I hate rendering time! RENDERING TIME is when you just finished a cut and you want to preview it with certain effects.
RENDERING is a pivotal element in computer based non-linear editing.Its No problem when its just s few seconds and no special effects. But when it’s an hour and ten minute rough- cut then your in for the long haul. When I did a MUSIC VIDEO with a three-minute and fifty- five second running time. RENDERING TIME took 6 hours. It’s a far cry when I was editing in film. When it was a 16mm cut it would take a day and a half. When it was super8 I would have to wait for a month just to see how the footages looked like. They didn’t process the film stock here and I had to mail it to JAPAN by regular mail. But the long wait was worth it because the processing in the land of the rising sun was pristine and very professional. THE SAME CANNOT BE SAID ABOUT OUR LOCAL LABS! IN JAPAN everyone holds the film print with gloves and radiation like suits. Here they eat manga and bagoong while handling your negatives!!!! In JAPAN they would use new chemicals for every film stock processed. HERE THEY WOULDN’T PROCESS YOUR FILM IF ITS JUST ONE REEL. AW NO! They’d wait for the orders to pile up and then dump them in a chemical vat that’s been used for the past three months! SO WE WEREN’T SHOCKED when the films came out cloudy. They can always blame you for making an exposure error. There was one instance where my negative got scratched in THE LAB! THEY BLAMED MY CAMERA FOR IT. FUNNY THING IS THAT IT WAS THE ONLY NEGATIVE THAT GOT SCRATCHED! AND THE FOLLOWING NEGS were ok. COMMON SENSE dictates that if it was the camera in error then all the negatives would have scratches but well… CEST LA VIE. IT’S THE PHILIPPINES.

I remember one screw up where I did a final cut for a black and white high contrast film that I shot that didn’t have any edge numbers. The edge numbers in the film stocks got erased because the film workshop coordinator recanned the film stocks backward thus exposing the edge numbers. The edge numbers are very important because they are used in identifying your particular choice of a take to the lab people who cut the negative.

Since the lab people dont know a thing about what you are doing,they have to rely on the edge numbers.

Imagine my surprise when I was viewing my final print and seeing that it was a totally different version from what i had envisioned and edited.I wouldnt have mind if it made the film better...but. The right shots where nowhere to be seen and the wrong takes where everywhere!Continuity 's gone out of the window! After weeks of toiling in the editing room and not seeing the outside world, my only consolation was that it was finally finished and i can just sit back and watch the final print and then go home and sleep for four days and NOW THIS HAPPENS!

I didnt even wait for the film to finish. I stormed ouyt of the screening room and into the lab.I asked the negative cutter where my outtakes where. (The shots that got edited out from the final cut.)

NEGATIVE CUTTER: “ It’s in the waste basket. We threw it a day ago.Why?”

FILM: " You werent able to match my cuts! You glued together the wrong takes! IT'S A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MOVIE! "

NEGATIVE CUTTER: " What did you expect? No edge numbers. I was cutting it blindly!"

The workshop coordinator tells me to just let it be because the film was ok.

BUT IT WASN’T!!! NOT FOR ME!!!!! Im not going to let this thing go just like that not when I still have a few hours of consciousness before I collapse in exhaustion. I went directly to the main garbage bin and went in feet first. I rummaged thru shit and banana peels and several hours of outtakes from other films that the lab was doing at the time. I would have laughed myself silly if I wasn't too tired and drained.But one thing sustained me, THIS IS MY FILM! AND IT'S GOING TO BE SHOWN , MY VERSION!!!

After an hour or two I was able to retrieve a piece here and a piece there. After five hours I was able to get what I assume was the last pieces and proceed to cut them on my own.

NEGATIVE CUTTER: “ You are not allowed to cut your own negative. THAT’S MY JOB.”

The negative cutter was a woman around fifty at the time and despite her screw-up she was a very nice lady. I didn’t want to blame her too much. One has to respect the elderly.

FLIM: “ Maam. I hope you don’t mind but your cut was totally not the one I made. And I don’t think you can make it without edge numbers. You’d need a magnifying glass to ascertain which shot is which since the 16mm format is small. So just let me do it and you can go home early and relax.”

NEGATIVE CUTTER: “ But what makes you think that you can do it if it’s as hard as you say it is.”

FLIM: “ I wrote the script! I shot the film! I composed and played the music! And I edited it with my own two hands! I lived with this for so long that i can cut it in the dark with just smelling salts for company! believe me I can do it! AND I LOVE DOING IT I love it so much that I didn’t have any second thoughts about diving into garbage full of shit just to retrieve the footages. Or tiring my eyes out as I weeded out my shots from the rest of the rabble. And I don’t mind spending another two days of no sleep just so that Ic an see the version that I had in mind from the onset! “

NEGATIVE CUTTER smiled and patted me in the back.

I finished my cut the following day. And when I viewed my final print two days later. I smiled with a weary face. I had chicken pox the week after that and was incapacitated for a month. Doctor told me that my resistance was weak because of what I put my body thru.

The first time the film was shown most of the people who loved my films didn’t like it so much. It didn’t have what they expect from a FLIM film. It wasn’t funny in the black humor department. There was no clear- cut narrative thrust. And the ending didn’t have a concrete climax.


But it was the film that won in THE 1st Prize Winner, 1990 Film Academy of the Philippines Student Award, Short Feature Category.


And my first international award, Grand Prize Winner, First Southeast Asian Film Competition, Tokyo Japan, 1992.Not bad for a film that was assembled from a garbage bin.And to think that I started complaining about RENDERING TIME.


THE CAVE

Three carpenters were supposed to be all over the cave last Thursday. Ces has been whipping my back for months now about using the blank walls to put up some wooden boards so that I can stack my hoard of rare toys and DVDs on top of them. Instead of littering the floor. I tried fending off her assaults twice as long as the siege on MASADA. But as Peter o Toole said, “ I shall TAKE MASADA AND IT SHALL FALL! “ And I did fell. My main supply line was cut and the constant blows of the battering ram diminished my resistance.

It started with a reconnaissance mission six days prior. To MEGA MALL’S ACE HARDWARE. I had to buy a pair of new extension cords since my present one blew up in my face. Cess said that I had too many computers plugged into one extension. I told her that THREE COMPUTERS in one plug isn’t many. It’s just that they make sissy extension chords is all. Some are done in transparent pink plastic! I mean how tacky can you get?

So she told me to meet her there. I was chatting with JASON about a project pitch that he was formulating at the time so I dragged him with me.

The extension chord expedition slowly transformed into a scan and reconnoiters the hanging shelf section of the shop. She did it so subtly

CESS: “Now get that extension chord it looks sturdy enough. What’s the brand? “

FLIM: “ PANTHER! “

CESS: “ Made where? “

FLIM: “ With a brand name like PANTHER? Where else? THE PHILIPPINES! Any product that has an aggressive animal species, as its brand must be locally produced. JAGUAR! COBRA! Pronounced in a single hissing sylabble. Totally deplorable. But on second thought I wouldn’t buy an extension chord if its brand name were BUTTERFLY or PANDA, Or RIVER SPRINGS, right? ”

Cess shrugs.

FLIM: “ Extension chords transmit electrical power. Therefore it must have a powerful name.”

I looked at the other chords.

FLIM: “What about IDI AMIN extension chords? Doesn’t that sound powerful? “


CESS: “ Look overboard panels. You can buy them now and then have the carpenters put it up by Thursday.”

See? She uses the word " LOOK " as a transitional device.

FLIM: “ I don’t want the carpenters going inside the cave. They’re going to mess up the system and have dust and debris and dirt all over and I cant clean it because of the tons of wires that are all over the place and…”

CESS: “ You can also ask them to turn the south wall into an ARMORY.”

Now that move is a stroke of genuis.

BLAST IT! She really knows how to reel me in. I have long dreamt about hanging my various weapons up into the south wall. So I could sit under the assault rifles and MP submachine guns the two samurai swords and the various grenades and explosive canisters! Sigh.

FLIM: “ ALL RIGHT YOU WIN! GET THOSE CARPENTERS IN! “

The carpenter arrived at 8. He was alone.

CARPENTER: “ We need to buy the wood and the metal under hinges.”


RIGHTRIGHTRIGTH!

CARPENTER: " And we need to buy drill bits."

FLIM: " You dont even have your own drill bits? next thing I know you're going to hit me up for some nails."

CARPENTER: "Nails no problems. I have lots. But we wont use them."

FIGURES!

FLIM: “ We’ll do the shelves later. We start with the ARMORY.”
Carpenter looks at all the guns.

CARPENTER: “ But they said in the office that I was just going to do shelves.”

FLIM: “ THEY LIIIIIIIIEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!HAHAHAHAHA!”

He then went to the hardwarestore and came back with the hooks and the drill bit.

Carpenter then draws out a mean drill and started drilling.

I had anticipated there was going to be a lot of dust but nothing prepared me for the MOTHER LODE of ALL DUST CLOUDS!!!

FLIM: “ DON’T YOU HAVE A SUNCTION MOTOR OR SOMETHING???!!!!!!”

CARPENTER: “IN THE STATES THEY DO. IT’S ATTACHED TO THE LOWER END OF THE DRILL AND THEN AUTOMATICALLY SUCKS THE DUST AS FAST AS IT DRILLS! BUT HERE…..NOOO”

Only in the Philippines.

FLIM: “ LOOK AT ALL THAT DUST!!!!!!”

CARPENTER: “ DON’T WORRY … THE NEWSPAPERS THAT YOU COVERED YOUR EQUIPMENT WITH WILL PROTECT THEM!!!! “

Somehow I didn’t believe him.

CARPENTER: “ So where do you want the 3 armalites? “

FILM: “ On top of one another.”

CARPENTER: “ Ok! “

Drills six more holes. More dust …more debris.

CARPENTER: “ How about this? What do you call this gun? “

FLIM: “ AN ITHACA TWELVE GAUZE SHOTGUN. Should be at the bottom. That’s the heaviest looking. ”

CARPENTER: “ Don’t you want it on top of the 3 armalites? So that there could be balance. “

FLIM: “ What balance? “

CARPENTER: “ So when you look at them it doesn’t look ..weird.”

FLIM: “ Well it’s going to look weirder still when we move the crib in. And where did you get this “ balance” thing? You a designer as well? “

CARPENTER: “ It’s part of my job as a carpenter.”

FLIM: “ Oh…ok. I want the shotgun on the bottom so that the barrel can function as a lodging point for my multiple grenades.”

CARPENTER: “ Oh yes that will be good.”

So he drills more holes.

FLIM: “ Now drill two more holes on top of the armalites so that I can put the MPK ASSAULT RIFLE on top of them all. That’s where the balance occurs. You have a mean long rifle on top and the heavy long shot gun on the bottom.”

CARPENTER: “ Oh yes.”

By now the room was a whirlwind of dust clouds and sandstorms. Pretty soon mirages and spit throwing camels would be seen from the next dune.

Mang Lito the driver walks in carrying the wooden planks for the cabinet.

MANG LITO: “ Looks very good. Like an army room.”

FLIM: “ Now we have the submachine going the opposite way.”

MANG LITO: “ NO! NO! NO! Every gun should go in the same direction. Why would you like this gun to counter flow? “

FLIM: “ I don’t know it just looks good.”

MANG LITO: “ You’ll destroy the entire look. There will be no harmony in the design.”

Suddenly everyone and everyone is an aesthetically trained visualist.

FLIM: “ I want one piece to go against the direction that every gun is pointed to.”

MANG LITO: “ And why do you want that? There’s no uniformity then.”

FLIM: “ Mang Lito I was never the type who wears terno . Who wears black t-shirts and black pants and black shoes and black socks and black briefs and to top it all black condoms!”

MANG LITO: “ What has that got to do with it? “

FLIM: “ Harmony doesn’t come from everything going into one direction. Its having some who go the opposite route mingling and co-existing peacefully with those that don’t.THAT’S HARMONY!”

MANG LITO: “ That’s confusion … uhm…what’s the word? “

FLIM: “ CHAOS! “

MANG LITO: “ Yes. Chaos and disorder. Harmony is everyone doing the same thing as everybody else. Everyone going the same direction. Like your guns all pointing in the same direction.”

FLIM: “ Everyone going the same way? That’s not harmony. THAT’S A DICTATORSHIP! “

MANG LITO: “ Dictatorship is when you force someone to do something against their will.”

FLIM: “ Yes????? ”

MANG LITO: “ We’re just trying to make everything go the same way so that there’s unity and …and harmony…and…”

FLIM: “ That’s DICTATORSHIP. Forcing them to do things for the greater good of the entire unit. Rationalizing and justifying your actions while you force the individual to do your whim that’s dictatorship.”

MANG LITO: “ Are you TRYING TO TELL ME THAT WHEN I DISCIPLINE MY CHILDREN THAT IT’S DICTATORSHIP? WHEN I SPANK THEM I’M LIKE MARCOS? THAT EVIL BASTARD!!!!”

FLIM: “ No You’re not like Marcos! Every parent has to be a dictator! And I didn’t say that dictatorship is a bad thing although most of the time it is. Its hard to become a good dictator because most of the time You become drunk with power and the same aggressive rule of force that you used for the benefit of the whole will slowly be the same weapon that you will wield against them. You are a PARENT and that automatically brands you a dictator. You spank when you must. MARCOS JUST SPANKS AND SPANKS AND TAKES AWAY HIS CHILDREN’S ALLOWANCES. NOW DO YOU FEEL BETTER? OK THEN, THE GUN GOES THE OPPOSITE WAY! “

Mang Lito scratches his pomade-greased hair.

MANG LITO : “ They should all go the same way.”

FLIM: “ Well Im the anarchist! I love a little chaos and pandemonium. AND THIS IS MY CAVE! I DECIDE WHERE THE BARREL POINTS AND THAT IS FINAL! “

CARPENTER: “ Can I drill now? “

Four hours later when every gun and explosives have been locked in place, the carpenter and me just stared at them.


CARPENTER: “ It looks good. “

FLIM: “ Its something isn’t it. But then again we’re boys. Girls don’t like these kinds of things.”

CARPENTER: “ What do you do with them anyway?”

FLIM: “ Props! It’s cheaper to buy your own props than renting them. Do you know they charge you 800 bucks for a wooden armalite for a day? And then you have to pay 300 pesos for a caretaker. WHAT DOES A WOODEN ARMALITE NEED A CARETAKER FOR?”

MANG LITO walks in again and this time he’s carrying the iron underpinnings.

MANG LITO: “ Well… you are right. It does look good going the opposite way.”

FLIM: “ Trust me.”

I gave him a wink.

CARPENTER: “ What about the sword? Should I drill another hole? “

FLIM: “ No. The sword has its own stand. I ‘ll place it in the corner. I don’t want to sit in the sofa with a sword dangling on my head. I’ll feel depressed most of the time.”

Then Cess walks in. Even she was stunned by the beauty of the ARMORY

CESS: “ WAIT! YOU HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED ON THE SHELVES? ITS BEEN SIX HOURS!!!!!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ???????”







I read the news and my heart stopped.KEAUNUE REEVES is JOHN CONSTANTINE!

I thought that it was bad enough that NIC CAGE WAS GOING TO PLAY the MASTER MAGICIAN BUT KEANUE REEVES? ... Anyone who is familiar with the JOHN CONSTANTINE CHARACTER knows what a dreadful mistake this is going to be. I just can’t fathom the level of stupidity HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES dig themselves in.

Having him play a martial arts practioner in THE MATRIX was horrible enough. How can you believe this guy can do all those things when he can’t even execute a proper sidekick without the benefit of wires? But the film made a lot of money and that’s good enough for the executives.

BUT HOW ON EARTH CAN HE PLAY A WISE CRACKING VERY INTELLIGENT AND MANIPULATIVE BASTARD with his zero personality acting style. He played a baddie in that SAM RAIMI horror film but he played a mindless gumbah from the woods and that’s the best thing he can do aside from making expressions like,” DUHHHHH "

They could have gotten FIENES OR EVEN STING, whom ALANA MOORE credits as the inspiration for the character. ITS GOING TO BE ANOTHER " FROM HELL" fiasco.