Category Archives: musings

art reflects a culture’s past or current state of being. it is the artist’s way of expressing opinion or emotion. we have only skimmed the surface of macau’s art scene and based on what we saw, it may be “safe” but at least it is alive. here are some of the pieces we saw in galleries and on the street.

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chanced upon a gallery exhibit on print artworks. gorgeous pieces by local artists and beyond, though im not really sure. the pieces evoked history and culture, very inspiring. this one here is a detail of a beatiful reductive woodcut print, “buddhist travellers,” by wu shuai wei.

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a traditional piece of clothing at the macao national museum. jaw dropping detail on the embroidery.

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i love street art and i love mosaic in hongkong and macau, and this one here is street art and mosaic together. so awesome

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a marble sculpture on one of the tombs at cemiterio de s. miguel arcanjo along beco do almirante costa cabral in macau. the cemetery gates were open and based on google earth photos, this was one location i would love to see. clean, peaceful, gorgeous. and did i mention clean?

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a small gallery shop out of nowhere. around the time we came about this area, all the shops were still closed. they were expected to open at 11am. lots of quirky art pieces.

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somebody threw or left a pair of shoes in one of the alleys in macau. what to do? strike a pose. art in macau was generally better than in malaysia. it felt more at ease and not stifled (by the government or religion, maybe).

musings, travel

macau in 6 photos, part 2

photo blogging about macau. part 2 na ni.

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was able to travel to macau recently because we got nominated at the 10th Asian Film Awards for our design work in Heneral Luna. they covered airfare and hotel accommodations so of course we had to go! but more on that later. we decided to stay 2 extra days in macau just to go around. we were there between march 13 and 18. here are some photos.

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peeked through the glass window of this barber shop. the folks in macau generally dont mind getting their photos taken without permission. they just stare at you then go back to whatever they were doing. i obviously would not want to intrude so there are very few people photos in my collection

 

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fascinated by the layout of their corridors and streets. it was between 14 to 19 degrees celcius when we visited and everybody wore their parkas and heavy jackets. im not sure if it were warmer weather there would be more locals out in the street, like how it is in the Philippines.

 

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macau is clean. coming from manila, i would say macau is spotless. so it was a hoot finding this spot where the pavement hasnt been swept. while in the Philippines this dirty look would be normal, in macau this would be the exception.

 

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i took a lot more photos of macau’s mid rise buildings when i was there. so awesome. loving the simple commercial stores on the ground floor and that the remaining 2 to 7 storeys were residential (i think, i havent really asked but i assumed haha). a blogger commented the streets of macau looked the same in lisbon or wherever in europe.

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evening lit shop with carlo as an unwitting model. as we were near the tourist district a lot of the shops were marketed for tourists. it’s awesome that there were more food stores for tourists than there were tshirt and ref magnets stores. egg tarts, beef jerky, and pastries are the go-to pasalubong stores here.

 

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gorgeously laid out street and decked with lanterns. why is it so clean??? im jealous. we noticed the locals, when eating out in public spaces, they automatically cleaned up after themselves and threw their trash in properly spaced out waste bins all over the city. drivers respectfully letting sidewalk pedestrians cross first. no overspeeding except on major highways. taxi drivers giving exact change.

musings, travel

macau in 6 photos, part 1

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musings

HENERAL LUNA: the film that went there

been trying to write this particular article for weeks now. started this when HENERAL LUNA was still on its 3rd week and now, the film is enjoying its 5th week in the theaters (and almost on its 6th! fingers crossed). still overwhelming, really.

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ive done movies for quite some time now.. small ones. not so small ones. mostly independent features. jerrold tarog. brillante mendoza. erik matti. pepe diokno. tikoy aguiluz. even a shelved project with chito rono. in all projects and in every opportunity, we work hard in each one of those features, regardless of scope, budget, and intention. successful at the box office or not, we’ve done that movie and we still do more movies.

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art & design, filmmaking, food trip, musings

food design in HENERAL LUNA

yesterday i had to go out and buy a newspaper, something i havent done in years! and it struck me that the same thing is happening to people with Heneral Luna, saying they havent been to the theater in years yet here they are. the Lord be praised!

Production designers Benjamin Padero and Carlo Tabije left no stone — or should I say plate — unturned when it came to the food styling.

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col boyd was not crazy about the local food

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the spread prepared by chef toto gonzales and chef gene. i explained to chef gene the scene would have been after dinner where the guests would have milled around to chat and gossip. chef gene suggested this lineup. we also discussed plating and i took notes, including flower arrangement!

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our awesome executive producer, nando ortigas, all dressed up beside ms annie rocha, wife of our producer, ed rocha. on the right is line producer, daphne chiu.

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musings

and now a word from our HENERAL LUNA sponsors

the last two weeks have been overwhelming really. from the premiere of HENERAL LUNA to the jitters prior to opening day and now we are on the 2nd week of HENERAL LUNA. we opened with 95 theaters, whittled down to 45 for the second week only to pickup and reach 70 by friday today. we only wanted to do a good movie and the phenomenon that this film has become is crazy. we can only be grateful and humbled by it. as our producer, ed rocha, explained on cnn, this movie has become bigger than ourselves. a lot of people have taken ownership of it and generally, we couldnt ask for more.

reposting here in its entirety a few words from our producer, ed rocha, and executive producer, nando ortigas, posted online 3 days ago:

Dear All,

This is simply to take this occasion, this profound moment in time, to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for your patronage, for your support, especially to those who’ve been relentlessly plugging away on Facebook or via social media, or by text, or even in person to spread the word and Continue reading →

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

shooting heneral luna part 1

HENERAL LUNA is in the last stretch of school tours and promotions prior to the movie’s release on september 9, 2015 and artikulo uno has already released a series of behind the scenes featurettes, including a production design video featuring carlo and myself. however, let me take you further behind the scenes and the design process for one of the sets featured in the current trailer, including trying to meet requirements for our first day of shoot.

a lot of the movie’s intense scenes was staged in this convent room where president aguinaldo’s cabinet staff would meet to discuss (argue) plans for the impending conflict against the americans.

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we’ve started reading and studying the heneral luna script august of 2013.  the script called for the cabinet meeting to happen in a convent. historically, the philippine government often had to move around and meet where it would be convenient and church convents would be akin to board rooms/conference rooms in our modern life setting. by this time, our govt had been driven out of manila and aguinaldo held office in the provinces. i started researching on visual pegs with photos of convents in the 1890s and any local government meetings i could find.

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musings

Morning cup

While having my overpriced but precious caffé mocha soy milk no whipped cream coffee for breakfast in makati, i chanced on this news article about rising unemployment rate in the philippines (link here). A migrants group was saying the rise is more now during/because of president aquino’s government, contrary to what the former might have said about migration becoming less during his term. While the article may be trying to be objective, it’s kinda off hook because the article did not mention anything about new graduates, children growing up ang trying to find new jobs, population rising and not getting accommodated in a non-expanding 7,107 island archipelago.

Right after the article, some related news articles are posted. Let’s put things in proper perspective. Here’s the screencap.

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filmmaking, laundry therapy, movies

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)

there are movies that move you to tears and some to laughter. this one makes you scream and curse and rage and hyperventilate over the awesomenessofitall. it drives you mad. to the max. now i understand.

a lot have been said over the direction and the design (the costumes and car designs have been unanimously praised) of the movie and i agree with everything. it’s so awesome it blows my mind. the musical score and sound design were phenomenal; i especially love the visual aspect of the score pairing the army drummers onscreen with the kickass doof warrior character doing riffs on that rig, it’s insane! george miller. colin gibson. jenny beavan. junkie xl. john seale. tom hardy. charlize theron. nicholas hoult. they’re all insane!

another thing i love about it was the practical effects the director took lengths to do. it harks back to the days when cg was so low tech and most people do live effects and puppets and all to create a tangible, physical world to shoot in. i dont know if they shot in film as well (too tamad to research) but the look was just gorgeous and the effect visceral that if it were not for the 3D glasses i had on, i swear i was back in the old decripit theater downtown in my province in the 80s gawking at the fast paced road rage going onscreen.

i hate 3D but if there was anything you needed to see in 3D iMAX this year, this is it. 5/5

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