Private Project

Pit & Pendulum

“Pit & Pendulum” is a 27 minute experimental film based upon Edgar Allan Poe’s horror classic.

The film is an experiential experiment.

The words of the author provide the texture for the Audience’s imagination.

It is the terrorizing story of a person sentenced to death who becomes the plaything of their jailers. They are sent walking through a dark room in hopes they will fall into a pit. When that doesn’t happen they are tied down on a table to watch the painfully slow descent of a swinging pendulum with a sharp-edged blade aimed at their stomach. Escaping from the blade did not mean freedom. The walls of the dungeon grow blistering hot first, then squeeze together to push them to the brink of the pit, before being saved at the very last second.

Each horrific moment is shared with the Audience in simple images for them to flesh out under the spell of Poe’s words.

Black-Box Cinema means minimalistic sets and props illustrate the original words, in this case making use of Poe’s own technique – The Telegraph Mosaic (as Marshal McLuhan termed it) – in visual form.

The Audience’s imagination is the architect of the dungeon, its textures, and its smells, and can create far more terrifying images than any that can be made.

In this manifestation, the gender of the protagonist has been neutralized, and Poe’s text judiciously edited to remove references to time and place, making it universal.

  • J. Aldric Gaudet
    Director
    The Hijacking of Studio 4 / Deadly Pursuit
  • Scriptor
    Writer
    private clients
  • J. Aldric Gaudet
    Producer
    Deadly Pursuit
  • Pamela Gardner
    Key Cast
    "The Prisoner"
  • Kristi Boulton
    Key Cast
    "The Voice"
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes 11 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 16, 2022
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    GOPRO 4K
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Cannes World Film Festival
    Cannes
    France
    September 22, 2022
    Finalist
  • LOS ANGELES HORROR FILM FESTIVAL
    Los Angeles
    United States
    October 20, 2022
    Selected
  • WILDsound FEEDBACK Film and Screenplay Festival
    Toronto
    Canada
    October 29, 2022
    Selected / BEST PERFORMANCES
  • Arpa International Film Festival (Arpa IFF)
    Los Angeles
    United States
    November 1, 2022
    Selected
  • Hamilton Film Festival - Canadian Film Market
    Hamilton
    Canada
    November 11, 2022
    Selected
  • Art Film Spirit Awards Art Film Spirit Awards
    Toronto
    Canada
    November 17, 2022
    Honourable Mention
  • Dublin World Film Festival Dublin World Film Festival
    Dublin
    United Kingdom
    November 30, 2022
    Semi-Finalist
  • Canada Shorts 22
    Vancouver
    Canada
    November 30, 2022
    Award of Excellence
  • Zagreb International Film Festival
    Zagreb
    Croatia
    November 30, 2022
    Best Experimental Film
Director Biography - J. Aldric Gaudet

Film Freeway

My professional writing credits include TV Documentaries, “Struggle Beneath the Sea,” and Episodic Dramas, “The Littlest Hobo.”

“Baltic Storm” a FF came from a producer’s outline based upon real events. Released 2003.

“Anatomy of a Hijacking” a FF suspense thriller commissioned to be based on eyewitness accounts. In development.

“Error-2000" was a TVM rewrite polish. Aired 1999.

My screenplay, "The Hijacking of Studio 4," was a TVM produced by a Canadian producer who would make Roger Corman blush. I got to direct it, but first I had to produce and direct another TVMovie with less than a shoestring budget and a screenplay that needed work. That was released as “Deadly Pursuit” aka “The Commando Game.”

I thrive when working with other creatives whether on my projects or theirs.

PROJECTS

“The Piper,” a darkly twisted re-rendering of the Pied Piper legend set in a post-apocalyptic world struggling back to its feet without electricity or machines: The Future Past.
A graphic novel version has been published.

“5 Fables for the Young at Heart.” I write prose versions of my favorite fantasy screenplays. They were published in this collection.

“Madmen Have No Ears”
“Imogen”
“Not To Be”

I took 3 Shakespeare plays and published prose interpretations with updated language.

“Incident on Highway 7"

A satirical thriller. A lighthearted tribute to that last gasp of innocence in Southern Ontario during the summer of ‘74, full of memorable characters.

MEDIA LITERACY

The more one understands how media is used to manipulate emotions, the less one is vulnerable to corporate propaganda.

I taught screenwriting and the filmmaking process through courses for McMaster University and the Factory Media Centre.

My award winning short “Pit & Pendulum” was an experiment of technique. Using Poe’s words to stimulate the viewer’s imagination around the minimalistic images seen on screen. Its simplicity demonstrated the power of cinema at its most basic.

I create the kind of stories I like to see. Enlightened entertainment.
I create in Hamilton, Ontario, the perfect film location.
Gaudet is Latin for “be happy.”

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This is an experiential experiment.

Edgar Allan Poe’s words provide the texture for the Audience’s imagination.

To best achieve that this film must be seen in a theatre with an audience. Also, to those who wish to show it, there are Stereo, Dolby 5.1 and Atmos versions of the sound depending on your equipment.