To Be Continued

Earlier tonight, I was having a conversation with my friend who is an editor about projects from the recent past. He was asking about how they were moving along, and I honestly couldn't answer him. Unlike him who sees a project through to its release, my commitment to productions end on the shooting days themselves. So going through my hard drive, I've recalled some projects I never saw the last cuts of until today.

Oh my god, I don't even know if this production has a title. It was a final project for my friend's cinematography class, and this is the first room-out-of-nothing I ever had to set up. As you can see, I tried to fill up the space with everything I thought could be found in a boy's room -- spray paint bottles, origami, books, action figures. Only later on did I learn (and TRY!) to art direct and edit my sets. And I don't think there's an actual final version of this short yet!

The First -- Mike's Apartment

Directed by Ted Manotoc

This music video was shot in late 2009, right on the day of Typhoon Ondoy (Int'l: Ketsana). Without any talents making it to the location because of heavy rains and flooding, we started shooting band shots, before resolving at around dinner time that it would be safer to go home to our families, and to have a second shooting day commence. I don't think there's a final edit to this video yet, but I'm very interested in seeing it because the footage looked very promising. :-)

Stray Hearts (Ang Pusong Gala) (2008)

Directed by Mario Cornejo

I think this was one of my first shoots, and it was such a small and fast production too! We started at 7am and ended at 3pm. All I knew as an art department assistant (to Christina Dy or CD, the designer/artist who taught me everything!) was that I should bring weapons and that we had a giant bucket of fake blood. And we were to shoot a practically no-budget advertisement for Cinemalaya, a local film festival here in the Philippines.

It was my first adventure with splattering blood everywhere, and the director and cinematographer (Ike Avellana) had a lot of fun improvising and planning shots as we went along. I must say, the actors, Lena Cobangbang and Mikey Amistoso were great and perfect for the roles of seemingly meek characters whose dark sides come out as they have a bloody lovers quarrel.

Last I heard, the director was able to make a short film from the footage, and bring it to Rotterdam for a festival. Here's the IMDB page for the short: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1369700/. An amazing end to such a small and simple concept!!

Good night everyone!!