had a grand time in karlovy vary celebrating its 51st international film festival and especially because our film was part of the festival. aside from kapatiran (brotherhood), lav diaz’s 8-hour opus, hele sa hiwagang hapis, and brillante mendoza’s cannes entry, ma’rosa (which won jaclyn jose her biggest international acting award), were also screened in karlovy vary.

but more than anything, i particularly love the paparazzi theme of the festival. and with that, we staged our own.

producer, bianca balbuena

production designer, benjamin padero

production designer, carlo tabije

director, pepe diokno

director, pepe diokno, and associate producer, royd santiago

production designers, benjamin padero and carlo tabije

thug life editor, benjamin tolentino

filmmaking, laundry therapy, musings, travel

evading the paparazzi

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

ABOVE THE CLOUDS BEHIND THE SCENES: Production Design

during the shoot of pepe diokno’s 2nd full length feature, ABOVE THE CLOUDS, last year, bradley liew, a malaysian filmmaker, was tasked to create short featurettes for the film’s behind the scenes. bradley and pepe were able to release the first two featurettes that discussed the director’s vision and our 2 lead actors even before we finished shooting the whole thing. the 4th episode in this series, released just a few weeks ago, was about the production design and featured us 😉 as much as the requirements on paper seemed simple enough, it is not. whether you are designing for 2 actors on screen or 500, all film projects require careful planning and attention to detail. watch this vid and see if we actually made sense. the shoot of ABOVE THE CLOUDS took almost a year to do so my hair also went into different lengths and feels haha. cheers!

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:

the 1st video is posted here.

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.

art & design, filmmaking

shooting just below the clouds 2

20130318012 sagada.jpg

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.

20130315005 sagada.jpg
on set a chilly morning, ms tonee acejo had the gall to be in short shorts while we were all covered up.

20130315006 sagada.jpg
pepe smith on his guitar in-between setups.

20130316007 sagada.jpg
closeup of the pine trees covered with moss in sagada

sketching the location

20130313001 sagada.jpg
me with pepe smith against the beautiful lake danum (danum means lake so that means it’s “lake lake”)

20130314002 sagada.jpg
carlo and i hit the backwoods while a shot was taking place in another part of the forest

20130318011 sagada.jpg
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.

20130318009 sagada.jpg
the crew raises hands for a photo

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

musings

Food and Art Part 2

By saturday, february 9, we travelled early out of quezon city to be at the PICC by 9am for the 8th Graphika Manila, a graphic design forum similar to the format of TEDX. Pepe Diokno, our director for Above the Clouds, invited us to attend as he was part of Philippine Star Supreme, a media partner of the event.

A long line met us outside the venue and an even longer line snaked inside the humongous lobby of the PICC. This would be our first time attending Graphika Manila and the lineup of speakers got us really excited, esp with sagmeister partner jessica walsh and the post-house of game of thrones sent their guy in.

It took a rather long time for organizers to get the people inside the theater though. Some probably have been there 3 hours before the scheduled start but we only got in 45mins after 10 and the thing started after 11am.

Out of the speakers, the ones we loved were james white, a graphic designer from canada, jessica walsh, and benja, a paper engineer also from canada.

Being the first speaker, James managed to cheer up the crowd as he started. Loved that he worked from home and was a one-man team. I first thought his designs were too dated but he got really good stuff that were still influenced by 80s graphic design. He revealed he was practically my age and grew up in the 80s. Then he included a poster of the original Masters of the Universe in his slide presentation that largely left the young attendees unfazed but made us 80s kids cheer like crazy.

Jessica walsh’s presentation was something she really gave time to make. Very informative yet still very casual. Been a fan of stefan sagmeister and since i wasnt able to attend years ago when he spoke at Graphika Manila, this would be my closest at being with the design rockstar. Jessica showed photos of her work as a teenager, from college all the way to stuff done with sagmeister. She also included one of stefan and herself naked to promote their business partnership.

A running joke occurred when the 2nd set of speakers from japan, the Tofu guys, started their presentation with photos of their flag and photos of their office because james white did it with this. Every speaker after them did the same and made their own version of Tofu.

Benja, the paper engineer, was charming and his small snippets on professionalism made us cheer for him. He works with a small team and although paper folding may seem like child’s play, it just goes to show that a simple idea can go a long way.

Overall the day was well spent. Inspired to continue whatever creative work we are doing right now. When i was younger, i waxed poetic anything i did. Obviously ive stopped as i got older but if needed, im sure id find my life now pretty cool, too. And i can have vacations whenever i want. Ha!

Jm, carlo and i headed to magsaysay avenue to look for a place to have dinner and found ourselves in a kebab place. Pretty good stuff, we found it was almost like we were in mr. kebab in west ave qc just like in college. Ahh, youth.

We missed going to the art fair in makati on sunday so that was it for our artsy fartsy weekend. Looking forward to the next!

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.

20130322001ATC pulag.jpg

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

art & design, filmmaking, movies, set design

shooting just below the clouds

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.

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.

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.

Me standing in so i could have this shot

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.

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

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.

benjamin padero

yes. me.

Tag Archives: pepe diokno

evading the paparazzi

ABOVE THE CLOUDS BEHIND THE SCENES: Production Design

ABOVE THE CLOUDS Production Diary #2

ABOVE THE CLOUDS Production Diary #1

shooting just below the clouds 2

Food and Art Part 2

surviving mount pulag

shooting just below the clouds

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