Author Archives: paderewski

musings

on the shelf 1

20121201-014627.jpgthis book is very easy to read and i would have finished it earlier except that i always lack for time. jhem gave me STUCK RUBBER BABY as a gift but it’s not exactly light reading so im trying to finish guy delisle’s BURMA CHRONICLES first (enjoyed his PYONGYANG tales so i picked this book up at the recent comic con).

as ive deactivated my facebook today, i do hope to read more books and graphic novels and watch more movies. i know a lot of my time is spent online because of facebook and the other social networks so bear with me while i switch things up and attempt to blog more instead haha). let’s see where this goes, this crazy, inspired leap to facebook freedom. i pray i also get motivated to go back to drawing and maybe write a script. cheers and “hoppy” holidays 😉

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art & design, filmmaking, laundry therapy, musings

waiting game

currently here at mandaluyong in the building where a local cable channel holds office. meeting is hours away and i came from an earlier meeting in ortigas so i decided to kill time at a starbucks in the building. it’s almost an hour and a half since i got here and im close to bursting, wanting to pee but i cant leave my stuff without risking them getting stolen. in the meantime i distract myself by flying my planes (iOS game) off to paris and lagos (that’s in africa) while chatting with my cousin in the US over her status comment box and text messaging a production manager over film related issues. let me see if i can get the manong guard to look over my things while i head to the john.

im excited working on movies again. this time we’re doing a period fantasy and carlo and i will be calling the shots on the design as suppose to just me. i always believe the collaboration will improve anything either of us can come up with. besides, filmmaking is a creation of many heads, not just one. the process is so much different than producing a painting on a piece of canvas. filmmaking requires various hands to pull off succesfully. the art department itself is already composed of a team for maybe 6 to 8 people.

[later] couldnt stand it anymore so i made my way to the john. thankfully my stuff seem to be untouched when i got back. just got a text that my meeting was moved to another 30 minutes. had to take some paracetamol earlier as i felt a fever coming. must be because of the heavy rain and above-ankle flood water we had to traverse through last night on the way home. already took 1000mg’s of vitamin c this morning to help and i hope it’s working coz the day is getting longer.

the past few days i have been going through clips of old filipino movies produced in the 1960s. i want to get a right balance of realism and cinematic exaggeration to the set design for this new movie. will also study the design by american films from the 60s like hitchcock’s vertigo and the elizabeth taylor movie, who’s afraid of virginia wolf.

in the span of Today im hoping to be fully inspired and finish designing this film so we can submit costing, then request funds and start our preps. films in the philippines rarely get a long preparation timetable. the design process has to happen in less than a week so it’s no big surprise why a lot of our films look haphazardly done because it is 😉

filmmaking. it’s more fun in the philippines.

on top of this, im also doing preparations for a tv commercial shoot for the weekend. TVCs are our bread and butter obviously while film will be our creative and crazy advocacy. and yes, working on the set design for a tv show. when it rains, there is baha.

[later] finished meeting with the tv execs. took the cab home so im now in my boxers. meetings for the day may be done but the work is not. will have to finish the film’s design with carlo for tomorrow’s deadline. then the revisions for that tv show’s set then the design breakdown for the tvc’s requirements plus working on the design for another tvc we’re shooting next week. oh, and a line producer called while i was in the cab if im available for that other tvc. when it rains, God will provide you with an ark because there will be baha.

see ya later.

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art & design, costume design, filmmaking, set design

movies coming up

excited that i have two movies to be screened in local theaters in the coming months. first is CAPTIVE by cannes winning director brillante mendoza. we shot this movie in january of last year but it took a long time for post work to finish in europe. after that, we had to wait until after the berlin film festival’s premiere before it could come home 😉

isabelle huppert, legendary french actress, stars as a missionary abducted along with a group of bakasyonistas by extremist group abu sayyaf in palawan in 2001. the story is based on the kidnappings that year, which included gracia burnham and her late husband, martin. the rest of the cast include raymond bagatsing, ronnie lazaro, angel aquino and sid lucero. here’s our facebook page.

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the movie will be showing in local theaters on september 5, 2012 under star cinema.

next is erik matti’s TIKTIK: THE ASWANG CHRONICLES, which was shot june last year and is going through more than a year of post-work because of the heavy cg requirements. the movie is slated to open in october this year, under GMA films in cooperation with reality entertainment.

i worked on the production design with australian pd peter colias (scenic designer for moulin rouge, dark city). first time for me to build a whole house in a studio. during the shoot, strawdog’s adrian espanol and dunn ledesma art directed for the film and cherry fortes and kitch napigkit were in-charge of wardrobe. setmen were buboy crauz’s boys and the guys from strawdogs. follow us on facebook here. here’s the teaser trailer:

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major awesome! long live pinoy movies! 😉

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filmmaking, movies

why they’re such great actresses

this tells us why these two are still the greatest actresses we have in the philippines. this is a scene from the film, ikaw ay akin, which ive never seen actually. hoping i could find a copy somewhere. shot in 1978, this is written and directed by philippine national artist for film ishmael bernal, with additional writing credits for jose carreon (story and screenplay), starring vilma santos, nora aunor and christopher de leon (source imdb.com). just awesome.

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art & design, costume design, filmmaking, interior design, set design

walk like an egyptian

havent blogged anything in a long time so whatevs, i always say that haha

anyway, we shot this eq diapers commercial last year following the story of cleopatra and two of her visitors, an arabian prince and a lowly hebrew woman. loved this shoot. the costumed dramas for eq diapers have become a series of some sort, starting with sonia two years ago, a mix of grecian, elizabethan and gothic influences. the next ad, solomon, i wasnt able to work on because i think i was doing a film then. the third ad in the series would be this one, shot in december last year but only aired in february of this year. posting pics from concept to final output.

SET DESIGN

drew inspiration from classical paintings of cleopatra and egypt.

proj cleopatra.002

also looked into the set design of elizabeth taylor’s cleopatra, (1963) directed by joseph l. mankiewicz, production design by john de cuir (source imdb.com) and martin curtiz’s the egyptian (1954). 

proj cleopatra.011.jpeg

some of these pegs came from the director, mike alcazaren, and im not familiar with what television series they came from.

proj cleopatra.012.jpeg

original set design

set design.jpg

revised set design. the raised platform with pool would be too expensive to construct so i created two separate pool units instead. always wanted to do a set with water again. it’s been a long time haha

set design2.jpg

construction plans in chamba perspective (to produce a drawn perspective without use of rulers and no actual measurements of vanishing points) with measurements for my builders (called setmen). in architecture school, we learned to work in the metric system. when i started working on film, i had to adjust when the setmen told me they worked in feet because materials in the philippines were cut in feet and inches. it actually makes sense. why measure out 2.4384 meters for a panel when you can just say 8 feet?

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art & design, set design

more corned tuna

we shot this the other year. i believe i only got to see this in full recently.


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did the set design with carlo, lola fer, paulie, etc.  as with the previous ad for san marino (also with dingdong and marian), i pitched in the costume design for the celebrities but they had their own stylists to work on their wardrobe. dingdong’s stylist is noel manapat.  i forgot the name of marian’s stylist (my bad, sorry about that) but he’s also from cagayan de oro and apparently his mom is a friend of my tita. small world!  😉

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art & design, filmmaking, interior design, musings, set design

production designer job description

taken in 2005 on the set of kaleldo, the 2nd feature length film dante mendoza directed and i designed for. here actress cherry pie picache is fixing her lapel while we look on. crazy times.

stumbled upon setdesign’s tweet about skillset’s article on the responsibilities of a production designer. although i took up architecture and interior design (once upon a time) and eventually got a degree in fine arts, i never really studied production design. there is no course on production design here in the Philippines, just a 3-unit subject offered under the film program, which i never took. in high school, i yearned to direct movies but never to design for film.  i counted on cesar hernando as a mentor in college but my training came from cannes winner brillante mendoza, when he was still known as dante mendoza, the production designer.   a friend of a friend recommended me to mendoza back in 2004 when i really didn’t have an idea what i would be getting into except the fact that i’d be involved in a shoot.  you may call me an accidental production designer, like most designers i know.

production design in the philippines is a tricky sort, one that hasn’t been formalized and standardized.  there are expectations but the working styles, commitment and the art department designations vary per designer. more often than not, here in the Philippines the production designer is a designer, art director, set decorator, wardrobe and props buyer in one.  when i was an apprentice for dante mendoza, i learned to juggle different requirements for various tv commercial projects all happening at the same time. our team ranged from 3-6 people per project with overlapping responsibilities. i later learned other tvc designers, like butch garcia and adelina leung, would have a different art department team for each project.  practices in production design also adjust slightly when working on film (independent and mainstream), print media, tv shows and music videos.

was offered to work as art director for an international ad recently. i immediately said yes, not only because i was excited to work with the celebrity talent but more because i would be working with an international production designer (and production staff).  the prospect of learning something new and hopefully improving my work as a designer and that of my team thrilled me.  add to this the fact that the director used to be a production designer as well raised the stakes but i was stoked and was more than eager to get the work started.

the skillset article breaks down what would be the ideal setup for the art department, something we local designers can hope to have and given the budget of most productions in the Philippines, we can only dream of. im reposting the whole article below

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