematographer…
I’m happy to have been cited as a nominee for Best Actor…
But I am honestly most tickled for Ed’s nomination and win!
Also tickled that the winner gets sparkly animation over their card on the FFTG announcement reels.
Less tickled that they forgot the final “r” in Ed’s name. Maybe because his supporting actor turn is so short? He’s on screen for about 17 seconds.
An award for a 17 second performance! That’s gotta be some sort of record!
Also noticed that instead of posting a picture of Edward next to his name, FFTG Awards used a picture of me in my secondary role as one of the judges of the Inquisition … ??? … !!! …
Winner: Edward Elde (sic) for “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre.” Playing the Rescuer, Edward Elde’s (sic) performance in this musical adaptation of Poe’s classic story stands out for its intensity and depth, contributing significantly to the film’s chilling atmosphere.
For our final nomination FFTG seemed to be under the impression my brother David deserves the citation, even though they still showed the picture of me…
UPDATE 2: The FFTG Nom and Win certificates have arrived (and at my request, they spelled Ed’s name correctly, yeah!):
Today and through the end of the year my musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” will be viewable on-line at the Festival Angaelica. Signing up for a 30 day free trial will allow one to view it and all other films for free (CLICK HERE TO BE SENT THERE).
In addition to the film you can also watch an interview festival director Breven Warren conducted with me.
This week we set up our new book cases, and I went a little crazy with my phone’s camera.
Some context: perhaps you heard in the news that much of Brooklyn got massively flooded during unprecedented (but likely to be more commonly repeated – thank you, Climate Crisis!) rainfall last September 28? Well, our garden level apartment was not spared despite many mitigation efforts (I won’t go into detail…), and the result was the need for remediation and reconstruction – new floors with tiling, dry walls replaced with cement board, and all the old pressboard bookcases had to be thrown out and replaced with metal and glass bookcases. (There is far more to the story of the damage and ramifications of the flood, but I’ll spare you and me the telling of it all …)
After I saw what those new book cases looked like against the wall, so geometrical and catching the light, like the model of some futuristic bridges or highways, I took out my phone and took some pictures of the artsy fartsy variety.
We visited the famous uncompleted cathedral, the magnum opus of genius architect Antoni Gaudi, celebrated native son of Barcelona, while in town attending the Love and Hope Film Festival.
Signs at the site project completion for the cathedral – for which construction begun in 1882 – to come as early as next year (or at least the final, tallest tower should be completed by then).
At this time visitors can only enter the cathedral from the Nativity side.
All the sculptural and decorative details on this facade reflect the Nativity story.
A model of the completed cathedral. The main tower – representing Jesus – will be the final major element to be completed. The second highest tower represents Mary, the next four represent the Evangelists, then there are 12 more spires for the apostles.
“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre“, my 30 minute musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, is playing at the FFTG Awards Film Festival thru December 12.
You will need to log in and register to watch and vote.
The festival asked me to make an “interview video” for them. I talk about the film, including some details on the “mirror masks”, while music from the soundtrack plays in the background. And then there is a little wink at the end…
I know I only just posted the third installment of my New Yorker Cartoon caption entries, but I already have six more lined up, having been submitting much more regularly lately, and not being chosen as a finalist just as regularly…
My friends and family at least seem to enjoy and even occasionally prefer my captions… 😉
To create the particular look I wanted for the judges, we filmed me wearing special headgear we called mirror masks. This ended up leading to imagery that has been the most commented and queried upon in the many Q&As I have given in film festivals that screened P&P over the past year and a half.
Above is a glimpse in the monitor as we shot a particular moment that is featured in the trailer for “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre”. Below is a better view of VFX specialist Jimmy McCoy looking at the monitor (as well as D.P. Jason Chua behind the camera, gaffer Ja’rel Ivory beside him, and make-up artist Sami Eddy and me blocked from view behind Jason).
In the photo below you can see how what’s in the monitor above got translated into the final version: as with many of the shots we filmed this day, the mirror mask look would itself get mirrored in post production.
Here is a pic of one of the first mirror mask shots we filmed, with me wearing the mask made to fit horizontally just under my nose. This is the first time in the film we will see the judges wearing mirror masks.
In this clip you can see us shoot a take of the middle judge wearing this mask. In later takes I will be performing to the same music but moving my head differently for the judge who will be placed to the left in the screen, and differently again for the judge who will be placed at the right.
Here is a screenshot of what that eventually looks like:
The same idea for when the judges are wearing mirror masks that divide the face diagonally, from below the left eye to above the right eye and also from below right to above left.
Notes from a Composer 