Day 83. Done… for now.

Fast forward to Feb 21.

The films are more or less finished, except for a little more sound design, an adjustment to the music, and complete end credits. We rushed the post to make the deadline for this year’s Cinemalaya, whose deadline is tomorrow. With any luck, you should see both films at the festival. Unless I either get politicized for having too many films in the festival, or if the shorts in the jury’s minds suck eggs.

A lot has happened since the shoot. For one, we finally have actual titles.

Sammy and Felipe is entitled Lakad ni Sammy.  During the working edit Mario put the title Too Much Walking at the front of the film. The title grew on me after a bit and is now the official English title. Connie is now called Ang Ibang Mga Pamilya, taking off from the title of the short story it was based.

It’s my first time to work with HD, and I had a little worry about not actually holding in your hands the tape containing your footage. True enough, a couple of weeks ago Tracy my producer experienced the scare of her life when she and Mario couldn’t find the footage of Sammy, which was only stored in hard drives. They found it eventually; good thing they didn’t tell me otherwise I would’ve set the building on fire.

I’m extremely happy with how both films turned out, exactly how I wanted them with surprises. Sammy is nostalgic, heartwarming, thanks to the two actors; Connie is melancholy and jagged, with a syncopatic beat – just like the character herself.

Corinne de San Jose, who also did Mansyon, Jade’s Endo and Khavn’s Three Days of Darkness, did the sound design.  We’re not yet done though; especially with Connie, which needs a lot more designing. I wanted everything to sound like we’re holed up. stuck in a room where it’s dead quiet, where everything outside sounds muffled.

Vince de Jesus of Zsa Zsa Zaturnah the Musical graciously agreed to do the music for both films. Sammy especially needed a lot of music. He even wrote a song for the film. Connie had no scoring at all, save for a bit of incidental music that plays for 2 seconds.

Connie was difficult for me as I’m forced to compromise for a shot that I feel very strongly about; More later when I’ve processed.

Quickly

Fast forward, a month later. Hard to believe I typed the words tamaaad tamaaad last month. In a span of a month:

-shot, finished the picture edit and moving on to the sound design of the two shorts. Connie now has a real title, Ang Ibang Mga Pamilya.  The other one, Sammy and Felipe, isn’t so lucky. More on that in the shorts blog, when I get around to posting.

-finally finished a workable script for Baby Angelo, which I tell you was tough and a long time coming. Somewhat because Abi and I are insanely busy, but mostly because I couldn’t get in the right frame of mind. Now I am though, and we managed to hammer out a cohesive draft. At least. Again, more on that in the Baby Angelo blog, when I get around to writing about it.

-Onslaught of projects. Not a complaint. The office has turned into pure chaos, with people having to stand up to eat. I’ve taken to making the bodega as my private thinking space.

-Saw Cloverfield. Realized it’s the first film I’ve seen since Nantes in November. Fun little movie. It’s The Blair Monster Project. Also, managed to finally finish Syndromes and a Century. It’s veeeerry slow and hypnotic, I swear I was starting to hallucinate within the frame. Bravo.

-Sadly, was unsuccessful in my attempt to quit for New Year’s. Am about to bang my head on the wall in shame. But, ah well. Maybe after all these movies.

-Margie went to Asia Europe Conference in Rotterdam. Lucky dog. Here’s hoping all the networking paid off.

-Badly need to see the beach.