Tweets

I’m now on Twitter:
@rkojoe

Not completely getting it yet though, but let’s see.

Live Lounge

I love covers. I love it when artists interpret a song in their way. No, not the American Idol kind.

My favorite radio show is on BBC Radio 1, called Live Lounge hosted by Jo Whiley. Jo invites artists to sing one of their songs and a song by a different artist, often someone from a completely different genre. All live, complete with coughing, messed up lyrics and chords.

Great stuff. A lot of the songs are on YouTube but there are also three CD collections out.

Some of my favorites:

The Script covers Eminem’s Lose Yourself. Astig! Go white boy! Teka, white din pala si Eminem.

Stereophonics does my favorite song, Foo Fighters’ The Best of You. Too cool for words.

James Morrison does my favorite band of the moment, Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire.

John Legend gives a deep rendition of Lauryn Hill’s extraordinary Ex-Factor.

I gained new respect for OneRepublic (inaantok ako sa kanila) with their version of Duffy’s Mercy. I like how he’s reading the lyrics off of his phone.

Other great covers:

-The Killers are always covered, such as All These Things That I’ve Done (by Matt Willis) and Smile Like You Mean It (by the fantastic David Gray);

-Alicia Keys’ version of The Fray’s How to Save a Life gave Jo Whiley goosebumps;

-The Gossip does a crazy version of Careless Whisper;

-Indie band Bat for Lashes does a moody take on Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody;

-Folk rock KT Tunstall does a fun cover of Missy Elliott’s Get Ur Freak On;

-Lee Ryan does a boy band-like rendition of The Best of You, but I like it anyway;

-Corinne Bailey Rae does JT in Sexyback;

-30 Seconds to Mars does Kanye West’s Stronger;

-My favorite mash-ups are indie bands doing pop songs, like Keane’s Dirrtylicious, Mystery Jets’ Bleeding Love, and Elbow’s 1 Thing, It’s hilarious, but respectable.

Of course not all the covers are good; some are disastrous and stupid. And scary. Check out Charlotte Church’s cover of Let Me Love You (by Mario) and Marilyn Manson’s cover of What Goes Around Comes Around (by JT).

Vietnam/Cambodia Day 2. Cu Chi Gang

Next morning was off to the Cu Chi Tunnels, a little over an hour out of town by bus. The Cu Chi Tunnels are an extensive network of underground tunnels that the VietCong used to launch guerilla attacks against the Americans. Entire villages lived underground in these small, cramped, suffocating tunnels.

Prior to the tour there was a short presentation about the VietCong. I thought it was interesting seeing a memorial to the VC as heroes, all we are bombarded with is the American side of things. In the War Memorial we see statues of VC, the booby traps they used, etc. and I have to say, they’re genius. They used what they had to defeat a seemingly superior force. These people are a strong, proud people. Astig.

The video in the beginning was a little awkward, in fact the whole slant of the memorial was strange. The video was a documentary. Shot: nice looking peasant girl. Voice-over: “You think that this is a cute little peasant girl, but in truth, she is an American Killer Hero! She has killed 16 Americans.” Further on in the video the narrator kept calling Americans names, like “crazy devils”. On the walls of the booby trap museum you see paintings of Americans being killed by the traps in a lampoon sort of way. The guide says, “you know chicken burger, ham burger? These traps make American burgers,” then he laughs.

It may be comical, and it goes against what we know (from all those movies and TV shows), but one thing he said put everything in perspective: in the war, American casualties were at 80,000. Vietnamese casualties were two million.

We went into the tunnels ourselves and I didn’t last longer than 100 meters in. That was less than 10 minutes. These people lasted months, years in these tunnels. And they won.

After the tunnels I was so sleepy so I crashed while the others went to a pagoda and a zoo. Then it was off to dinner with Pinoy friends based in HCMC, Jeigh and Anne; both TVC producers. But before that, another discovery: Ban Mi (sp?)!

It’s a make-your-own baguette sandwich stand. Great for baon.

Vietnamese barbecue! A grill in the middle of the table on which there were various meats (beef with cheese, goat’s breast (which was awful… the texture really felt like you were chewing on a nipple and not in a good way), prawns) and veggies. The omnipresent vinegar-chili-fish sauce dip that I swear I can chug down, it’s that good. A shellfish salad appetizer that you put on kropek flakes. It was the best meal of the entire trip.

The restaurant was on the rooftop of an old French colonial building, downstairs was a pastry shop where we had dessert. I don’t really care for dessert in general but it was a nice place. The area was also pretty; it was in what I’m guessing is the city center, with the palace and more French colonial buildings. Nicely done.

Off to bed early, as the bus for Siem Reap leaves at 6:30 AM. Bracing myself for that.

Professor Joe

Accepted a teaching position at ol’ DLSU and did a demo lecture today. I’m teaching producing next term. I’ve always wanted to teach but also feel I’m VASTLY underqualified, but there you go, I’ll be teaching three hours a week.

For the demo I blazed through the entire production process using our two-minute film Pusong Gala (selected for the Rotterdam Film Festival in January!) as an example. Got through it fine, except that Angeli Diaz said I mumbled through the whole thing. Yep, I figured that would happen. When I get excited / am nervous / in a hurry I slur like a drunken lout. Have to work on that.

Also I had to get my very sorry transcripts from the school. For the first time in a dozen years I had to write my ID number, and it came out right away without even thinking. 9205993. That was strange. Walking the halls the school looked the same, except that the students now had iPods, were constantly on their phones, had MacBooks opened. Also they were in slippers, which ticked me off because we had that idiot dress code in the 90s. Yes, the biggest complaint I have is our inability to wear slippers.

Maite’s Abuela died this morning and we went to the wake after dinner. That’s the fourth time this year. We go as a barkada to these wakes and always do “pagpag” after, meaning we stop by somewhere, eat or get a drink, supposedly to break the spell of death and not bring it with us. Apparently, it’s not working. For us it’s No Weddings and All Funerals. Thank God Caye and DSJ are getting married next year.

No rest, no rest.

Wooh. No rest, no rest. I was really looking forward to a week in Boracay, or at least a week in Laoag with Tracy, chilling with my brother who’s raising pigs up North. But nah, the list of to-do’s is pretty long:

• fine cut, re-grade, and re-mix Baby Angelo in time for the Pusan IFF
• plan the Festival and distribution route for Baby A.
• start working on the next one.
• prepare for the long-delayed mid-year Arkeo planning session
• direct two of the company projects
• get back in f**kin shape.

Ok as it turns out it’s not that long pala. In any case. Daming kelangan gawin.

Thanks to the SONA, a typhoon, and the university break, the audience for our UP screening was: 52. Haha! And the Cineaste guys convinced us that we needn’t move the screening. No matter, Bing Lao watched and told Jeff Jeturian that it’s the best film in the Cinemalaya next to Jay. Nice!! I idolize the guy, to be honest; and so it means a lot. Still getting Jeff J and Mike de Leon to watch. Mike doesn’t want to be forced to watch anything, so Monster and I are thinking of ways to have the DVD just magically appear on his table…

In the rush of finishing the film I wasn’t able to give a proper shout-out to the post-prod staff, and so:

Who’s Who in Baby Angelo

Lawrence Ang

Lawrence Ang as Editor

On one hand, Lawrence edits for Khavn dela Cruz’s rakenrol style of filmmaking. On the other, he’s done Raya Martin’s long and slooooooooow films. I imagine my movie’s somewhere in the middle. And, those two guys are good company to be with. Lawrence was very much my partner during the last couple months of making the film. He helped pull the film out of predictability and give it its Pay Attention, Fool! quality.

Isha

Peach Abubakar/Isha as Musical Scorer

During the first few days when we got her to work on the movie, Peach’s first pass at the main theme had a creepy baby coo as its drumbeat. I told her, I like the theme a lot but the baby coo is too literal for me. She messages back, oh I don’t intend it to be there. That’s just (something like, I don’t remember her words) the take-off point. Like placenta, we can bury it in the ground. She had me at hello. She’s a true artist and was a gift to the film, especially with the seven songs I made her do for the movie. Both she and Lawrence are going to work on Arkeo’s next film, a Taiwanese/French/Filipino co-production, because they’re both just so gifted. Cheers guys!

DSJ

Corinne de San Jose as Sound Designer

DSJ! She patiently, patiently combed through the bad live recordings of not just Baby A but ALL of the Arkeo films, and she’s done so without complaint. Well not really, she’s really mataray when she works but hey, she’s hot at what she does. Also she is my ex-girlfriend. Haha.

Vives

Vives Anunciacion as Post-Production Supervisor

Vives, Vives. He’s part of the family through and through. Post-prod supervisor is just a convenient title but really he’s been there for all of us, each and every time.

Some press.

Thanks to the guys at Click the City. Here’s an article they put up.

Do I eat my words or what. Note to self: get some sleep before an interview.

Cinemalaya opens tomorrow. Wahoo!

Baby A shoot day 2. Walang magpapanic! Walang magpapanic!

(While my producer Monster is holding me on a project embargo until I finish the film, I’ll be posting entries about how it was like to shoot Baby Angelo)

Anong chismis? Anong chismis?

Call sheet: “Brownout day”
10 April / No. of sequences: 5, and one big one / No. of actors: 16 / Call-time: 6:30 am / Estimated pack-up: 2 am / Actual pack-up: 2 am

More filler scenes today, as Sig wisely scheduled the heavier scenes later in the shooting period to give us time to warm up. So far so good; only one scene was planned for tonight, the big brownout scene.

Today was Ces Quesada’s first day. She plays Mrs. Nora (don’t forget the Mrs!) the uptight association president of the apartment complex. What an actress.

The big scene for the day was the brownout, where more than a dozen characters were milling about. We set it up at 6pm, began grinding at 8pm, and ended at 2 am. This required Raffy the security guard (played by Bude, our office messenger, who surprsingly had good screen presence) to say his line “walang magpapanic! Walang magpapanic!” over and over for six hours, embedding it into our brains, like LSS that won’t quit. It became the staff catchphrase every time we ran into crunchtime.

Who’s Who in Baby Angelo

My love for my staff, crew and actors is large and thorough. I’ll be talking about them throughout these entries. Today I will profess my love for Popo and Jojit.

Popo Diaz as Production Manager
Popo first came to us two years ago as this quiet, wallflower researcher where he spent days downloading photos from the internet. Now he’s practically the spine of Arkeo. I love Popo. He’s smart, responsible, trustworthy (he was a long-running SK chairman!), not to mention– hilarious. I love this guy! He deserves everything good that comes his way.

Jojit Lorenzo as Bong
During scriptwriting, people had a hard time getting the character of Bong. At first he was functional; a tour guide of Genevieve Homes. Bong is a character close to my heart: a man-child who had to grow up very fast, earnest, but with a limited idea of what his life could be. And the women in his life—all that pressure they put on him. In Jojit I found the perfect Bong. He had me at hello kumbaga. He got the character right away, and with every scene we shot with Jojit I was very moved, in part because I was seeing the Bong in my mind right there in the flesh, but mostly because is just that good. Jojit is funny, charming, and a little awkward, like Bong himself.

Day 129. Back to Cinemalaya

Received a text from Vicky Isiderio today to check my mail. It’s been two weeks since the promised announcement of the finalists of the short film category in Cinemalaya, so at this point I had sort of given up. The email informed me that Ang Ibang Mga Pamilya was selected for competition. Woo hoo.

Honestly I didn’t expect any of the two films to get in, on account of the fact that I’m already competing in the full-length category. So, yehey.

Unfortunately Lakad ni Sammy wasn’t selected, and I’m a bit surprised, I thought that Lakad was more suited to Cinemalaya tastes and if they would select one, Lakad would be it.

We’re arranging a screening for both films. Watch this space and our website www.arkeofilms.com for announcements.

Posters!

Posters are done! Thanks to Corinne de San Jose for the photography and Jenni Lapira for the designs.

 

click on the thumbnails to see the posters in their full glory.

 

Day 19. The Night Before

Well, all’s set, pretty much. Talents are a go, staff are a go, the arrangements of lights and metal that qualifies as equipment are a go. Tomorrow is Day 1 of the shorts, and we’re doing Sammy and Felipe first. Our first scene is at the same house that was featured in Mansyon. A character from that story, Dona Elena Manalo, makes a cameo in this film. I’d like to imagine my shorts as all part of the same universe.

So this is all familiar: shooting in my Mom’s house and later, at Monster’s for the house of our protagonists.

Using an all-new team this time. Can’t wait. More tomorrow.