HALLOWED EVE

So here I am at the eve of Halloween, doing what? WHAT ELSE but creating MONSTERS! APT ISN’T IT? Like a mad scientist I have not seen the light of day for…uhm days. Locked inside my laboratory I sew pieces of different limbs and body parts to create something new. But alas. Nothing is ever new. All of them have been done before. VIRGIL and the Greek poets, VICTOR VON FRANKENSTEIN, DR. MOREAU,LOVE CRAFT, THE ATOM BOMB. They have done it, years ago. So how does one top that? One doesn’t.

One might emulate or do a variation but …

I don’t know. My mind reels from such thoughts.

Sometimes I purchase a limb that is impossible to come by. Only to discover that it doesn’t fit. Then I ‘m faced with quandary of tossing the limb into the junk pile or totally abandoning the present structure and start a new with the aforementioned limb.

Choices…choices…choices…

NEVER ENDS

Then there is the wife of course.

She vexes me about the Promethean amount of electricity that I use up. BUT OF COURSE! How can you bring a MONSTER to life without that most precious substance that most vital of elements? ELECTRICITY!

IT’S A Time honored device, ALMOST TRADITION in every HORROR GENRE.

She also complains about the laboratory smelling like garlic. What can I say? I love that spice. It also keeps the competition out.

So here I’m writing my journals. Resting my tired eyes. Contemplating the missing factor that will bring my creation to life. Asking the universe how can I create the most HORRIBLE MONSTER OF ALL.Then the door opens and she screams!

Equipped with a pair of wings wrenched from some poor pixie she faces me and opens her terrible mouth. It is then that the horrific realization dawned on me. I HAVE ALREADY CREATED THE MOST HORRIBLE MONSTER OF ALL TIME,

GAZE UPON HER VISAGE AND DESPAIR, ALL YE MIGHTY AND POWERFUL!!!!

1ST TENTACLE

STEADICAM ASSEMBLED! Joe and me put together the contraption in less than an hour.Distribution of weights were designed on heavy the camera is. Meaning, you have to change the poundage when you change lenses. The giant telephoto extensions for the bolex add five pounds, while the wide-angle attachment somewhere between two to four.

The battery that I use which can take up to nine hours straight shooting, is another giant waiting to be carried.

We did test shots of extensive tracking and dolly movements. Configuring and re-configuring the weight.

JOE: Normally it would take months for somebody to get the hang of it. But you did it in a few hours. Honestly Im not surprised since you were able to do long tracking shots that looked like steadicam shots so I guess you know the basics inherently.

So the question that pops into mind is why did I get a steadicam when I can already do steady shots right? I don’t know but the equipment looks very cool! (Of course I know. I can make my steady shots look a lot steadier! )

2ND TENTACLE

Massive re-editing on the COMFORT WOMEN documentary’s been finished. We have an official title, EXORCISING DEMONS. First cut was 3 hours long. Parred it down to 2 and 30.

3RD TENTACLE

I’m into the 2nd act of the script that JOE commissioned me to do. Having a great time doing it. It’s a blast to write something, knowing that you wont direct it. In the past whenever I write a scene I stop dead in my tracks and then take out the calculator, “ HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO THAT? HOW MUCH IS THAT GOING TO COST? “ Then you start dialing and making inquiries about so-so location, so-so equipment and such. By the end of the day I go back to the view screen and delete the scene, COSTS TOO MUCH!

Joe has given me CARTE BLANCHE on the entire story. Insisting that I should insert my trademark, black humor.

I said that I’d try. I believe that the humor should be found in the premise and not inserted for humor’s sake. If I don’t find it in the material then it’s not there! But the story is primed with so many possibilities that it takes me time to explore every avenue possible!

4TH TENTACLE

Just finished the re-mastering of a music video I did years ago. I did this MTV for 50 thousand pesos. Really dirt-cheap. That measly sum covered everything and quite frankly I wasn’t that happy with the finished cut. So now after 5 years I went back and did my special director’s cut , TINGGA EDITION.

Using the state of the arts digital equipment at my disposal I was able to shape it into what I always wanted it to look like. Now I know how GEORGE LUCAS must have felt like.

But there’s no massive re-structuring done, like HAN SOLO shooting first. Besides it’s just a damn music video! What can you do?

I don’t know if I should even submit it for airing. Probably just put it in my demo-reel.

5TH TENTACLE

I’m being commissioned to do a documentary about the URBAN POOR. I don’t know how much the budget will be but this would be a civic duty kinda thing. Armed with the latest technological equipment, I will land on their homes when they least expect it and shoot every inch of their abode. My camera will glide and swoop from the rafters and into the very soul of the least forgotten half hammered nail on their flooring. I will show the humanity in those impoverished structures, ‘ THE HUMANITY! THE UTTER HUMANITY OF IT ALL! “

First it was the COMFORT WOMEN, now the URBAN POOR. Am I becoming a social realist?


7TH TENTACLE

Also spending a lot of quality time with SELINA. Since I’m in the CAVE most of the time I put her to sleep on the couch with the SIMPSON’S 3RD SEASON DVDS playing.THE SOUTH PARK DVD was conveniently lent by CESS to her dad. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a secret command not to have it returned. Anyway I’ll just go and get a new one and watch it when the kid’s not around.

8TH TENTACLE


CESS: “ Now why are you doing that? Shouldn’t you be shooting or something? “

FLIM: “ I need a g>VACATION. And this is what im going to learn during my free time. Other people study languages and cooking but I’m going to study this!

CESS: “ And how much did it cost you to get that equipment and those things what ever you call them? (Pointing at the new machine and the various cables that come out of it)

FLIM: “ You wouldn’t want to know.”

CESS: “ Have you checked your students grades yet? “

FLIM: “ Yep. I’m going to do the tally of their final grade after I animate the hind tentacle of the KRAKEN

I have been sitting on the strong>WORKSTATION for about a week now as I study the basic rudiments of COMPUTER GRAPHICS ANIMATION. It is true that it does take some time from me, from doing the commissioned script and the shooting of my two projects. But since the sem- break already started I figured this is the best time to do it. Im not going to hike off to some distant cordilleira mountain to discover the inner me, or go to the beach and get a tan! I can get that while waiting for a cab.

Joe told me that I could easily just pass it off to the computer graphics division. That’s true but I want to do it on my own. Delegating spfx elements to a third party is a common practice in the professional world. You shoot the main plate and then pass it off to the SPFX team and then you sit down with them and express thru words or drawings what you want them to do.

They then build something and after a few days you are called to check on it and you either like it or hate it or it brings you to another tangent

While doing it on your own, aside from saving you tons of time communicating and shuttling back and forth to the studio, gives you complete creative control. You are no longer under the whim of the technoids.TECHNOID: “ Sorry Direk, we can’t do that shot it’s too complicated.”

TECHNOID 2: “ Ohhh that’s going to take a lot of rendering time.”

TECHNOID 3: “We can do that but we need to boost our production budget.”

By investing on the software and the hardware’s I can save a lot of money in the long run. Now I have a computer graphics division in my studio and I don’t have to deal with those TECHNOIDS ever! Of course I have to go thru tons of books that weigh heavier than those damn yellow pages and I have to cram and click my way thru PERDITIONS FLAME before I can come up with something passable.

But I would go thru PERDITIONS FLAME before I give up! In fact when I look at the mirror I ‘m beginning to resemble…

OHHH GOSH! I AM A TECHNOID! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FLIM: “ Anyway…her school teacher asked Selina if she was enjoying herself. And Selina looks at her with her big eyes and said, ‘ S..U..C..K…M..Y..A..S..S.”

I was in the canteen with my fellow teacher, TATS , DOCTORA TACAR and our funny chairperson MRS B.

TATS: “Well you should have heard what my niece told my mother when she was scolded by my Mom, She said, “ASSHOLE!”

FLIM: “ NO SHIT! “

TATS: ” Yes.. and she’s only three.”

DOCTOR TACAR: “The daughter of my niece, I told her to stop playing in the rain and she said, ‘ FUCK A DUCK! “

FLIM: ”Frightening!

MRS. B: “ I have a horror story to tell. I was in the States because I was helping my sister, baby-sit her four-year-old child. Well one day MY NIECE did something bad. I don’t recall what but I pinched her and told her to stop it. You know what she said? She said, “ OUCHHHHH!!!I’M GOING TO CALL THE POLICE! “And she went to the phone and started to dial.

I took the phone away from her and placed it back on the cradle and said, “If you CALL the police I’ll kill YOU!! “

She cried and said, “ Noooooooooo!!!You’ll kill me?????? Noooooooo!!! I’m really going to call the police! ! “

And she tried to grab the phone from me. I told her, “ If you call the police, I’LL KILL THEM TOO! “

She cried, “ NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! You’ll kill me? Nooooooooooooo!!!!
I’m going to tell my mother! “

I told her to keep quiet! And if she tells’s her mother…I’LL KILL HER TOO! She cries again, “ NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! You can’t kill my mother! NOOOOO!!!!!! I’ll just tell my father! “

Then my sister comes in. She asked what that crying was all about. I told her the entire story and she started to laugh. She then told her daughter that she would be the one to tell the father about my pinching. But you know kids right? When you tell them not to do something that’s when they really DO IT!

So I tell my niece, “ YOU TELL YOUR FATHER AND I’LL KILL HIM TOO! “

My niece then started crying again and said, “ MOTHER DID YOU HEAR THAT? SHE’S GOING TO KILL FATHER TOO…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

My sister told her that I was only joking.

So the matter was closed and I went up to my room and prepared to take a bath when my niece enters the room and sits on my bed. She looked at my suspiciously and said,

“ Auntie I was doing a lot of thinking and I don’t believe that you can kill..THE POLICE, MY FATHER and MY MOTHER and me! That’s a lot of people to kill. You’ll get tired very soon. And if you do kill the police, my mother and my father … can’t you just spare me? “

TATS: “ How old is she? “

MRS. B:” Only five.”

FLIM: “ It’s frightening!

MRS. B:” Yes they mature really fast.”

FLIM:” That’s not what I meant. It’s frightening to think that you’re the chairman of the department!