(While we’re languishing in the most rushed post-production ever, I’ll be posting entries about how it was like to shoot Baby Angelo)
Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 / Day 7 / Day 8 / Day 9
Call sheet: “Neighbors/Bong and Lisa day 2”
25 April / No. of sequences: 8, and one really long one / No. of actors: 9 / Call-time: 9 am / Estimated pack-up: 2 am / Actual pack-up: 4 am
photos courtesy of Sam Kioumarsy
We’re doing the neighbors in the morning and the rest of the Bong and Lisa stuff at night, including the dreaded five-page scene that we put off the other day.
Some of the neighbors who dropped by today. Including Ryan and Geoff, both good friends whose star quality I never fail to abuse. Both were also my teammates in frisbee. Upon coming to the set in faraway Caloocan, Ryan’s first words were “why are we here?”
And this his how Dodjie gets all the girls.
Our rooftop veranda. Overlooking the stunted rooftops of Caloocan.
The rest of the afternoon and well into the night we did Bong and Lisa again, and all those emotions boiling inside the tiny, tiny room was starting to stifle. Still, it’s exciting to watch these two go at it. Progressing from silence and subtext to cruel, cruel words.
Mario once warned me that directing is a lonely road. Sad but true. At the end of a very long day, after many such days, you’re on your own. The AD wants to get all the scenes done in the shortest time possible, the DOP only cares about the lighting, everyone wants to just go home. At 3 am, you’re the only one who cares about the movie. I felt that most today, at four in the morning, in the middle of a very difficult scene, with everyone deathly quiet in between takes. When your strength starts petering out, you gotta get it from your toes, your balls, somewhere. For a non-confrontational guy like me, it’s difficult to enforce what I want when I know the reason everyone is here is out of goodwill. A tough hide and a certain selfishness are definitely required.
Today I said, this is no fucking way to make a movie. No budget, dead hours? Nope. But how’s that, when the feeling of creation gives you an indescribable rush? And the people who have money won’t likely give it out to independent filmmakers (unless it’s gay soft porn)? I’m hoping things will turn around sharply, soon.
Who’s Who in Baby Angelo
Dodjie Mendoza and Francis as Sound Recordist and Boom.
Tough being in the sound department as you’re always the last one to be ready, and though everyone knows how important sound is, you can’t help but get ticked off if the take is good were it not for the TV blaring in the third floor / thundering tricycle / wailing child / snoring crewman; and it’s Dodjie’s job to break the news to us. And you know what people do to the messenger.
Abi Aquino as co-writer
Unfortunately, I’ve no production photo of her. I’ve always told her that I’m her number one fan. A writer but also an actor at heart, I’ve known her half my life. She’s precise, smart, and also whip-funny. She can also play some mean disc. She has a blog of her own but I can’t link to it because she’ll get fired.
Tags: Abi Aquino, Cinemalaya, Filmmaking, Geoff Eigenmann, Jojit Lorenzo, Katherine Luna, Ryan Eigenmann
