Category Archives: art & design

art & design, filmmaking, musings

preparations

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ive setup in the living room. trying to consolidate notes from two versions of the script. reencoding my breakdown. coffee helps but i think i need more.

it’s january but we’ve been at this since july last year. sometimes, no matter the length of time to prepare for a project, it will always seem like you never have time to finish things perfectly. working on preproduction for HENERAL LUNA, a film im designing along with carlo for Jerrold Tarog, our director from cinemalaya’s mangatyanan. and senior year. and srr punerarya. and srr parola. it will be our first full length period movie. and the biggest in terms of requirements. it’s soo big i need to go through the script a hundred times just to absorb all the details. and im nowhere near done. we’ve done quite a lot the past few months and there’s still tons to do it’s insane.

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here’s to ANTONIO LUNA and who killed him and has kept the country in the dark all these years. more on the making of this film later 😉

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, set design

ABOVE THE CLOUDS Production Diary #2

the next installment to the behind the scenes videos for ABOVE THE CLOUDS was released a few days ago. here it is:


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the 1st video is posted here.

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, musings

ABOVE THE CLOUDS Production Diary #1

here’s a behind the scenes video produced to promote the film we are currently working on. we’ve already done about 80% of the movie and we’re down to the last 8 days of shoot by may 2013. here’s the first video released on the making of ABOVE THE CLOUDS.

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art & design, filmmaking

shooting just below the clouds 2

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the second leg of shooting above the clouds brought us to sagada, a quiet little town in the mountain province. we’ve spent about a week here shooting exterior scenes of the forest, burial sites, and caves. after having stayed for about a week in baguio, we eventually got used to 17 deg centigrade weather, thank God! i did come prepared with multiple layers of thermal wear and bubble jackets as i freeze easily even in the malls in manila. pleasantly surprised how my body adjusted to the cold weather so i can say, i may just be able to survive the temperate countries.

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on set a chilly morning, ms tonee acejo had the gall to be in short shorts while we were all covered up.

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pepe smith on his guitar in-between setups.

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closeup of the pine trees covered with moss in sagada

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sketching the location

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me with pepe smith against the beautiful lake danum (danum means lake so that means it’s “lake lake”)

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carlo and i hit the backwoods while a shot was taking place in another part of the forest

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showing the immense cavern of sumaging cave, an ancient and protected burial site to the residents of the area. we had to build mockup coffins for the shoot so we wouldnt disturb the actual coffins on location.

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the crew raises hands for a photo

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shooting late in the night and deep in the cave to finish this scene with ruru madrid

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, save the earth, sketch

surviving mount pulag

still shooting pepe diokno’s above the clouds in the mountain province with a trek up mount pulag to culminate the shoot. i cant post most of the photos yet as we are still shooting a few more scenes down in baguio but here’s a shot of the art department at the peak with a view of the sea of clouds. it pays to not work a day in your life with projects like this.

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clockwise from left: arman montallana, mikee supetran, carlo tabije, ramon recana, docdoc, russel amis, randy, and me

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food trip, interior design, travel

the yoghurt house

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one of the charming places we’ve gone to in sagada is the yoghurt house. famous for the quaint interiors and their home-made yoghurt, this resto is included in trip advisory’s roster of go-to places in the area. the banana strawberry jam and granola yoghurt is a winner but their pasta selections were also worth the trip. they do use ordinary cheese instead of parmesan, something that is very hard to have in the area so generally it’s forgivable. also try the beef dishes and their open-faced sandwiches.

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the room temp yoghurt with their ginger and lemongrass pandan teas make an interesting combination

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the mushroom and cheese pasta 😉 awesome!

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the interiors on the ground floor. you can see nanay on the lower left making yoghurt early that morning.

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the interiors at the 2nd floor at night

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a lot of foreign tourists were dining and drinking at yoghurt on the few times we were there. definitely one of our favorites in sagada. and the dogs there are gorgeous 😉

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, set design

shooting just below the clouds

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it’s day 9 for our shoot of pepe diokno’s above the clouds with protegé’s ruru madrid and philippine rock legend pepe smith. we started with about 5 days of shoot in baguio before moving to sagada, also in the mountain province. altitude in baguio is about 1600 meters and attitude is ubber cool. temperature during the day is about 22 deg celsius and evenings drop to 14 although it felt more like 10 degrees.

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One thing i love about pd work with locations is that we get to go ahead of the team and sometimes make stops when we like, like taking a photo at the famous Lion head along the highway. With carlo and me is ramon recana, art director.

One of our main sets in baguio was pepe smith’s character’s house. It had to look rundown and textured and his emotions are boxed up in storage for a later reveal. It was challenging not to go overboard with the clutter and it was fun shooting in that location in camp allen, not to mention it wasnt as cold as shooting the exterior scenes at night.

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Photos from home used as a prop. At the upper left corner is a photo of my sister, tina, when she was about 3 years old.

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Me standing in so i could have this shot

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Director Pepe Diokno takes a break on our set

first time for us to work with Pepe Diokno, who directed his first film Enkwentro that got him the Lion of the future award in 2009 at the venice film festival. This would only be his second film and we’re thrilled to be a part of it. Producer bianca balbuena was the one who brought us into the project along with the motley crew from jerrold tarog’s other films: ben tolentino (script con), nicholas varela (sound recordist), cris aquino (ad), and on-set mascot oniel parker (pm). First time to also work with dop carlo mendoza, tonee acejo (lp), mark locsin (sound recordist and engineer), and a slew of others.

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This man is a revelation. Pepe Smith on his guitar between takes.

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Me doing a pepe smith while playing the chords to a nirvana song (the only two guitar chords i know how to play)

currently we are now in sagada prior to climbing mt pulag. really enjoying the shoot. I thought id freeze to death in the mountains but i slowly adjusted to the weather and im enjoying the company of friends. It’s true you’ll never have to work a day in your life if you enjoy what you’re doing, like art directing the forest and designing for a film about a boy orphaned and finding where his home now lies above the clouds.

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musings, sketch, travel

wherein we wander into artsy fartsy territory

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when i was looking for hotels to stay in siem reap, some friends suggested 1961, an art cafe hotel gallery space exhibit space slash slash slash artsy fartsy place. this is owned by loven and faith, a pinoy couple and would have been perfect except that we were traveling with a big group and the place is not that kind of touristy hotel. it’s more for the crazies like carlo and me. and jetro of van gogh is bipolar.

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nevertheless, we made sure to visit this place while in siem reap. the hotel is located towards the end of the river in a quiet side of town. there were exhibits on display when we got there but since we went at 3 in the afternoon, there were no people around except for a russian photographer moonlighting as a tour guide named olga who i spoke with, and a few others. this place is just awesome, just standing there made me want to pick up paper and start to draw. or a hammer. very quaint, really nice space and actually reminded us of home. chos.  Continue reading →

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, musings

i would like to thank the academy…

the oscars show is fast approaching. and on the eve that we arrived in cambodia, i learned that my friend, jerrold tarog, was nominated for his musical score and editing work in chito rono’s the healing. as i was about to congratulate him, i decided to see who was nominated for best production design this year. i expected el presidente and thy womb in the category but i was pleasantly surprised to find my name in the list.

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id like to thank the academy for this. it’s such an honor to be nominated amongst this awesome pool of talents in both indie and mainstream movie categories for production design (as to why there should be a divide in categories, i guess there’s just more love to share –such an optimistic remark).

practice lang sa thank you speech ko sa oscars. chos! hahaha 😉

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cheers to films and friends nominated and recognized: the guys behind tiktik: the aswang chronicles– direk erik matti, co-nominee peter collias, producers dondon monteverde and dingdong dantes, artdep adrian espanola and dunn ledesma, kitch napigkit and cherry fortes, buboy crauz and his team. dop dix buhay, janice de belen; to thy womb with direk brillante mendoza, larry, tanya, tito odie flores, ms nora, sir katz; alagwa with bianca balbuena, bwakaw with ferdie lapuz and tonee acejo, adolf alix jr and ben tolentino in mater dolorosa, my friend coco martin for sta nina (chos!), slumber party with rk bagatsing, harley alcasid, carlo mendoza for bwakaw and el presidente, shayne sarte for a mother’s story. and jerrold tarog of course 😉 congrats sa lahat and thank you pmpc

full list of nominees at starmometer.com

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art & design, filmmaking, movies, musings, sketch

on the boat

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im pleasantly surprised the effect of sea breeze and being on a ship have inspired me and afforded me time to write! In the last 24 hours ive posted 3 articles with photos and currently reviewing and editing 3 more prior to publishing. That’s more than what ive done in the last few months.

im also surprised to find myself writing more about food than my design work haha actually, im currently dishing out articles using my phone so i only have access to photos of food we’ve eaten via my camera phone. Years ago most people would say grace before eating. Now they post on instagram before praying. Most of my design materials are in my laptop so ill post about the new eq lapu lapu commercial and tide’s newest commercial with vic sotto, plus the relaunch of breeze detergent when i get back on land.

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carlo makes it work

will be leaving for cambodia soon so i hope to write more about that. purchased tickets last year hoping my dad could make the trip but he passed away last august so we’ll be keeping his wishes alive by proceeding with the trip. thank God cebu pacific air agreed to reimburse his tickets after we filed an appeal and submitted a copy of his death certificate. carlo and i will be travelling with my mother, sisters tina and ana, aunt temay, and cousin mia, plus a friend of tita temay.

by march, my art department team and i will be busy shooting pepe diokno’s 2nd feature, Above the Clouds. We’ve already done locked in most of the locations so far and the artdep will resume preparations when i get back from cambodia. Let’s see if i have time to write about it while shooting.

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We’re almost back on land so ill be missing the bunk beds and the food here aboard 2go. Also excited as my family from mindanao will be arriving in the morning! Wohoo

Cheers!

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