my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Monday, January 30, 2006

The History of Cinematography

     This post is dedicated to the end of my month, January. This dates back to the first steps to our final piece, the cinematography project.

Part 1: What’s the script?
     The cinematography project was assigned to be done on the Christmas break, so as early as late December 2005 we began shooting our first scenes. We had a different story - it was about a very tragic fate of a family, much like “Gulong ng Palad”. We began shooting some conversations that seemed going nowhere, because our resources were going down the sewage drain. We needed to change the story.

Part 2: What’s the script again?
     During the next shoot, I was not present, but I was flooded by the details on how they did a new story. It was a magic stuff such and so, which they did on Mary Caras’ grandmother’s house. They did some shoots that had a lot of bloopers, ranking first - Mr. Joemar Tano *clap clap*. He did well on the constipated look and a lot of cuts.

Part 3: Picturing Three Worlds in One Cemetery
     Who even thought of using Paco Park anyway? What the heck. Limitations! We dealt with it anyhow, doing some scenes and some more scenes objected by our executive producer, Mr. Chester Caras. I was the cameraman, and Mary said to me that we need to retake some scenes.
     How does the Underworld spell Paco Park? With almost fortress like features and old mossy bricks and some dark tunnelling passages, what would be best than to love your own Paco Park. Used by MaScians all through their years, it is much like ours. Five pesos lang.
     We needed a new weaponry world called Narvana. It sounded like Nirvana, I tried to make a little fun of it, but it was no use. We also needed some creepy graveyard thing. Just the place: Paco Park ole!

Part 4: The Director’s and Cameramen’s Greatest
     On the next shoot (go figure where we were shooting that day), the director and cameraman Mr. Chester Caras (also the executive producer and editor) came to supervise, improvise and materialize some scenes to finish the movie. Started at 10 and ended at 6.
     Here’s what happened:

The make-up for the demons went all crazy when Mr. Caras came. Talk about ethnic and diabolic.

Tano’s costume looked much more like a blue... never mind. Designed by June Salcor, what could you expect? It was nice.

We got to shoot the longest scene to take in the first part of the schedule, only to find out that it was erased by some person who does not rewind too well. At the end of the taping, before we all went for DoTA, the cast did the longest scene in a one take! The power of gaming - it improves people.

Mary and Leah got to wear their Darna-like and fairy-like costumes, in pink (for Leah) and purple (for Mary). They were teased by some children, which were backed off by Jude Villanueva.

We had lunch on a cemetery. It was a nice ambience (seriously, it was serene) and the breeze was as gentle as ghosts floating around.

Injuries were inevitable. I got hit by Mary on the forehead by her sword, Christian burst his lip, Leah got her gums whacked by June. It proved the dangers of swords, in metal or in plastic.

Camera tricks were as simple as record, pause, and record again. We love teleporting around.

Part 5: The Koreanovela Dub Session
     I was not present when they did this, so I know very little about this one. What I know is that June became my voice for the character, and they did the talk-before-you-hear dubs. They saw the effects beforehand. Aww.

Part 6: The Premiere
     I was not present here either. Hertz watched our movie first (we passed first, so we particularly had no choice) and I was away. Aww.

Part 7: The Home Version
     I borrowed Ma’am Okafor’s CD copy of our movie and watched it at home. At last! The fruits of our labor are presented in a neat movie. The effects were great (done by Mr. Caras) and I particularly like my orb. It was green.

     That’s the month-ender post. Tag if ever you come across the Wind Chill Factor. Ciao~

my mind fleeted at :8:26 pm ;