Category Archives: costume design

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

60s love on the x-men

i was excited when teaser clips of this film were circulated.  what’s not to love? a younger batch of x-men in the 60s? it’s like porn. and rightly so, with the magnetic chemistry and undeniable bromance between professor charles x xavier and erik lehnsherr, played by james mcavoy and michael fassbender.

this may be the best x-men film out there for me. the pacing was right and fassbenber’s performance is just killer. he owned the film actually.  online reviews reflect a more mixed feedback but im all for this film. weak link was probably january jones, playing the white queen, because she doesnt seem to know how to act.  she always had this blank stare and looked like she’s eternally bored and it’s not a very convincing bored look in the first place!

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but the biggest selling point for me with this film is the 60s look. i thought it was an obvious route for director matthew vaughn to take this movie to that era because he also did the 60s advertising tv series, mad men.  i apparently have mistaken him for matthew weiner haha.  vaughn, a totally different guy, produced lock stock and two smoking barrels with director guy ritchie (ex-mr.madonna) before he went on to direct stardust and kick-ass, among others.

credit for the gorgeous set design go to the production designer chris seagers and his team of art directors led by john king and dawn swiderski plus set decoration by erin boyd and sonja klaus. costume design is by sammy sheldon. i just love anything 60s-70s.  they’re so much fun to look at and do.  full info at imdb.com.  i do not take credit for the photos below.  details on the photos were taken from architectural digest.  im just a fan  🙂

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more after the jump.

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art & design, costume design

uyayi ng ulan

in february of 2011, the university of the east drama company staged a student production of nick pichay’s “uyayi ng ulan,” a coming of age story of this lazy boy who ventures and meets different characters, opening his eyes to realities in the world.  this musical version was directed by erick castro and they had carlo tabije do the costumes and makeup. carlo has worked with the uedc years ago and this was a welcome break from doing tv commercials all the time.  of course the budget for this production is rather low and i am impressed how carlo worked around this without compromising vision.

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the challenge was to dress up actors as animals without covering their faces with masks. the animals need not be literal so carlo resorted to face paints as well as appropriating costumes to the intention. for example, the mother hen was dressed in a fully printed dress and shawl to push a more nanay look and the layered skirts copied the chicken’s heavily feathered bottom.

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the sensual lady musang sported a fully painted body reminiscent to the tattooed women of benguet in the mountain province.

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art & design, costume design, interior design, musings, set design

bongga villa

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this was my first time to work with pokwang and she was very nice, even ordered lechon all the way from cebu (sabrosa) for the staff and crew. the costumes were care of ien beltran, a stylist friend who worked with us in brillante mendoza’s up coming movie, prey.  in saying this, im glad i only had to do props and set here because we only had about 2 days to prepare.  doing the costumes with everything else would have been crazy so im glad they got ien to handle all of costuming.  jeorge agcaoili was directing and so i had the privilege to work with him and the fun people at provil again.

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originally the director’s board featured a dark banquet hall and we decided to push the style a bit. i pulled inspiration from black swan’s production design.  i liked the woods backdrop in the dance hall and the modern design in the ballet director’s house (not pictured here– i dont normally put everything out in the pegs presentation because sometimes it doesnt work, and when it does it becomes a pleasant surprise)

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wanted black, white and glass in the design with elements of twigs and small flowers.

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however, we were later on informed that client wanted french or victorian so we had to drop black swan and went for something traditional.  although i loved my original design, i had to go with the higher echelons so i compromised and gave them this new set of pegs.

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

gawin mong light

shot the new emperador light tv ad with erik matti as director and featuring celebrity endorser ryan agoncillo and singer johnoy danao.  gawin mong light, goes this lovely ditty penned by johnoy. previously, my less than 6 degrees of separation from him is due to jerrold tarog’s high school fare, senior year, where johnoy’s music is featured.  thrilled to have worked with him, albeit now up close.

the set design was relatively easy to accomplish as i had my showroom favorites i wanted to feature in this tvc.  my pegs and design werent far off from what i eventually got for the shoot  🙂  here’s the location (below) in tagaytay.  apparently, manny pacquiao shot scenes for his wapakman movie here previously.

presented these pegs (below) to agency.  we were trying to make an eclectic mix of modern and pinoy furniture, like a butaka, but i later thought it didnt gel with the rest. what we retained though was the round synthetic abaca daybed, which i decided to put in another area of the room.

 

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

like!

probably one of the most fun shoots we did this year was working on the currently airing lola techie commercial for bayanDSL. lyle sacris directed all tvcs for bayanDSL’s lola techie ads and this would be my first working on this campaign with him. i had to recreate every detail of continuity from the previous commercials but the bedroom and kitchen were new ground so i was able to play around with it. it helped a lot that the location we shot in was amazing, with authentic vintage 70s furniture and gorgeous detailed work on ceiling and wall panels.

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had to introduce a few more elements to the house to push the lolatechi-ness in the design. i always love playing up the 70s feel in my designs and this was another opportunity to do so  🙂  i always get inspiration from amelie (directed by jean-pierre jeunet, design by aline bonetto (art director) and marie-laure valla (set decorator), and of course top photographer erwin olaf.  a lot of the toys in lola techie’s house are from direk lyle’s own collection, including worlds of warcraft and the matrix’s sentinel (which we wanted to put on her bed’s headboard but was taken out eventually).

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art & design, costume design, filmmaking

CAPTIVE The Movie (formerly titled PREY)

dec 23 2011
since the announcement of brillante mendoza’s new film (formerly titled PREY) CAPTIVE’s inclusion in the 2012 berlin international film festival main competition and having my photos properly credited on the local news (thanks, tv patrol), i reckon it safe to repost and make public this blog article on the film, posted february 15, 2011  😉 merry christmas and enjoy!

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here’s explaining my busy schedule for the last few months.  carlo and i worked on brillante mendoza’s new opus PREY (international title CAPTURED), shot in january 2011.  preparations took months and since november 2010 we’ve been going around the locations and meeting a lot with the director for this film. i had to stop doing tv commercials by december so i could focus on pre-production for the movie.

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mon confiado evoking shawshank redemption in mauban quezon

i had to forgo a good amount of my christmas vacation and pretty much the new year’s celebration as well to work on the film. we started to shoot PREY by january 11, starting in calatagan batangas (which ive no photos of) then moved to mauban quezon.

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the pensive tado

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timothy mabalot

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mon confiado

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neil ryan sese

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the gorgeous angel aquino

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

a single man

oh wow. A Single Man is tom ford’s first film and based on the trailer, this film looks delish! the production design of a 60s, erwin olaf-esque milieu is beautiful, it’s practically a dream. and you know i just love the 60s (see my set for butiki). julianne moore looks fabulous here and the first few images of colin firth is heartwrenching.  i wouldnt normally blog about a movie trailer but every shot was just gorgeous, i had to write about it.



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art & design, costume design

may asim ka pa ba?

worked as “stylist” on datu puti’s mukhasim festival. had a fun time dressing up carmi martin, eula valdez and ina raymundo. had to meet them separately for fittings; carmi at a shoot, eula at ccp before a zsazsa zaturnnah show, and ina at her home. erik matti directs with lyle sacris as DOP. my lone wardrobe assist was chantel. cheers!

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art & design, costume design

seforel tvc

this posting is long overdue. we did this ad for seforel october 2008. had a hard time finding an office that we wanted with the schedule that we needed to do the shoot. eventually we narrowed it down to two offices, including the revolver studios office. and i said, yes i can make something out of the lobby. so we did that. unfortunately, looks like it will also be the last time we’d shoot in the office too hehehe

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art & design, costume design, musings

that mineral water shoot

this we shot in november 2008. the shoot took place in zambales, on camara island. had to have custom-made pois done mainly because we followed a particular color scheme. logistics was tricky as the set guys had to ferry construction materials to the island to build those beach resort huts and bar 🙂

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