The Broken Castle of Heidelberg

Posted on September 2, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Before I visited I did not know that Heidelberg’s grand castle complex is actually a ruin. In 1689, after decades of warfare, the French army blew up and set fire to much of the castle so that no army may ever be sent from here to invade France again.

For over three hundred years now, much longer than the main structures of the castle ever stood intact, Heidelberg Castle remains as one of Europe’s grandest ruins.

Perhaps it is fitting I ended up taking most of my pictures of the castle, and Heidelberg, under overcast skies.

Altough the sun did peak out sometimes, like for this selfie.

And this is us about to enjoy a local treat, Kurfürstenknödel, with the castle looking on.

You enter the castle grounds through the Elizabeth Gate, built overnight February 14, 1613, as a birthday gift by Prince-Elector Friedrich V for his wife Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter England’s King James I.

According to Wikipedia, in 1689 portions of Heidelberg were also burned, but the mercy of a French general who told the townspeople to set small fires in their homes to create smoke and the illusion of widespread burning, prevented wider destruction.

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P&P – The Revealing of the Cake

Posted on August 23, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Thank You to the Crew of “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” addendum


When I’d uploaded my original thank you post to the crew of “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” I didn’t yet have the video above that shows the actual reveal of the Poe cake Ed had ordered at a local bakery.

I’m not sure who took the video above of this moment at the end of our last long day of filming, celebrating our efforts with some chocolate raspberry deliciousness.

Henry Borriello (producer) opens the carton. Photobombing the cake is Ja’rel Ivory (Key Grip), next you can see Mariana Soares da Silva (Production Design), Han Jang Houston (Assistant Camera), Katie Conway (Production Assistant), Sami Eddy (Make-up and Hair), Jimmy McCoy (VFX), and Charlotte Purser (Assistant Director) thanking everybody. My original thank you post features pictures of even more individuals.

I’m on an August break from the film right now, looking forward to heading into editing in September. Finding this video and these pics in a series of photos the P&P crew shared with another has been a sweet treat today, so I thought I’d pass that treat along here, along with a few more behind the scenes morsels.

Oh, and if you are wondering, click here to be reminded why I went from really hairy to totally bald…

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Some Mile High Fun …

Posted on August 16, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

… No, not THAT kind of Mile High fun

On a recent overseas flight, I found the airplane’s bathroom as tiny as such facilities usually are, but this one also had small mirrors facing each other, allowing for repeating images.

Having just worked on a film where mirror images play an important part, I could not help but explore my cascading reflections in the opposing mirrors.

Perhaps I got a little carried away…

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TELL-TALE at HALLOWEEN HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Posted on August 11, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

There’s another chance to see my musical short film Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” this Friday at a live film festival screening in Orlando, Florida.

“The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” will be screening courtesy of the Halloween Horror Picture Show film festival, taking place as part of MegaCon Orlando.

MegaCon Orlando runs August 12-15. The Halloween Horror Picture Show screens on the 13th and 14th. Tell-Tale screens Friday as part of Short Block 1.

So if you are going to MegaCon Orlando, have fun, stay safe, and check out the gothic musical stirrings of “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre”.

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Landing in JFK …

Posted on August 7, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

… with the sun shining against a scratched up window.

We were arriving in NYC. JFK airport was just below us. But we were clearly too high to land directly. The plane would circle out south of Long island over the ocean and return at a lower altitude to land.

My window was heavily scratched. So much so that my phone’s camera sometimes focused on the scratches, not the view beyond.

As much as the window’s faults impeded the ability to take a clear picture, it also added occasionally to a, say, artistic impressionism, especially when the sunlight refracted just so…

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Beautiful and yet Painful to Watch

Posted on August 3, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

How a Tell-Tale Compliment Became a T-Shirt Dare

My friend Dean Jackson recently watched “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” and sent me a message about his reaction to my short film. I don’t make a habit of repeating on this blog the compliments I’ve received from friends, but in this case Dean’s words led to an amusing little side thought, specifically a T-Shirt design that I dare anyone to wear.

Here’s the salient excerpt of Dean’s message:

“Danny, I finally watched your film. Your performance was mesmerizing and the cinematography was captivating. I loved your score and I am haunted by your film. I’m reminded of Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, beautiful and yet painful to watch.”

I thanked Dean for his generous praise. But the phrase that really struck me was “beautiful and yet painful to watch”. What a potent turn of phrase. I love it.

And now I can’t help but imagine it emblazoned on a T-Shirt.

I even went on Cafe Press to create a mock up of it:

I’m trying to imagine who would wear such a shirt in public.

Someone brutally narcissistic? Brave and ironic? Cosplayer?

You?

(Not me!)

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Danny Looks into the Lens

Posted on July 30, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

A Pit & Pendulum On-Set Tidbit

We were shooting a moment where I am mostly in profile. So, before each take, Jason Chua, the cinematographer, would ask “Danny, could you look into the lens?” to get me to squarely face the camera so he could make sure the focus was correct before we called action.

By the third take and the third time I heard “Danny, could you look into the lens?” I turned to face the camera and gave it my best Dwayne The Rock Johnson smolder.

It got a laugh in the midst of a grueling day on set shooting yet more of Poe inspired horrors.

I’ve just spent two weeks pouring through all the footage of our 10 day shoot. Lots and lots of hours of many many takes of me enduring one or another of the several circles of hell Poe invented for the hero/victim of his fiendish short story. Or one or another of the horrors I imposed upon myself (director torturing the actor) on top of Poe’s infernal inspirations.

This moment caught by the camera before we called action during the 7th day of shooting reminds me that it actually also was fun …

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BEST ACTOR at the DENALI FILM FESTIVAL

Posted on July 22, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Hi Danny! 


We hope this finds you well!

Congratulations! You won Best Actor in the 2020 Denali Film Festival!


Please visit the laurel center for your winner laurel! 


It was an honor to feature your work! Please be in touch and keep us updated on your future projects as well as the success of Tell-Tale Heart!

Best,

Kim and Darrell


—


Kimberly Braun and Darrell Johnston

Directors of the Denali Film Festival

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A Thank You from Hair We Share

Posted on July 17, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Dear Danny,

On behalf of the staff and the board of directors of Hair We Share we want to thank you for joining our “Track Your Ponytail” program. It means so much to us and the person who will receive your ponytails. They are great. Would you please share your story on your FB page and tag #myhairstory and #HairWeShare. This will bring such awareness to our mission.

We know there are many charities for you to donate to and we are honored you have chosen Hair We Share.  We will be processing your ponytail and as soon as it is finished into a wig, we will provide you with that information. This can take as long as 6-9 months or longer now due to the pandemic but be assured we are on top of it all the way. I have enclosed a certificate for you and we hope you will print it.


Thank you so much,




Dean Riskin

Co-Founder Hair We Share

www.Hairweshare.org

Before

After

Step by step video documentation of the cutting, buzzing and shaving process to be published later.

As well as the picture of the wig made from my hair, when I receive it from Hair We Share.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE – August 3, 2021 – wearing the T-Shirt Hair We Care sent me

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TELL-TALE at DENALI

Posted on July 15, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

“THE TELL-TALE HEART – A MUSICABRE”

plays at the DENALI FILM FESTIVAL July 15-18

streaming on-line

Alaska’s Denali Film Festival (click here to go there) had accepted my short film musical Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” into their 2020 Film Festival, which got postponed because of Covid 19.

Now they are combining both their 2020 and 2021 festivals, today through July 18, with live events in Alaska as well as the ability to stream every film in both festival programs from anywhere with internet through the purchase of a $24 all-access ticket.

From the 2020 and 2021 festival trailers one can see that the Denali Film Festival features a lot of amazing nature photography in both documentary and narrative films.

But they also include some quirky exceptions to that general rule, like my very in-doorsy and dark horror chamber piece. When I asked the festival directors Kim and Darrell about that last year, they just said “We both really enjoy your work! We sang ‘true, nervous, very very dreadfully nervous’ most days the last month.”  Which warmed the cockles of my heart – the one in my chest, not the one I hid under the floorboards…

Here is a screenshot of “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” as featured in the Denali Film Festival 2020 trailer:

And Tell-Tale’s blurb in the festival program (watch the Tell-Tale trailer here):

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EVOCATION XXVIII – for Ed’s 62nd Birthday

Posted on July 12, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Today is Ed’s birthday.

And like every year since our first together, I will present him with a viola/piano duet I composed. They are all called Evocations.

This year it’s Evocation XXVIII.

Ed will probably blanche at the double stops, but I will assure him they are all played with one open string, so no awkward fingering required. (Never mind that one triple stop in measure 20, the one tricky exception to this rule …)

Ed might also at first hesitate at the many crunchy close major and minor second harmonies he must play. The viola melody is closely making its way around and about drone tones which shift from string to string as the piece progresses and digresses. But only at the very end is the lowest string, the C string, played openly.

Below is audio of Evocation XXVIII as played by the computer. All the notes can be heard, and the quality is pretty good, considering it is computer tones… but as always with the computer, that human touch is lacking.

And I have a hunch this Evocation, more willful and mysterious than its recent predecessors, especially requires that human touch …

Listen to the computer instruments’ straight-laced intoning here:

Below you can follow along with the score (which, I just noticed, somehow lost the measure lines on the far right sides when reformatted as a pdf – computer being bizarre…)

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Thank You to the Crew of “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre”

Posted on July 10, 2021 by dannyashkenasi
Charlotte Purser, Sami Eddy, Jimmy McCoy, Katie Conway, Han Jang Houston
Mariana Soares da Silva
Ja’rel Ivory
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LOOK, MA! NO HAIRS!

Posted on July 9, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

(More about all that to be posted soon … )

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P&P – Today the Hair Gets Shorn!

Posted on July 8, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Today I cut my hair. All of it. Off. Beard too. I’ll be completely clean shaven and bald.

This has been in the works for over a year.

I got the closest hair cut of my life July 2019, and have let those follicles grow ever since, and when I realized that I would be going from long hair to bald for the sake on my new film “The Pit and the pendulum – a musicabre“, I knew I would just let it keep growing until we were in production. The longer the hair the greater the contrast to the bald version of me, and that would suit the film.

You can see the progression of me from short to long here, and a recent shot of my hair at its longest here, and, well, now here, in this post.

Yesterday we did a shot that required lots of hairspray. I washed out my hair on set. These selfies I took whole blowing my hair dry. I thought, let’s give my Veronica Lakers one last public hurrah. After all, this is these hairs’ last evening on Earth. Tomorrow they get tied into pony tales and snipped off, then put into ziplock baggies to be sent to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients. What’s left of the hairs on my scalp will get shaven clean. As will my face.

It’s all part of the plan for the film. Why? What narrative purpose does it fulfill?

You’ll have to wait and see for that answer…

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TELL-TALE SKIPTOWN MUSICAL WINNER

Posted on July 4, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

Skiptown Playhouse Film Festival Awards

“The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre”

or

an incredible delightful distinction vs an insignificant dialectic dilemma

As Vincenzo CarubiaI, festival director of the Los Angeles based Skiptown Playhouse International Film Festival, elaborates in announcing the winners:

“It feels like it’s been a forever journey to get to this point. 


In November of 2019 we began receiving submissions for what was supposed to be our OCTOBER 2020 Festival and second annual one at that. Our festival finally took place from JUNE 24 – JUNE 30 2021 after a long postponement.

I know everyone is super eager for the results of this festival. Please know that the decisions were made by several judges involved and your projects were watched multiple times.

The decisions are NEVER EASY, but I need remind you that at the end of the day we thoroughly enjoyed all of your projects and there is a bit of magic and something special about every one of them. I’m honored to have had you included in this season as I spent a solid year and a half with this round of films.”

 

As you can see from the Skiptown festival 2020 winners page and the laurel above, “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” was awarded Best Musical Performance.

Curiously, well, maybe only curious to me, the official certificate states the recognition is for “Best Musical Short”:

Now I’m not trying to be greedy here.

I don’t think I won two awards.

And I do think the officially intended nod is to the “musical performance”.

But this is one of those times where my tendency towards debating fine distinctions could get the better of me…

Instead, let’s try a distraction; here’s a look at part of the Skiptown Winner Wall (d’you see me?):

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P&P – And So It Begins

Posted on July 1, 2021 by dannyashkenasi

We have had two shooting days on “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre“. And I already have enough material for maybe four production diary posts, including one that will be quite the doozy! But I probably won’t have time to post any of these until I come up for air…

Meanwhile, as a taste, here is a glimpse of me in my main costume. A 17th century Spanish-style doublet, which was tailor made by costume designer Anthony Paul-Cavaretta, who was also responsible for dressing my first musical Poe short “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre“.

I took this selfie just outside the Theater for the New City, where again we have converted one of their theater spaces into a film sound stage.

And if you look real closely, you may get a hint of one of the upcoming production diary blog posts that will be quite the doozy!

Stay tuned.

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