Digital Fortress

The Oscar nominations has been announced and while several people are outraged because The Dark Knight (TDK) was snubbed of the Best Picture and Best Director nomination. I don’t find it surprising because in my opinion, TDK is just a great action movie with terrific performances but not necessarily a good “oscar” worthy movie.

 Just imagine it’s not Batman and it’s not based on a comic book. Being unfamiliar with the comic books, I found the plot messy. It’s all over the place. The action sequence in the film’s finale is badly edited even confusing. They rely on deus ex machina to explain certain points in the film. I’ve seen the movie twice. One in IMAX and one in a standard theater. I must say it becomes a better film on my second viewing because I think I have accepted the fact that the Joker can do anything. While it was a good movie, I just don’t think it’s Best Picture worthy…

 I’ve only seen one of the five Oscar Best Picture nominees and that’s Benjamin Button. I was hoping Slumdog Millionaire will make its way to the Philippines but as of now, no release date has been set. Some say the Benjamin Button was a long movie. It was, really. At 2hrs and 45 mins, it’s a really long film that spans Benjamin’s lifetime (and more). But it don’t find it boring at all. I think it’s because I was patiently waiting on what happens to him as he grow younger. It affected me somehow. Hearing the last lines of the movie:

Some people, were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people, dance.

I come to think of my life as a programmer. If the movie says: Some know software development. I would say, “No, that’s definitely not me. And I can’t imagine my old self being in IT professional for the rest of my life. I think IT is not for me anymore…

It’s been months since my last post. And nakalimutan ko na nga na may blog pa pala ako. I’ve been very busy living my life as a programmer at day and a videographer (at day too) and an internet surfer at night. 12 hours at the office is VERY normal for most of us. And when I arrived home at about 8pm, I’ll be accused of being “early”.

For year 2009, I want to revive this blog by posting more often. I’ll be focusing on movies, soundtracks and my frustration as a filmmaker more than anything else. I don’t want to talk much about work. I’ve had enough. Hahaha…

So, in this last post of 2008, I’ll enumerate the things (even the smallest ones) that made each of the days below memorable. In case you’re wondering where I got those dates, I’ve been keeping a “digital diary” on a small Excel sheet on my office computer. They are not actually in narrative form…they’re just little phrases that reminds me of something quite ‘memorable’ on a partilcular day (these are free of work-related stuffs). This allow me to remember simple things that I usually forgot due to my usual office work

On the first few months of 2008, the success of my short film, “My Girl” still echoed. Our visiting clients and on shore counterparts have seen it and I was glad that they at least understood it even without English subtitles. Similarly, in town hall meetings, videos that I’ve done in 2007 were still shown while waiting for the atendees. I’m actually sick of seeing it (and I think for all those who’ve seen it a dozen times). Hehhe… So I was thinking, I should create another one, if given the opportunity.

On early March, a senior exec in our project (whose name is also Alvin) approached me and asked me to do a series of 3-minute videos to be shown at Accenture Leaders’ Congress at Renaissance Hotel that will promote “LeAP Philippines!” programs. Because of my officemate’s unparalleled support, I was able to cast them as actors. The best part of this ‘job’ is that I was paid well. Php7K in fact. With that, I was able to treat my colleagues to dinner!

Mar 13: Inspiring Others In Workplace video shoot (LeAP)
Mar 15: video shoot Leader’s Haven, Intramuros (LeAP)
Mar 24: deliver 3 videos at Renaissance Hotel for the Accenture Leader’s Congress.It was said that Manny Pacquiao was on the hotel too the morning I gave the CDs to the event organizers.April 13: uploaded My Girl bloopers on YouTube…to make use of the unused footages as wellFrom May-September, I became very busy. My office duties on my left hand and handycam on the right as I join the Colgate music video contest, Cream-O video contest, an internal Accenture video contest, Vision to Action (V2A), re-submitting my old videos for the Accenture Global Employee Video contest as well as producing short film interviews for the projet All-Hands Meeting. See my last post, dated May 25 for more info on the Colgate Fresh Confidence entry.

May 8: Uploaded Colgate Entry
May 22: Video became #1
May 27: Our manger gave me a heads up on new video contest
May 28: Received 7,000Php worth of GCs from LeAP Philippines!
Jun 10: Alfoncy’s Colgate panel interview
Jul 7: Alfoncy told me that he won the contest
Jul 8: It was finally announced on the Colgate Fresh Confidence website that Alfoncy is the grand winner
Jul 9: Shot V2A running scenes in the office
Jul 16: Alfoncy’s contract signing
Jul 18: All-Hands Meeting
Jul 20: Watched Allfoncy’s rehearsal at Unitel studios, finished editing V2A video
Jul 21: Recvd GC for My Girl, decided to join Cream-O
Aug 10: Report from Kuya that the Alfoncy’s Colgate commercial was finally aired WHILE we were filming our first video entry for Cream-O.
Aug 17: overexcited over the 100K winning from Colgate, I bought an LG Home Theater system from my credit card.
Aug 19: Uploaded 1st Cream-O video on the Creamoholics website. (Original video page here.)
Aug 25: Shot another Cream-O video, this time with my sisters. (Original video page here)
Aug 27: 2nd Cream-O video uploaded
Sep 1: My father’s 37-inch Sony Bravia arrived.
Sep 4: Email from V2A commitee inviting us to join the Global Video Contest
Sep 6: Re-edited Just Another Day video and Inspiring Others in the Workplace vid (first shown in Leaders’ Congress)
Sep 12: Upload videos to the Global contest, Alfoncy received the Php100K cheque
Sep 14: Cream-O email notification to get the consolation prize
Sep 15: Uploaded V2A video to Global site
Sep 16: Global video contest official begins
Sep 20: ACN hired me to cover the International Coastal Cleanup Day at Manila Bay.
Sep 22: “Kwentuhan Tayo” video shoot, for next All-Hands meeting
Sep 25: All Hands Meeting: my videos were projected to a movie theater screen at Robinson’s Pioneer
Sep **: Email from an Indian “fan”.
Oct 6: Todd’s email (An onshore client, citing appreciation of the V2A video)
Oct 21: Todd visited Manila (Todd: “You’re going to Hollywood…”)
Oct 29: Email from Amy Stuart (a senior manager from Chicago), asking tips on making videos Although, I didn’t win the Cream-O contest because of the lack of votes and not lucky enough to win the Global Employee video contest (lack of user votes too), I was happy enough because of what I learn on those little ‘films’. And also, I was overwhelmed over the response of other people (on shore employees) from my work thru the comments posted on the videos.

Months later, I was contacted by the Accenture Faces (an event to raise money for our custodians)commitee after seeing my work on the Global Video contest. Although I wasn’t paid at all for the work, let’s say it’s my way of gving back :).

Nov 15: Accenture Faces video shoot…
Nov 18,19,21,26,27: Avanade Idol recording studio video shoot
Nov 20: Faces video uploaded
Nov 26: Release of Avanade Idol video
Dec 4: Another Faces shoot (for the wildcard candidate)
Dec 6: Another filming for Accenture Faces
Dec 8: Accenture Christmas Party, my videos were shown heheheAs much as I wanted to enter as many contests as possible, I just didn’t have enough time.
Missed opportunities: HBO’s Flight of the Conchords contest, Buhay Coke contestMOVIES:
Despite of my busy year, I still find time to watch the following movies…
They’re few…compared to most film geeks out there…
Jan 14: I Am Legend
Jan 19: Pan’s Labyrinth
Jan 21: Sweeney Todd [First time I saw The Dark Knight trailer on the big screen…I remember getting goosebumps on The Joker’s laugh to the point that I can still hear him laughing as I put myself to sleep on the night. On the following day, I woke up with the news the Heath Ledger is dead ]
Jan 30: Cloverfield (watched twice)
Feb 16: Little Miss Sunshine (Star Movies) –> a fun movie even though I haven’t seen the first 20 minutes
Feb 26: Juno –> watched it out of curiosity…didn’t like it much…overhyped i guess…the dialogue feels forced to make the movie “funny”.
Mar 21: Terabithia (again)
Mar 23: Enchanted
Apr 7: Beowulf (DVD)
Apr 12: Simpson’s Movie [Spiderpig!], Little Manhattan [that kid from Terabithia again], No Country for Old Men [thrilling but…not my type of movie]
April 25: GdT to direct Hobbit
May 11: IronMan [I missed the company sponsored movie night weeks earlier to give way for the Albay trip, Colgate filming!)
Jun 1: The Descent
Jun 6: Narnia: Prince Caspian (ACN movie night and with sisters)
Jun 7: Zodiac
Jun 8: The Orphanage (one of the best horror films, along the ranks of Blair Witch and Sixth Sense)
Jun 14: Kung Fu Panda
Jun 25: The Incredible Hulk
Jun 30: Wanted
Jul 22(?): Wall-E
Jul 26: The Dark Knight (one in IMAX, one in standard theater werks later)
Aug 18: Frequency and United 93
Aug 25: Knocked Up
Sep 11: Hellboy II
Oct 2: Spiderwick Chronicles
Oct 5: King Kong Ext Ed weekend, devoured all the extras found on DVD
Oct 18: Atonement (I cried so hard over the film’s denounement…good thing I saw it alone…hehe)
Oct 22: Sunshine (again on DVD)
Oct 25: High School Musical 3 [Ailen and I have free tickets, I was bored] , Trophic Thunder [I didn’t enjoy it much since I was still ‘traumatized’ from the HSM3 experience]
Nov 2: The Mist [boo! on the ending]
Nov 8: Charlotte’s Web, Disturbia, National Treasure 2
Dec 6: 2001: A Space Odyssey [finally…i can say that I’ve seen it…]
Dec 13: The Prestige [worth a second viewing…]
Dec 21: The Waterhorse [WETA Digital’s great looking creature]
Dec 27: Slither [zombie-comedy along the ranks of PJ’s early works and Shaun of the Dead]TRIPS:
Jan 15: Global Fun Carnival
Feb : Outreach Program
Mar 2-4: Palawan
Apr 20: Puerto Galera
May 3-4: Albay trip
May 10-11: Subic (Project summer outing)
Jun 20: June bday celebrants
Jun 28: Fun Run at UP
Jul 19: Tagaytay
Sep 13: Enchanted Kingdom
Oct 11-12: La Union
Nov 28-Dec 1: Baguio, Kuya’s wedding at Baguio Cathedral

OTHER EVENTS:
Jan 26: bought original LOTR DVD at Ebay (exact 6th anniversary of my first viewing of Fellowship of the Rings) [finally….someone at ebay sold them…]
Feb 9: Wisdom tooth extracted! Ouch!
Jul 3: My Zen player arrived [80% original soundtracks, 20% on ‘conventional music’..at least no one even dared to borrow my player bwahahha]
Aug 23: Confirmation rites… [22 na ako! Ngayun lang ako nakumpilan LOL!]
Aug 26: Lost my Motorola L7 celfone on the bus.
Sep 1: Bought new phone (Motorola L72 or L9)

Overall, it’s a great year. I’m looking forward to more surprises next year!

After the release of Howard Shore’s complete epic score for Lord of the Rings (Return of the King on Nov 2007), I finally have time to explore other composer’s work. In this year, I started to collect film scores (although I already have a handful of soundtrack before). I think my interest to film scores (other than LOTR) this year were fueled by one of my Friendster friends (Sixto) who invited me to join the Pinoy Film Music Fans group at Friendster. Since then, I listened to soundtracks almost every day, even at work.

I usually download them thru torrents because film scores are very rare in music stores here. I actually bought King Kong for 100Php on one of the mall’s midnight sales.

Below is the list of my favorite albums this year (not in particular order):
Atonement - Dario Marianelli [I have downloaded this early May 2008 but only listened to it after I saw the movie on October, and was eventually hooked and even addicted to it. It really helps to listen to the score once you saw the movie itself.]
Beowulf - Alan Silvestri 
Transformers - Steve Jablonsky [Best of Zimmer-style music…heroic and inspiring Autobot themes]
Cloverfield - Michael Giacchino
Bridge to Terabithia - Aaron Zigman [Beautiful and inspiring…best heard when you’re down]
Iron Man - Ramin Djawadi [fusion of electric guitar and orchestra…certainly deserved the Grammy nomination]
Ratatouille - Michael Giacchino [playful and witty. Everytime I listen to this, I’m hearing more quirky little instruments in the background]
The Dark Knight - James Newton-Howard and Hans Zimmer [Very dark music, I though at first that this is not suitable for everyday listening…I was wrong…]
Wall-E - Thomas Newman [”Eve” as the best track!]
X-Men: The Last Stand - John Powell [The anvil and the female choir of the Phoenix theme is the highlight! Action scoring at its best!]
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Harry Gregson-Williams [More action packed than the first one]
Wanted - Danny Elfman [Enjoyable to the least…a score in which you may or may not associate with the movie itself and it possess *that* familiar Elfman sound]
Lord of the Rings: The Complete Recordings - Howard Shore [Need I say more? I never get tired of listening to it…even after 4 years since the last movie ended. Nearly 11 hours of epic music!]

No, it not me actually. I’m just the one who made it possible.

Yes…it may be too late to promote this but I’ll do it just for the sake of something to write on this already rotting blog. Hehhe..
Anyway, just go to the Colgate Fresh Confidence website (click the pic below) and view our entry which is currently the top voted video on the site (Alfoncy)!

My cousin Alfoncy is the one singing. All the girls are my sisters except for the one dancing after the first chorus (na mukha daw kawayang hinahangin) which is actually my tita. I was the one who direct and edit the video. We shot it in Albay while we were having our 2-day vacation. We met a couple of new friends there and “hired” them as extras. They are the two “chuwariwaps” in the music vid. (Yes…the Alex Crisano look alike). We filmed the vid on Oh La La Paradise Resort, Dheo Endeka resort, Mayon Resthouse and on the streets of Masarawag, Guinobatan, Albay. BTW, the ride at the top of the jeepney is priceless! Heheheh….

[click the pic above to view the video in new window]
[Youtube version here! –> (mejo na stretch na yung vid nung in-upload ko sa youtube)

I hope we win the contest though I’m not hoping for the P100,000 grand prize. The iPod shuffle for the 10 semifinalist (selected by the judges among the top 50 vids with the most votes) will be enough for me. Hehehe. As of now, the Php 2,500 worth of Colgate Gift Pack is the surest thing that we can get by making it on the top 50 or better yet…the top spot…hehehe…

Hope you like the vid and please support it by voting it (register first) as many times as you like. Voting ends June 1st.

August 2007: I joined the multimedia contest for my company. At first I have no intention of joining because I know I can’t persuade my friends to appear on cam and I thought no one is interested but me. Oddly, it’s my friend who sent me a PM to join so I said “why not?”

The theme of the contest is all about “A day in the office” stuff so me and my friends started shooting some footage about our everyday lives in the office. Because we don’t have a video cam, we settled for a still camera (w/ video capture as an extra feature) with a 16MB memory stick to create this 3-minute presentation. This cam can capture a maximum of 40 seconds so we need to upload the footage to the laptop when we ran out of memory. We filmed it in the span of 2 weeks. Few minutes during lunch and after office hours. Wheew.. But it paid off. We won both the voter’s choice and major prize for the movie trailer style of our presentation. Php15K worth of GCs from PowerBooks and Php15K worth of Sodexho GCs. Nine of us shared the prize but as the editor/cameraman/director/writer, I deserved more. Hehehe… Unfortunately, I can’t upload it on Youtube because it’s for internal use only. I got certain amount of recognitions after that in our project. I used the prize to upgrade my hard drive just in case I need to do more editing stuffs. True enough offers kept coming. And I embraced them all. Hehehe…Fortunately my father (working on Saudi) sent me a Sony Handycam. I didn’t actually request for it…but it came.

After making presentations for all-hands meetings etc, there’s a film fest theme for one of our Christmas Parties. And because I have a “reputation” for doing it, looking for cast member has become an easy task. And on that December night, we swept all the major awards and a total cash prize of Php17K. Php2K for me for my very first Best Director Award. You can see my movie “My Girl” on my Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/tiamzy (The cheesiness is intentional…heheh)

And just recently, I’ve been approached once again to create presentations for one of the company’s leadership organization. Take note: “with pay”. The videos were shown as intermissions during the company’s leaders’ congress held at the ballroom hall of a Makati Hotel. Nice! Ibang level na…parang pwede na talagang sideline.

Sometimes I’m wondering that if ever I got bored over my current job, I’ll try looking for one on this field where I know I excel and most importantly enjoy. I daydream of becoming a successful pinoy filmmaker someday. Sabi ko nga sa About Me section ko sa Friendster: “Frustrated filmmaker” ako. I really want to be one. In fact, gusto kong i-take up initially sa U.P. yung Film and AudioVisual Communication kaya lang ayaw ng nanay ko kasi kailangan daw mayaman ka kung kukunin ang course na yun. So I settled for ComSci hoping that I’ll someday crossover from being a programmer into a visual effects designer. I’ve been fascinated in visual effects since I saw Godzilla when I was in Grade 6. But then, after watching The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, I realized that visual effects is not enough to tell a story. From then on, subconsciously, I always wanted to make a movie like that. It’s the one movie that changed me, really… and I became obsessed with it.

From then on, all I can do is wait for opportunities. I joined the school fillmfest once. And I believe luck is on my side after winning the multimedia contest. Kaya yun…napag-isip ko na baka yun na nga ang future ko. So I started to daydream. Baka ako pala ang magre-revolutionize sa Philippine movies. The one that will make people like me to go and see a quality a pinoy-made movie. A movie that doesn’t capitalize on the commercial value of the actors but by the movie itself. That’s just one of my dreams. Kaya lang sa current job ko, mukhang malayong marating yun unless I’m lucky enough to be on the right place at the right time. I’m just dreaming big, I know. I’ll better be ready when the big opportunity came…

Yeah…. watch out for updates…soon…