Spotlight Film Awards just announced the winners of its 2022 awards. My musical short film Edgar Allan Poe adaptation, “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” was awarded one of its highest honors, a Spotlight Gold Award.
The Spotlight Film Awards also features a page of the awarded filmmaker’s bios, including mine, which you can also read in full here.
LIGHTSCAPE, the outdoor light show experience at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden concludes this Sunday, January 8.
Here are some of this year’s highlights in pics and vids. You can also catch the splendor from last year’s show here and here.
“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre“, my short film musical Edgar Allan Poe classic short story adaptation (intake of breath) will screen Feb 4 on line. Co-producer Henry Borriello and editor Stolis Hadjicharalambous will join Ed and me (co-producers and co-actors and husbands) for a Q&A after the screening. More on all that soon.
You can also vote for the trailer of my first Poe musicabre “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” in the Art is Alive Fan Voting Page. Watch the trailer and vote for it for free here.
The same day my cousin and I went to Washington Park in Portland, Oregon, to marvel at the Redwoods and pay our respects at the Holocaust Memorial, we also basked in the splendor of the International Test Rose Garden.
Which includes a tip of the hat to the Royal Rosarian.
I visited the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park in Portland last October.
The photos don’t require further commentary.
NEW UPDATE: 12/7/22 – The new time for the Horror Island Film Festival has been posted. December 31st. Looks to be the same location as before.
It can now be part of your jet setting New Year’s Eve extravaganza:
31 Dec, 19:00 – 23:50
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
C. República Dominicana, 18, 35010 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spagna
UPDATE: So, right after I posted this, I got an email from festival director Domiziano Christopharo that “due to logistic problem the fest is delayed”, with the screenings to take place “in another location in the end of December.” So, stay tuned for that and don’t hop onto your private jet for Gran Canaria just yet.
INITIAL POST: So, if you happen to be in the Canary Islands this Friday, or happen to be a jet setter for whom a weekend jaunt to the Canary Islands on the fly seems like a great idea, you can catch my short film musical Edgar Allan Poe classic short story adaptation “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” screening as part of the Horror Island film festival:
02 Dec, 19:00 – 23:50
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
C. República Dominicana, 18, 35010 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spagna
I woke up early, still on New York time, the Sunday morning of my Skiptown Film Festival visit in LA. The actors panel I was participating in was scheduled for 1pm, so I had time to play tourist on Hollywood Boulevard and check out the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Dolby Theater, home of the Oscars, and the celebrity cement hand and foot prints at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Plus a view of the iconic Hollywood sign.
The metro station at Hollywood and Vine is rather splendid. The subway itself, on an early Sunday morning, is populated with many who apparently spent the night in the train…
I started on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard, walking West from Vine.
Seems somehow fitting that Mary Pickford and Amy Adams are neighbors.
“Driving Miss Daisy”‘s Jessica Tandy just across from “Do the Right Thing”‘s Spike Lee.
The Apollo 11 astronauts are honored at every corner of this intersection.
For the time being, Frank Borzage has to bear the indignity of being obscured under scaffolding.
Bogie will show off even better later at Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
Continue reading
Scott C. Biery from Guru Reviews interviewed me in conjunction with “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” screening at the Spooky Empire Film Festival in Orlando, where my musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation won an award for music and was nominated for its special effects.
The video of Scott’s interviews is up exclusively on YouTube. You can watch it by clicking HERE. My interview starts at the 12:38 mark and runs through 30:29.
The top picture is me sitting with the three framed awards “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” won at the Skiptown Playhouse International Film Festival in Los Angeles Sunday night.
I’ll get to that, but let’s rewind a bit, and start at last Saturday’s screening for my musical short film adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story.
I arrived at the Skiptown Playhouse just off Melrose Avenue in East Hollywood about 10 minutes before the screening of the shorts block that included “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre”, having touched down at LAX only a few hours earlier. As you can see, the Skiptown Playhouse gives off a very Indie Burlesque-chic / Downtown vibe, something this New York off-off-Broadway veteran is very comfortable with. The film festival featured a high quality selection of Indie shorts and features from filmmakers from all over the world. Many came from even further away than New York, like Montreal, London, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Rome …
The couple in front of me, I later learned, came from Amsterdam. I quietly and surreptitiously sneaked a few shots from the beginning of P&P’s screening, including of the logo of Ed’s and my production company, and my first scene…
At the conclusion of my Edgar Allan Poe musical, one woman blurted out “Wow!”, which felt even better than the applause. We met later and hit it off very well (not only because she liked P&P so much) – her feature film ended up sweeping the feature length film awards in the festival – I’ll share more on all that further down this post.
After “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” concluded that screening block of shorts I got up on stage for a Q&A with two fellow filmmakers who shared the bill; at left Jean-Luc Servino, all the way from Rome, who presented his whimsical short “I Fell in Love with a Balloon”; and next to him Will Grave, from London, whose achingly lovely “The Last Jack O’ Lantern” required the carving of something like 90 pumpkins to produce. All our films rely heavily on music.
The next day I participated in an Actor’s Panel. That’s Olga Montes next to me. She’s the “Wow!” lady. Her husband and co-star in the movie Scarpedicemente, John Vamvas, is at right.
(which is especially nice because my first musical Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” was similarly awarded by SYTYCA)
Central Park was in fall splendor this recent November Monday as I walked from Sheep Meadow through to the Plaza at the 5th ave / 59 Street exit, but the hot sun and blue sky framed the autumnal scene in a nearly incongruous summery light.
plus an on-line screening opportunity
1st chance – NYC – 11/11
“The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” is helping kick off the first night of the CK Film Festival this Friday, Nov 11, in Long Island City, Queens. I will be there. [UPDATE: the festival decided to show my film again the following Sunday.]
CK Film Festival is dedicated to “creating an exclusive, safe and interactive yet intimate screening experience for filmmakers and artists alike. We denounce the “gatekeepy” nature of festivals and welcome a wide array of unique styles from Animation to Narrative Shorts to experimental Features & more.
We look forward to sharing some beautiful & memorable nights with you and the 30+ film’s from around the world!”
FOR MORE INFO AND TICKETS CLICK HERE.
2nd chance – LA – 11/12
The next day, Nov 12, “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” is playing in Los Angeles at the Skiptown Playhouse International Film Festival, at 5pm at The Cat’s Crawl theater at 660 N Heliotrope Drive. Yes, I will be there too, having just flown in earlier that day from NY!
By the way, the Skiptown festival gave my first short “The Tell-Tale Heart – a msuicabre” an award for Best Musical Performance.
CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE FOR INFO AND TICKETS HERE
3rd Chance – NYC – 11/16
And then it’s back to NYC for me in time to attend the P&P screening Wednesday, Nov 16, 6:30pm for The Short Film Awards AKA The SOFIE Awards. All the nominees for Best Styling will be showcased in the same screening block at The Producer’s Club Theaters, 358 W 44th Street.
Incidentally, “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” is nominated for 2 SOFIE awards, Best Actor and Best Styling, with the awards event taking place Nov 18 at Symphony Space.
4. Chance – On-line until 11/27
Meanwhile, the Artist’s Forum Festival for the Moving Image, where “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” recently swept the awards winning five out of seven nominations, has moved its festival program on-line through November 27. You will find “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” closing REFLECTIONS: PROGRAM 3.
If you choose to watch P&P on your laptop, I recommend using ear buds for a more effective, immersive sound experience.
Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story opens with the following Latin inscription and parenthetical annotation:
Impia tortorum longos hic turba furors
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]
Curiously enough, Poe never offers any translation for this Latin quatrain. I had to look it up:
“Here an unholy mob of torturers
with an insatiable thirst for innocent blood,
once fed their long frenzy.
Now our homeland is safe, the funereal cave destroyed,
and life and health appear where dreadful death once was.”
Although the reference to the Jacobin Club House of Paris implies that this inscription refers to the worst terrors of the French Revolution, Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” actually imagines the deadly traps and tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. No exact time is given, but Toledo is mentioned as the setting, not Paris.
For my musical short film adaptation “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” the scene is set with an opening shot of a plaque on a wall, bearing this Latin inscription, translated by subtitles for the viewer (a courtesy not given Poe’s reader), while three cellos intone a mournful version of the main theme. I figured it would help set the mood and foreshadow “unholy tortures” as well as prepare the audience for more Latin to come (albeit sung, not inscribed).
Gaffer Ja’rel Ivory, D.P. Jason Chua and Key Grip Keisuke Nojima
Production Designer Mariana Soares da Silva made the plaque and we affixed it to a wall in the hallway behind the studio space at the Theater for the New City where we had built our main sets. At the end of our sixth day of shooting we took an hour to get some shots of the plaque. We shot in slow motion, experimenting with haze and smoke and lighting.
(The bulk of our Day 6 and 7 were spent on a much more complicated set-up, which I will talk about in the next On Set Diary post.)
 | Ann Hilton Fisher on Ecclesiastes of my own persona… |
 | dannyashkenasi on A Dulcimer, A Fountain, and a… |
| Ann Hilton Fisher on A Dulcimer, A Fountain, and a… |
| Ann Hilton Fisher on I Take the Colbert Questi… |
| Ann Hilton Fisher on Happy Birthday, Ed – Evo… |
| dannyashkenasi on BRAZIL – Pernambuco… |
 | ebnesr9aabfafe63 on BRAZIL – Pernambuco… |
 | 1826sdf913 on Genesis of my own personal NEW… |
 | Weng on Speak Low, Phoenix, Speak… |
 | Tony Ananiadis on Speak Low, Phoenix, Speak… |
 | Brent on HOOVER DAM, MEMORIAL BRIDGE an… |
 | Steven on CANNES IMPRESSIONS Part 2 |
 | Rudi v on Catherine Gayer on the Ra… |
| Rudi on Catherine Gayer on the Ra… |
 | Erin Carere on Love and Hope in Barcelon… |
Notes from a Composer 