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February 2, 2014

Cinemascian 2014: TALA

I fell in love with Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli the first time I read it back when I was a teeny bopper. The narration and the plot drew me in, held me close and never let me go. We had a film festival last year and the thought of making a movie adaptation out of it came to my mind but alas those thoughts were pushed back to make way for an equally riveting screenplay by Juan Ekis entitled 20 Questions. But since then, I vowed to myself that when the occasion rises for another film to be made, I shall try my hardest to bring Stargirl to life from her pages.

Thus, what follows are vignettes of the entire production of our short film entry to this year's Cinemascian, TALA.

Pat Odrada as Tala

Cinnamon and Cinnabon

Click this link and like TALA's poster..if you want.....I mean no one's really forcing you....but it'd be nice if you did...cos it would really mean a lot.....so thank you....mwah..

I know some of you might be wondering or maybe have already come to the conclusion as to why I'm writing again after all this time. This may be a publicity stint to some or it may not be. But I just want to express everything in this post since my last post in the Roentgen Group was too scattered and too emotional hehehehe.

Thank you, Roentgen. I meant it back then and I still mean it when I say that I feel like we've won already with the support you guys are giving TALA. The entire experience of making a movie with you guys was a whirlwind of emotions and stress. I honestly thought I wouldn't be able to finish it or I'd somehow lose my mind trying but I did try and we did finish it and I think the fact that we did is something to be proud of already. TALA is our baby hehehe just like our Speech Choir performance and not to mention our unforgettable Carol Fest number hahahahahehehehe. There may have been times when we questioned why we were put in this section but I believe that things happen for a reason. WE happened for a reason and I can't be thankful enough hehe. Mwah mwah guys!!!

February 9, 2013

Benefits of Having a Tripod

I feel like I owe my blog and everyone so much dirt and here is part of it hehe. So on the way home from Pangasinan, I got a text from Maryjo asking me if I wanted to join her join a contest about film and stuff so I said yes and yadda yadda. It was an on the spot trailer making contest. So what we did after choosing the Singaporean short story from which we would base it from, we got to training and practicing and stuff. There were originally around 10 of us but only 5 were allowed to join so there. It really sucked that we couldn't bring everyone since we all were stoked about the contest.

We chose Adeline Ng Ai Choo for our story. It's about Adeline, a 14 year old girl who commits suicide by jumping off the 12th floor of a building since she failed an exam and her teacher wouldn't budge about adding a point to her final grade and the repercussions of her actions. Our trainer wasn't keen on the idea of making a trailer about suicide so we had to really make it light and not too scary.

During the week, we plotted and practiced and played with our cameras A LOT. I finaaaaaaaaaaaally decided to explore my camera and thank God I did! I fell even more in love with it hehe and I wanna name my camera Frank now or Rocky or Leonardo.

This is a screen cap from our test vids. I play the teacher hehehehehehehe

God bless tripods! The A-Team (that's what we call ourselves obviously) on the rooftop wee

Trying to look busy

Adeline/Chloe being insane

The library became our home

THE AAAAAAAAA TEAAAAAAAAAAAAAM

The day of the contest came and we were so pumped. We arrived in Araullo High School early in the morning. The mechanics changed however and we got threw out of the loop. We apparently had to make a 3 minute long short film but nonetheless we enjoyed Mr. Nick de Ocampo's very very very funny and inspiring lectures all about film making and script writing and everything hihi.

Mr. Nick de Ocampo

The first part we had the script making portion and during the latter part of that, he taught us all about cinematography and how to go about the storyboard. We had lunch after and when we came back, we downed our energy drinks, changed into our costumes, finished our storyboards, had them checked by sir Nick and had our most rushed and super duper fast-paced shooting ever. We ran all over the school and it was so so so so so fun!!!!! There was even an instance when Chloe had to lie down on the floor since she had to look like she was dead and this coin fell from the sky! It was quite alarming but all we had to do was laugh about the absurdity of the situation hehe.

Post-processing was hands down the most gut-clenching moment. Diana had to restart her laptop several times and it had us really on edge and uttering motivations to convince one another that everything'd run smoothly. The judges were kind enough to have an extension of 30 minutes for us since editing a video in less than an hour is just im pos sib le.

Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong story short, we won 2nd place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've never really won a contest like except for choir contests and it felt so good huhu!!!!! I don't have a copy of the movie we made but I will be posting it as soon as Diana or Robyn is done uploading it on youtube or something hehe.

I miss adding gifs so here are our timer shots hehehehehe we took heaps of photos because.....we love tripods weeewoo!! I love you A-Team, I love you Ms. Macaranas and Ms. Fuentes, I love everyone huhu!

February 1, 2013

Black and White

This week has been such a tiring and dramatic week that I cannot even begin to say how relieved I am and happy that it has ended the way it has. The first Friday mass really had me praying praying praying and I'm glad with how things turned out hihi. In relation with my week, here are a couple of photos in black and white since black and white photos just ooze tons and tons of drama and are so pretty hehe.

Some were taken by me and some were taken by Nath. Some were taken in school, some were taken in Letran and some were taken on the way to Chloe's casa. Another thing to be thankful for this week is friendship. I don't want to sound as overtly gay as I feel right now, but I just wanna say thank you to all my friends and that I love you guys and mwahugz for everyone and mwahugz even to the people that I still don't know or do know but are not my friends since everyone deserves to be mwahugged even by a complete stranger like me.

To close this very messy blog post and to somehow relate my title to its content, events have had me realizing that life really DOES have its ups and downs and as much as I am thankful for the happy moments, I am slowly but surely learning how to love the sad moments equally since seriously without them, without the contrast that they bring, we wouldn't be able to begin to define what happiness is.

January 27, 2013

Revisiting The Most Beautiful Ukay Spot in the World

A few hours after GOLD, my family and I dragged our sleepy buts to our car and headed to Pangasinan for my grandmother's, uncle's, nephew's, cousin's and dad's birthday celebration. After getting a measly 2 hour slumber in the comfort of my own bed, it was no surprise that my sister and I slept throughout the 4 hour trip. We were greeted by warm smiles and this beautiful piece of work.

To kill time, we went to the amazing Wagwag ukay ukay but and on the way we passed by this uber provincial/scenic view of the tobacco plantation and so we took pictures of it and the kind man tending it.

Going back to The Most Beautiful Ukay Spot in the World felt like a homecoming of some sort hihi. The first stall thingy we went to had a huge pile of clothes that were only for P5 each!! Now that we had a lot of time on our hands unlike the last time we went there, we definitely scoured the place for treasures and boy did we find them!

This shirt has been on my mind since we last visited and when I finally made up my mind (with the help of my friends) that it isn't sacrilegious, I asked for its price and found out it wasn't for sale HUHUHU turns out the shirt was acting as their protector to ward off business bad luck

Drama mama photo

Unlike the last time we were in the area, we got the chance to explore other neighboring ukay ukay places! The other's aren't like the huge one that we love but they were good in their own ways.