Category Archives: filmmaking

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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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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filmmaking, food trip, movies, musings

Food and Art Part 1

Last week we had an interestingly artsy fartsy series of events we didnt see coming.

On february 7, thursday night, bianca balbuena, production manager and assistant director in some of jerrold tarog’s films and now producer for pepe diokno’s latest project, in which i and carlo are a part of, invited us to a screening at the UP of her recent producing stint off cinema one originals festival, ABERYA, starring will devaugn, mercedes cabral, iwa moto, and best supporting actor, nicholas varela, a sound recordist in real life and the ex-boyfriend of bianca. long sentence, i know.

We got to the UP early so we had dinner across the street from the theater at the ROC. awesome food and interiors. Loving the high ceiling, especially.

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Clockwise from top left is tomato soup, bicol express bagnet, awesome herbed tomato and garlic roll up pizza and a beef stew (very good).
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ABERYA was written and directed by christian linaban who hails from cebu. I would have enjoyed the film more if the sound were better during the screening. The film lost a lot of the mood and atmosphere to draw its audience into the world of love, sex, video scandals, designer drugs and circumstance. I learn later on that Pepe diokno had previously tweeted saying the film had the best sound design there is hence, it explained why i couldnt immerse myself into the film. Maybe i can catch it again in a better theater, which makes it also imperative that the UP film center (now called the UP film institute, but im old like that) must really upgrade its sound system, acoustics and put in a better and permanent digital projector.

Continue reading →

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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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filmmaking, sketch

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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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