waiting for interstellar to start. so this would be the first movie carlo and i are watching in a cineplex since mariquina in august but that was at the UP film center so it’s sort of not counted. before that, we watched k’na and kasal during the cinemalaya film festival at the ccp in june. so that’s sort of also not counted. i watched lucy with my mom first week of july though. awesome. excited for interstellar! nolan, let’s do dis!
im sure a lot of you agree. in the depth and darkness of the crevices of your soul, you weep with joy for the 1st comment or like you ever get and thank the heavens for the validation of your being. nowadays, you are worth your likes. such a sad commentary of our times.
i am liked, therefore i am. chos.
manix will forever be my idol. comic strip originally appeared on gma news online. link here.
while doing research and working out the production design for the feature film, heneral luna, i got inspired by a scene from the script and decided to draw a sketch with antonio luna lost in thought playing his guitar and is about to be interrupted by his mother at the door. sketch is obviously unfinished but up to today i dont have the heart to finish it.
drew a kitchen set design that was eventually cut out from the director’s treatment of that particular tv commercial project. playing on blacks and neutral colors (cappuccino maybe) and brushed aluminum steel for the appliances, plus bright vintage acrylic lamps in orange for a pop of color.
in reality i wouldnt put the oven right next to the refrigerator but sometimes for a commercial, one has to employ creative license and in a second or two, establish the whole kitchen in a wide shot and in the succeeding frame show why the oven had to be positioned at the back of the talent standing behind the counter.
posting that drawing here. drawn via app on the ipad using paper by 53.
excited to see a much more meatier trailer for INTO THE WOODS now out on youtube.
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INTO THE WOODS, written by stephen sondheim (words and music) and james lapine (book), is a musical originally staged on broadway in 1987. disney picked up the material about this subversive entanglement of fairy tale characters, most of which theyve made famous in animated features, and decided to produce the movie version with rob marshall (chicago) directing.
ive seen the awesome PBS recorded version of the broadway show so many times we might actually have stretched the betamax magnetic strip to render it unviewable. the original cast (bernadette peters, chip zien, joanna gleason, etc.) holds a special place in my heart so i do struggle thinking how this film might water down so many nuances and bold, adult themes and the trailer right now looks too serious for such a funny (and serious) material and it may turn out to be an inferior version. the film cast may be promising but the original broadway cast’s performance was so perfect, so, however, still, regardless, i have mixed feelings of excitement and fear and am anxious and thrilled and constipated and giddy and doing an i-have-to-pee dance in fevered anticipation. ugh. cant wait!
if you wanna see the PBS show before this movie comes out in the theaters, come by the house to watch. special screening!
sometimes the things you most wish for are not to be touched.
careful the things you say, children will listen. careful the things you do, children will see and learn.
this is awesome.
a piece of news has gone viral locally about a dutch restaurant displaying the portrait of filipino actor cherie gil mistaken as the real maria callas. read about the news article here. i do wonder how stupid and lazy the artist could get to not have done his research properly, with the internet giving him hundreds of photos of the opera singer and he ends up picking the wrong one. this, however, amuses and thrills me no end. we were fortunate enough to have watched cherie’s powerful performance as maria callas in terence mcnally’s master class in manila in 2008 and up to this day, i still get goosebumps thinking about it. this maybe akin to people watching for the first time lea salonga perform as kim in 1989 or experience ted neely rock it out in the cinema as jesus christ. it is life changing. char.
i dont know if i would want to berate the artist for being so stupid or if i should just praise gil (and her team of stylists) for fooling the dutch portrait artist. for good measure, here is a photo (lifted from the net; i dont own rights to any of the photos ive posted in this article with the exception of the screencap) of the real maria callas.
this was in response to an old facebook challenge on listing down top so and so of so that i didnt have time to post until now. since im not on facebook as of the moment, im posting them here. for my favorite sci-fi movies (not necessarily the best there is but a lot of them are), here is the list (in pictures) in no particular order.
and my sentimental favorite. take a guess what it is.
cesar hernando, production designer for most of mike de leon’s films (batch ’81, kisapmata), sent us invitations to revisit the college of fine arts at university of the philippines and celebrate our organization’s 16th year anniversary last saturday, 25th of october 2014. that org is CAM, Cinema as Art Movement. generally a group of film enthusiasts from fine arts who love to watch and dissect films, the org evolved to encouraging students to work on their own cinematic masterpieces and involving more to see cinema beyond entertainment. the broadness and loftiness of the concept that embodies the org’s name may lead to its own downfall but the org strived to meet each generation of members’ goals for the sake of cinema. and art. 16 years later and even 10 years since my batch has graduated, the argument on what the org really should be remain diverse; its implied goal elusive.
CAM’s pioneering members include esquire magazine’s editor-in-chief erwin romulo, photographers gary buenavista, richard de guzman, j lucas reyes, film cinematographer eli balce, and graphic artist tom estrera iii. some of the org’s advisers and supporters are cannes winner raymond red, cinematographers larry manda and dindo martinez, and independent filmmaker mes de guzman.
long ago its membership was exclusively fine arts students until the group, under my leadership in 2002, opened to accept students from other colleges in UP. we enjoyed a strong physical presence in the fine arts halls that year, aided by a healthy number of members, and even went as far as leveling up the org’s indie video film festival, inyorai, to become an intercollegiate event and saw entries coming in from ateneo, la salle, and PLM. towards the 2nd half of the year, we planned to hold workshops on various aspects of production with the hope that members and students would have the necessary know-how to produce their own works. a school year is too short and we were only able to hold 2 workshops and it was like starting from scratch the year after. such is life for a school organization.
photo of past and present chairheads of CAM
that saturday we did find ourselves again in the hallowed halls of hogwarths, communing with ghosts from the past and stray cats of the present. i was late coming into the program so i had no idea what was being discussed earlier. i had to introduce myself to the kids.
so it is with a reassured heart that we leave an impression with the young ones to continue what he had hoped to accomplish back in the day. however, i do fear (i believe) the key to success for this so-called movement lies with the alumni. and maybe even outsiders who can pursue that grand idea and move the call forward. this movement can no longer be contained in a college organization whose lifespan is limited to periods the length of a school semester before restarting its programs or do an overhaul with every new enrollment of students. maybe it’s time we pick up the camera again, this time armed with real world know-how and connections beyond the world of the academe.
class picture! i love you new cam members but i dont know all your names. on the front row are alumni from left: jopay cuntapay, peta stage writer and actress anj herjuela, tv commercial director mike talampas, esquire editor-in-chief erwin romulo, prof cesar hernando, myself, bates ad agency acd jhem manalang, prof ruben de jesus, comic book illustrator aj bernardo, graphic artist tom estrera iii, gma agency hotshot jimi diga, comic book writer and editor noel pascual, and chorva.
*special thanks to anj for sharing the last three photos in this article. for more information on Cinema as Art Movement, check out the group’s facebook page.
havent been able to blog a lot more. im currently writing long hand in a journal offline. seems working though. the internet is a crazier place now than when i started blogging back in geocities days. social media has become too demanding and the pressure to have followers and likes is insane id rather be off it. choz. but i may come back to writing online. jan 14 2019.
this is where i am. this is me
shooting the last day of our shake rattle and roll part xv episode 2 today. it’s evening and my energy has gone down by 10.30pm. the dust in the house and maybe the weather (it’s been raining since after dinnertime) has kicked in my asthma after all that laughing this afternoon.
we’re trying to finish two big sequences with an average of 10 2-cam shots each before 3am but i reckon we’ll finish by daybreak. everybody’s brought sweets and pastries (and more food) to honor the last shoot day traditions and that might also have pushed me into my current compromised respiratory state. im trying to keep still, hoping the wheezing would also follow suit.
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6 hours after and maybe 30 minutes into the next day’s sunrise, when all are basically walking dead, we finally hear our director call out, “it’s a wrap!” to new friends, old ones, and in-betweens, we love you all!
clockwise from top: bernard (2nd cam), mackie (dop), ara (scriptcon), bryan (sound), jerrold behind me (director), myself, relyn (ad), jaja (pa).
benjamin padero 