Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Poetry In Motion.

Flaccid and feeble she makes her way

a once hopeful past trailing behind her wrinkled face

into a narrow path of light she succumbs unnoticed

a once famous name hiding behind her measured steps .

Then from somewhere out of nowhere

an overachieving call center agent overtakes her way

a shoplifting addict flees around her curb

a philandering wife wanders around her corner

a dope-dealing punk intersects the alley across her

a self-serving politician moves quickly past her

a corrupting policeman prances behind her.

Then just as sudden as the fleeting enigma of Father Time,

a fledgling artist traverses her path

calling out ' Isabel ? '

Suddenly the junction is crammed with moving figures

gradually my face is teemed with wrenching tears

not knowing for certain if it was the homespun ethnic music

or the silhouettes of the dancing figures

or the Poetry in the Motion of Life

or an amalgamation of All.

it mattered not.

oblivious of one another, yet

One moment.

is All At Once.





On a neo-ethnic theatrical ballet piece created by the Philippines' premier ballet & dance artist Agnes Locsin, in an interpretation of National Artist Ben Cabrera's poem entitled 'Dance, Sabel'. Performed at the PETA Theater Center 2010.

Friday, November 5, 2010

The Season's End.

A children’s TV show that strives on the delicate balance of ‘edu-tainment’, one that airs weekly on mainstream weekend TV here in my country, an easy favorite among kids from toddlers to pre-teeners, is playing its final episode tomorrow, November 6, 2010.

Not a finale episode to bring to the fore a new season, or a re-formatted program, or a new set of characters. But it is THE Season’s End, one last episode with the teary-eyed star cast of 8-to 10-year olds saying goodbye to its loyal audience.

The production and post-prod staff bid each other farewell in an afterparty on the last day of taping. Many of them cried for losing a show that started out some five years ago with another title, then evolved into a faster-paced narrative, and then re-formatted years later to incorporate 3D environments and character animation.

The child stars and their parents hated the almighty Network for its abrupt and callous decision. But of course the network execs were quick to say that such business direction had been based on serious studies conducted by the research, marketing and programming departments which had been uneasy over the show’s single-digit ratings these last 5 weeks.

Many crew members, all those small heroes below the lighting gaffers --- the minimum wage-earners who carry camera equipment from one location to the next and risk their lives in halting traffic or cabling wires so the taping can go smoothly and who make the coffee and run errands for the Executive Producer, Associate Producer, Supervising Producer, Line Producer, Segment Producer and all kinds of other producer geniuses --- lost a steady income and beyond that, the comfort zone of a weekly work environment.

But as the Network Chief says: this is television in action, we gotta move on, we have to stay on top of competition, we have to constantly break our own ratings records, blah-blah… Anyway, he says, there will be new shows for the child stars, the staff and crew.

Meanwhile, my company, which creates the animation and 3D environments for the show, is perhaps suffering the most. It won’t be part of whatever new show the network has lined-up. As a result, a major source of income has just been lost.
In our workspace, both our senior & junior visual artists are sulking over the demise of the show. My partners are now worried, and are prompting me to find a replacement to finance our company overhead.

Everyone is critically affected with this season’s end. But, this is one ending I really LIKE.

It had happened before. The painful process of losing a show teaches one how to live a life in television.

Once upon a recent past, I had raised hell and cried for nights when the powers-that-be robbed me of a top-rating teen drama soap that aired daily on primetime television. Sixteen seasons to my credit, I had created, founded and directed that show which handled serious themes of young love, teen angst, familial conflicts and campus riots. It was top-ranking on the audience rating charts and on the commercial spots. They wanted it so badly for themselves --- the triumph of a successful series, the prestige, the monies --- so much that they had to deviously take it away from me and claimed it to be their own.

Back in the 90’s, when I was a beginning TV director, I introduced the concepts of electronic sets and digital imagery for a visually-driven quiz show for high school students. At stake were millions of pesos in college scholarships and the honor to be qualified in a standard-bearing national quiz show. It rated double-digit on a weekend timeslot, but was unpopular with the advertisers. After 6 years of telecast, the Network axed it. I defended and fought hard to keep it on the air. Backed with the signatures of 400 schools and universities nationwide, I begged the Network to allow us to run for the 7th consecutive year. After all, our show grand champions who got their million-peso scholarships were studying to be doctors and physicists and lawyers. I thought I could appeal to their compassionate hearts using the Network’s tagline In The Service of The Nation. But long before I understood the dichotomy of broadcast dynamics, I realized that that tagline did a good job for brand hype and network image-building but meant nothing more than lip service .

In the more recent years, I had done one or two seasons of various other TV shows, in four other TV networks. There was a culinary travelogue, a couple of dance exercise shows, and a sports show. TV shows would always come to an end with either of these reasons: the show poorly rated, or the producer had run out of money, or the advertisers fell short for lack of hype and star value, or in remote cases, the network grabbed the idea to claim and re-format it into their own.

And that’s the back story to why I have come to abhor all season-enders on television.

But NOT this children’s show’s Season’s End.

This time around, I am relieved to find an excuse to leave my partners, and the Company.

My hands had been full. Despite a life devoid of children of my own to care for, I’ve been loaded with (or actually, they have damped on me) more demands and expectations to make this Company grow, to nurture its CG & animation artists, to hunt and close production deals and post-prod contracts.

That could have all been just fine, if only my partners looked after some of the other needs too, and perhaps a little of mine as well.

The daily grind of studio operations and a working life that compromises Creativity to Costs had left me barely any time to look after my own wishes, my own desires, my own dreams.

A hundred boring details to make other people’s interests work, to meet network goals, to grow their businesses, to turn their dreams into realities as though they were my own, had consumed me.

In each time I felt exhausted, I would tell myself it’s fine, for a life well-lived at the end of the day saves my soul from feeling wasted.

But like many other things in a working life, everything that really matters to me took a backseat.

I used to say when the dream film comes, I’ll take my options. And each day, I lived for that.

But today at this Season’s End, I decide to take My Turn.
My Time.

Counting 45 days up to the end of the year to wind up online projects and put the corporate set-up to a close, I am done here. With corporate chains unleashed, I will return to the back door to open new horizons for a free-lance life.

By then, and soon, I can watch more sunsets, walk the dogs and write.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Gathering

white walls washed in anguish
recede slowly into halts of dead ends, as
sporadic screams of pain dull the silent anger

white walls weep in woe
isolating wards at the row's very end, as
nurses in masks comfort the dying

a friend, frail and feeble lay lifeless
in her bed of sorrow

her eyes bloodshot, but yellow
her face deep-set, but skeletal

her body thin, but bloated around the middle
her fingers darkened blue, but nails blotched by chemo

her legs once a dancer's, now numb and still
her arms tender as a ballerina's, now bruised and wired
her hair once her wavy crown, now gone and gray

when her dissonant breathing took longer gaps in between
the gathering begged to subside each other's sobs

when her language slurred into tongues of the Spirit
the gathering sang hymns of praise

and when her hearing jarred into oblivion
the gathering begun to hold each other's hands

and when only her sense of touch seem unscathed
the gathering took turns to whisper their goodbyes

but just then before her eyes shot upwards
she murmured softly as she inhaled HAM...and exhaled SA...

repeating in rhythmic monotones HAM-SA... HAM-SA... HAM-SA...

by then the last sound of breath
the gathering wept, astounded with her Faith




Dedicated to Jean Gonzalo and her dance colleagues...

in Sanskrit HAM-SA means:
I am Divine, I am with God, I am an expression of God, I am not alone...

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Somber Day in August

The incoming week was bound to be busy: a contract-signing for a car show, a couple of bids needing creative treatments, an ocular out of town for a forthcoming shoot.
So after the Saturday pictorials for a dance concert, I allowed the remainder of the weekend to take a quiet respite. With the Sunday sunset spilling through the bedroom window, I nestled comfortably on the net touching base with my FB friends. By the time the moonlight pierced through the window sills, I was still catching up with an online writing community. I hadn't spent time with myself in a while, so I was engrossed until a PC icon called attention to an incoming email.

The news broke out in layers. First were the lines saying praise and thanking me for the proposed film project I had sent. Then the assurances that nothing was lacking with my submissions, that this must not be taken negatively. Just that the proposal was not selected nor approved for funding.

The almighty Producer had just declined my dream film: a historical epic that would cross over to the present. It was my only hope to get my dream film off the ground. My only chance to regain recognition from industry peers who smirk at the idea of a difficult multi-layered film. My only contribution to helping awaken my country's youth to rise up for change and good governance.

I stood still. For a moment, an hour, I don't recall how long, for I tried hard not to cry.


Midnight came. What was I thinking? That some well-meaning foreign producer would care about bringing life to a historical period piece that no one in its own country would dare pick up? Despite many years of rejection, I kept my hopes up.

But somewhere there I knew I had to curtail my expectations. I had thought to myself what else could I be doing outside my working life if my dream film doesn't see the light. Maybe, I'll learn to write a book. Or produce another less demanding but crusading TV show. Or perhaps try a less ambitious film story.

Something substantive, not just anything. To look forward to and build my life on.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Beyond the Summer Shores

the day moves refreshingly slow

dissipating for good my urban woes

as the tree branches romantically arch

shading my high-ceiling cabana.

Sea and sky meet in an effervescent horizon

creating varied hues of deep blues,

as my thoughts wander off beyond the shores

bringing me farther out to stray between voluminous islands

and taking me deeper down to the ocean of Timelessness

but in my heart...

the Dream is no closer than the waves are to the sea.



Will I die with it?

As I have lived for it?

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Countdown to the First & Only Film About Andres Bonifacio

Seventeen days to go. I vow to finish the first draft of the screenplay for ANDRES BONIFACIO.

In the aftermath of losing a daily television show over two years ago, I seriously started looking at what to write about for my first feature film. It had been a long dream coming, to write and direct a body of work for the big screen. After assisting film & TV directors, writing endless scripts and developing concepts and shows, and then spending another four years for a daily soap opera, I feel I have never been more ready for film than now.

It took longer than I expected to arrive at a subject matter I felt deeply for. My mind hovered over some family drama pieces, then I started putting together some form of adaptation from novels and pieces that inspired me. I even collaborated with a couple more writers to explore other possibilities. But none of what I wrote took shape, nothing of what I started writing could get finished. There was a huge block.

Writing ANDRES BONIFACIO was different. It flowed out of my heart. I was intrigued with the controversies, the double-edged betrayals, the parallelism of our Past with the Present. Some issues I have never explored before in my working life in television.

The film will cover the last thirteen days of his life, told in flashbacks unfolding one layer at a time. It will pay tribute to the forgotten heroes of an era gone by, as it attempts to inspire the next generation ANDRES BONIFACIO. It will challenge historians to write about what truly happened then, at the same time, make us understand why Pilipinos are unable to grow as a nation despite the abundance of talent and natural resources.

And like ANDRES BONIFACIO, I too am a victim of betrayal, I too clamor for a national leadership devoid of corruption and greed.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Life On A Cusp

Ocean waves crumble, crawl and cede

repeating its cycle in restless motion.

My pen strokes fumble, mumble, tremble

rotating its themes in timeless cycles.

A first film in the writing,

A picture book in the making,

Long cherished dreams are no closer than before

as the routine of a working life

and the daunting tasks of providing for others

take first precedence over feeding my own.

Why Andres Bonifacio, Take 2

Reminiscent of my shooting days in the 90's when I had first started, and long before my television experience, today's shoot at an urban poor community in Angono brought back to life an awakening I've had in my heart latent these many years.

My country hadn't changed much: the poverty uncontrollably rising amid the constant lack of opportunities for quality education, and hence, a decent livelihood.

Small miracles from the volunteer teachers and community workers may uplift individual spirits
& young minds, but these will never be sufficient to effect real change and spearhead a growth from a backward mentality. Only a national leadership can bring these ideals forth.

I hope to live strong enough and long enough to find the next gen Andres Bonifacio.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Chasing An Ultimate Dream

Almost as soon as I had found my voice in video and TV directing over ten years ago,
my Dream to write and direct a full-length feature film had surfaced.
Everything I have been doing since then whether for television or the live stage,
seems to be just a preparation ... no matter that the Dream remains distant, elusive in fact...

Will I die with it? As I have lived for it?
Why is it that important to me?
A sense of achievement? Or perhaps over-achievement?
A perennial need to communicate a message? Or, impart a value?
A soulful desire to leave behind a legacy?

Or, simply just to be able to live in my dream?

I seem to have looked everywhere and done everything for its cause...
(save for licking the hotshot producers' asses!)

But the Dream while appearing far and away from happening soon,
looms larger and closer than ever before.