Last night I came back from the Samal Island to my place in Santa Ana, Davao city. I was rather depressed and upset. Also I felt exhausted and homesick.
Presently I involved in a six week summer production workshop. The subject "the basic movie production workshop" is a requirement for those who are graduating this coming year. After two weeks in this class, we were arranged into groups of seven by our professor and sent to the production fields for short films.
Each member of the group has a specific role; director, producer, editor, cinematographer, writer, makeup artist or key grip. I was assigned the key grip position, which mainly handles the various equipments.
As I did not have a video camera it was not appropriate for me for the director and cinematographer posts. I am not keen on editing, and as far as producing is concerned, it requires a knowledge of the shooting sites' location and this I don't know. I like writing but unfortunately my group had already selected a writer and anyway I probably wouldn't have wanted to write about a hot-bloody film. Naturally the make-up artist is out of the question for me, so the key grip job was my only choice. How pitiful is this!
We went to Samal Island for two nights and three days to do the shooting. The short film was about a psycho killer. He killed four students who were having on summer vocation on the island. The film was in Tagalog, the Philippine national language.
The production process was long and depressing for me because I did not understand their Bisayan or Tagalog language except when they spoke on a rare occasion in English. Inevitably I was always out of tune with their conversations. However I had to drag myself through these long painful hours for the sake of my grades in the exam.
Apart from the language barrier, it is not really easy to work with these people. The actual shooting of the film would be only six hours and as a result we had a lot of free time because we were there for three days and two nights. During these times of doing nothing I felt alone and bored because the other group members invited their girlfriends, man friends, transsexuals, etc.... over to the island and spent their time with them. Of course, by our group doing this they were violating the rules. What was worse, these friends and lovers were brought into the film as so called actors in the film. Worst, we as a group had to contribute towards their return bus and boat fares. What lucky days for them!
Anyway for me I wanted to finish the shooting as soon as possible and go back to my place. However I was marooned out on this island and could not do anything about it except to be patient. Being in this kind of situation I learnt to control my emotions and practice that word patience. Fortunately, I brought a book "The Old Man and The Sea" by Hemingway. It was my good friend as I lost myself in its reading as my group members preoccupied themselves with their lovers. You know, this stupid idiotic film will only be screened for fifteen-minutes and probably nobody will watch it except ourselves.
Naturally we cooked food by ourselves during these days. One of my group members was a good cook. I liked Kinilau, a local food which is raw fish with quite heavy (vinegar) Calamanse.
It was the first morning on the island. I cooked noodles I bought them with my own money the previous day. My other friends were still asleep. I used coconut oil in cooking. That oil was supposed to use as blood in the shooting scenes. Definitely I did not know about it. Some of the members complained to me because of using the coconut oil.
Time by time, I noticed it was quite uncomfortable to work with the group if I kept differences and isolated from the rest. I had to do chores while other friends did not want to do. I had to be humble enough for them.
After all, we were done with shooting. Then, we prepared to go home. Inevitably when I heard the word home, it was the most romantic moment for me. It almost made me cry because my other friends would go home but mine was going back to my room.
However the Samal Island gave me pretty much similar atmosphere to me at dusk because I sensed like the places I grew up in Myanmar. As dusk fell, birds flew back to their nests. I was shivered with the cold evening breeze which passed across my face. The evening was very silent except for the sound of the birds and trembling sound of the trees. They were awfully beautiful while the swirl of the evening breeze rose close to the surface of the ground with dry leaves on the ways. They drove me into the clean evening smell of the Samal Island's forest. However I could not stop having homesickness and loneliness.
Thankfully, I said prayers to God. Somehow, I came back safely to my place in Davao city in the late evening.
Presently I involved in a six week summer production workshop. The subject "the basic movie production workshop" is a requirement for those who are graduating this coming year. After two weeks in this class, we were arranged into groups of seven by our professor and sent to the production fields for short films.
Each member of the group has a specific role; director, producer, editor, cinematographer, writer, makeup artist or key grip. I was assigned the key grip position, which mainly handles the various equipments.
As I did not have a video camera it was not appropriate for me for the director and cinematographer posts. I am not keen on editing, and as far as producing is concerned, it requires a knowledge of the shooting sites' location and this I don't know. I like writing but unfortunately my group had already selected a writer and anyway I probably wouldn't have wanted to write about a hot-bloody film. Naturally the make-up artist is out of the question for me, so the key grip job was my only choice. How pitiful is this!
We went to Samal Island for two nights and three days to do the shooting. The short film was about a psycho killer. He killed four students who were having on summer vocation on the island. The film was in Tagalog, the Philippine national language.
The production process was long and depressing for me because I did not understand their Bisayan or Tagalog language except when they spoke on a rare occasion in English. Inevitably I was always out of tune with their conversations. However I had to drag myself through these long painful hours for the sake of my grades in the exam.
Apart from the language barrier, it is not really easy to work with these people. The actual shooting of the film would be only six hours and as a result we had a lot of free time because we were there for three days and two nights. During these times of doing nothing I felt alone and bored because the other group members invited their girlfriends, man friends, transsexuals, etc.... over to the island and spent their time with them. Of course, by our group doing this they were violating the rules. What was worse, these friends and lovers were brought into the film as so called actors in the film. Worst, we as a group had to contribute towards their return bus and boat fares. What lucky days for them!
Anyway for me I wanted to finish the shooting as soon as possible and go back to my place. However I was marooned out on this island and could not do anything about it except to be patient. Being in this kind of situation I learnt to control my emotions and practice that word patience. Fortunately, I brought a book "The Old Man and The Sea" by Hemingway. It was my good friend as I lost myself in its reading as my group members preoccupied themselves with their lovers. You know, this stupid idiotic film will only be screened for fifteen-minutes and probably nobody will watch it except ourselves.
Naturally we cooked food by ourselves during these days. One of my group members was a good cook. I liked Kinilau, a local food which is raw fish with quite heavy (vinegar) Calamanse.
It was the first morning on the island. I cooked noodles I bought them with my own money the previous day. My other friends were still asleep. I used coconut oil in cooking. That oil was supposed to use as blood in the shooting scenes. Definitely I did not know about it. Some of the members complained to me because of using the coconut oil.
Time by time, I noticed it was quite uncomfortable to work with the group if I kept differences and isolated from the rest. I had to do chores while other friends did not want to do. I had to be humble enough for them.
After all, we were done with shooting. Then, we prepared to go home. Inevitably when I heard the word home, it was the most romantic moment for me. It almost made me cry because my other friends would go home but mine was going back to my room.
However the Samal Island gave me pretty much similar atmosphere to me at dusk because I sensed like the places I grew up in Myanmar. As dusk fell, birds flew back to their nests. I was shivered with the cold evening breeze which passed across my face. The evening was very silent except for the sound of the birds and trembling sound of the trees. They were awfully beautiful while the swirl of the evening breeze rose close to the surface of the ground with dry leaves on the ways. They drove me into the clean evening smell of the Samal Island's forest. However I could not stop having homesickness and loneliness.
Thankfully, I said prayers to God. Somehow, I came back safely to my place in Davao city in the late evening.
