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Monday, June 23, 2003
The news was that the fifth Harry Potter book was sold out by noon time last Saturday. Some people were happy, some people were sad, some people had hellish stories about standing in line, losing their reservations and not having enough money to pay for the darn hardbound. But my adik sister Bianca was one happy Harry Potter fanatic. Apparently, she was the very first person to have made a reservation in Power Books, Pasay Road. No lines, no frustrations, no noisy people talking about the first four books around her. She went in, got her copy and left the bookstore happy-happy. My other sister Carla was also very lucky to have good friends who decided to buy the book for her birthday (Which is still in July). So right now, they're both reading their books, so I'll have to wait a while. I'm trying hard to hide my excitement because I'll just get more impatient that way. There were giggles when I walked in the office. Our cubicle was filled with Harry Potter laughs from those who already have the books. I was getting agitated deep inside, and making sounds like ngeengeengeeee; but we made an agreement: No Harry Potter talk for 2 months, until everyone's read it. I can imagine my officemates trying desperately to hold their tongues, and holding secret meetings in the garden. No one had better ruin this book for me. I hardly read, so give me a break! Expeliarmus! ***     Pictures from Xaymaca last Saturday are up in the Trigger Happy June 2003 gallery. :)
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
The first episode of GamePlan and Del Monte's The Great 202 Quest is finally done! We're now in the process of editing the second episode and I swear that this race is worth watching. This has been our big 4-ep baby for the summer and we'd really appreciate it if you could all catch the first ep this Saturday. I'm warning you that it's really bitin, though, given that we're a 30-minute show with only 21-24 minutes of actual airtime. Still, I think it's a good ep. Writing the third segment was such a bitch, though. The writing itself was fairly easy. The teams had so many good bites and extremely hilarious situations, but cutting my script from 10 pages to 6 was a real killer. And that was just one script! The second episode was written by Camille, and I mean the whole episode! That's 3 segments, plus spiels and up next's. Gretchen and Joy are about to write the third and fourth episodes and it amazes me how they can read so much material and cough up wonderful words and arrange upsots with ease. In all my GamePlan life, I've only contributed maybe 3 episodes ot the Episode Club. So I hope to learn more from my seniors, even if my vocabulary seems so limited compared to theirs. At least I can say that my editing has gotten a little better, and a lot faster. Last week's Del Monte edit was one of my favorites. I was so excited to edit my script, what with so many good things happening in my life right now. Happy editing is always good for a production slave. Plus I slept like a log afterwards. Good, good.  Where's Alia?  There she is! So what was I doing hanging from a buko tree? Well, you'll have to watch the race to find out. My job's so cool. *Uy. Buko tree. :) *** I said in a previous post that the rainy season always brought good things to me. And this year is no different, so I'm one very happy girly girl. Belated Happy Independence Day! Wheee! :)
Saturday, June 14, 2003
My youngest sister Julia is here from the States and Papa was kind enough to send through her a DVD player. Woohoo! And the first film we watched was the extended edition of LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring. There were so many things that weren't in the movie that was released and still not having been able to read the books, all the bonus scenes and storylines were just so wonderful for me. I still cried at the same scenes, but today I cried because of the shots, the imagery, the acting, oh my God, it's just a masterpiece. This copy of the film convinced me that Peter Jackson is a genius. My God, my God, the man is blessed with vision, talent and the ability to create beautiful images from pages in a trilogy of books. The production, the effects, the costumes...I just can't get over it. And I can't help but feel inspired to do the same somehow in my line of work. The film is beautiful and I absolutely cannot wait for the last installment to come out.  Drool. I want my own set. :) *And I have the right to want now that I actually have a player. Woohoo! Thanks, Pops!
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Our Monday Meeting yesterday was long and packed with announcements, complaints and worries. But before it started, I saw the crew having a meeting in the garden. All the crewmen were there, so it was a pretty scary sight. Ala-Zion in Matrix Reloaded when all the captains and their ships were called. Some of the crew's concerns were brought up in the formal meeting, mostly regarding crew skeds, and I found it cool that even if things took pretty long to resolve, everyone addressed everything, down to the finest detail of color coding our skeds on the board. When that was done, CLL took the mic and explained that sometimes, the networks want to borrow our crewmen, which is why we have to confirm our skeds earlier than usual because even if we're their top priority, it'd still be great for them to earn a little extra income and experience on the side. Plus, the networks always request for our crewmen, because they're the best. In CLL's words, "Everyone says that the Probe crew is the best crew in the industry." Objectively speaking, I honestly don't know if they're really the best, but I think they are in my eyes and in my heart. I've only worked with a few other crewmen, but it's only here where I've learned to really love the guys not only as colleagues at work but as friends who like knowing how you are, why you don't have a love life, and ask if you've time to teach them how to swim the butterfly in the pool. Tammy had a 2BU column last April with everyone's favorites memory in Boracay. Mine was October 2001. It was my birthday and we had just finished a long day of shooting. The beachfront of Pearl of the Orient was beautiful, so we sat down to rest when our soundman Tiong came up to us with a big plastic bag. My face lit up and my heart melted because he pulled out a Fundador long neck and said, "Alia! Happy birthday!" Then he pulled out a few cans of softdrinks and explained, "Pero hindi ko alam kung ano yung halo mo eh. So eto! Coke, Pepsi, Sprite. Toma na!" Hahaha! And last month, we shot spiels with Carlo in the parking lot of Mama's office and when I introduced Tiong to Mama, she said, "Ah! You're the one who gave Alia Fundador!" He was so embarrassed, I was apologizing to death and he was joking, "Di na tayo iinom! Binabasyo mo naman ako eh!" Another funny story was when Bianca came visited me in the office. She wanted to see the editing rooms, so I led her to the stairs and when I turned to the staircase, cameraman Denor had his hands on the banisters and delivered a really nasty ninja kick at me! He didn't hit me, of course. But his feet were so near my face, I froze and lost my voice! He was laughing and laughing, and when I found my voice, I said, "Uh, Denor! Ate ko, si Bianca." His whole face, including his bald head, turned red with shame. Hahaha! Funny. I also have this act where I copy all the cameraman. You know how guitarists have these certain mannerisms when they're doing a solo? Well cameramen have their own ticks, too, and they get a kick out of my impersinations. But really, I do that not only to make them laugh, but to show them that I admire them that much. I observe how they work, how the soundman moves in synch with the cameraman, how much their cameras tilt to one side, and how they run steadily -- and shoot without the aid of an LCD -- beside runners and bikers. I love how, after 2 years of working here, the crew and I have found our rhythm when we work together. I don't know what I'd do if these guys weren't my crew. They're the best teachers ever, and to think that none of them even went to film school or had a course in media. They're all naturals, gifted with the eye and the heart to work, and I hope that they know that most of the skills I learned while working in GamePlan were learned from them. So God bless the Probe crew. You rule!
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
My sister's birthday was always my sort of marker that school was going to start soon. But we all don't go to school anymore. Hehe! Well, except her, because she works in one. Nye. So happy birthday to my sister Bianca! You'll always be our favorite second sister, coz you're the only one we've got! So sorry I didn't see you today. I hope you had a blast. And woohoo, you have YM na rin. Hehe. :) *** And belated happy birthday to Mang Gaudio! It was his birthday yesterday. I gave him a scar on his knee a long time ago, proof that I love him...coz I bit him there when I was 4. Carino brutal.
Monday, June 02, 2003
I went to the bank today and as usual, sitting in line was a good time to read the paper. I picked up the Entertainment Section of The Philippine Star to check the sked of Frida and I came across an article about Director Joel Lamangan's upcoming Manila Film Fest movie Ang Huling Birhen sa Lupa. I read in another article a few weeks back (also in the bank) that Maui Taylor plays the mentally disabled sister of Ara Mina and the so-called "birhen" in the movie. She watched I am Sam so that she could understand her role more, and my friends and I chuckled, "Well, at least she's trying." I wanted to read more on what these writers or critics thought of Taylor playing ANOTHER virgin, but to my disappointment, this article gave away the ending or what is more or less the outcome of the movie's odd plot. Even worse, the author's name wasn't there. Stupid. I can't even find the article in the newspaper's website! I like checking on the developments in the Filipino film industry, mainly because I've friends working in it now. But I think that critics and movie reviewers should also work on their critical writing skills. The film fest hasn't even started, so why the hell are they giving away endings? Criticize it to death when it's out or after its run. But if you're going to write about it before it comes out, then build it up or put it down, just don't spoil it. We joke about poor Filipino trailers that tell the whole story, and now here's an article that does the same thing. It's just sad. Whatever happened to "Warning: Spoilers"? :p *** >Yey, I've been watching movies! I wasn't expecting much, but after a long day with yucky work, a movie like How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days can be pretty good. It was light and fun and bizarre in a way, but it had all that romantic comedy fun, was brainless yet left you affected. "Bull shit!" We were talking about it in the office, joking about how we should have a GamePlan love fern to show people we're nuts about each other, and our resident kulot Camille made an interesting observation. That whenever Andy, played by Kate Hudson, was true to herself, her hair was curly. So all of us go wow, oo nga ano! And she says, "See? Kulots rule!" Ok. I also saw Bruce Almighty and I thought that it was hilarious. Jim Carrey wasn't as irritating as he was in Ace Ventura (Which I actually found hilarious as well back then because I was in the mood for his kind of humor. Ace Ventura 2 was sick, though.) and I thought that the plot was really funny and thoughtful. You think My job's so easy? Then go ahead! Play Me! God! I've got the power! The seriousness of the movie felt forced, though. Carrey's drama here as Bruce Nolan was so far from his incredibly sad but inspiring role in the fishbowl that was The Truman Show. And I was shivering in the scene where Bruce's girlfriend Grace, played by Jennifer Aniston, was crying a prayer. No, I wasn't shivering because it was cold. It was because the delivery was just so bad and tacky and I don't know, just so fake for some reason. OR...sige, wait. Sometimes, girls do cry like that (And I admit that I was crying in the movie house because what she was saying was a very sad thing that most people do experience.), but I think that the whole scene -- the shot, the music, or maybe the build up towards it -- wasn't that effective. Basta, I didn't like that scene. The whole serious part was such a drag. The yummy burrito dinner before the movie was slowly putting me to sleep. But all in all, the movie was good. "It's goood!!!" Many good laughs outnumbered the drags. Plus the outtakes in the credit roll were really funny, too. The best still has to be my finally seeing the ever-famous Run Lola Run and my God was it beautiful. B-E-A-utiful! The shots and the colors and the mix of mediums like animation and grainy DV was really interesting. The music was amazing, I wish I had money to buy the soundtrack. And I loved how Franka Potente as Lola stood out throughout the movie, with the smart mix of her bright red hair, aqua pants and I think a blue shirt, every shot of her definitely said that she was the subject. The edit was also inspiring. It actually made me miss editing...which I will be doing this week. Uh-oh.  I love this movie. You've no idea. Anyway, what a wonderful movie. Wonderful! And thanks to a certain fruit for making me watch it. :)
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