Death becomes Them

Title was inspired by a random ad for the movie "death becomes her" while watching HBO. Kinda bummed with this output because it looks rushed and the only thing that I have mastered fairly well is the dissolve......tsktsktsk....Basically they get thirsty go to a well and suddenly sadako pops out of it.....

Book Review: A Trip to Quiapo

The essence of life has been long expressed in films. It is where moments best experienced firsthand are recreated to be the next best thing. A window to the very depths of an artist’s soul, It not only reflects the vision of one person; rather it exudes the sentiments of all the people involved in making it.

Being a writer may be a breeze for some people but not all of us mere mortals are that lucky. Writing, much like any other form of art requires a certain degree of focus and passion to be truly effective at its main goal. Delivering a clear and concise message while maintaining an aesthetic appeal is truly a difficult thing to do, apart from this, a writer will be constantly bombarded with situations where flexibility will be the key to triumph. Living the life of a writer may be a dream come true for most of us, but it turns out that this life may not exactly be as easy as it seems.

The book starts of by telling us that there is no guarantee, no magical potion, and no mystic manual that could help us to write better. Experience tells us that no matter how hard we try to recreate another’s work as our own, we could never truly call it as our own for it is derived from the vision of other people. Writing is a form of expression that mirrors a person’s soul. This fact only reaffirms why good writers do not come in droves. Good writing can never be thought, it can only be experienced.

The book then proceeds further by telling us that 3 forms of writers exist today. One of them is the play-safe type of writer which makes decent movies by simply staying within the region that was already plotted out before him. This writer is merely a mimic of previous generations that have come and gone. It is true that staying on a given schematic may help you create an okay movie but staying within the box restricts the movie so much that doing so could actually doom a movie no matter how high the budget allocated for it. The second one is the one which goes of on a different path until it comes up with the same thing as his predecessor. Given a certain output goal, this writer goes off the conventional path and tries to spice up something that was done before by coming at it in a different perspective. Though this approach is already a good one, the fact that it came up with the same end result as the one before it also restricts it to a certain stage where all he does is create and establish a new angle on an old and washed-up focal point. The most promising type is the one that goes off in a new direction, though he may be under the scrutiny of the public, just to come up with something entirely new. This writer is the most productive in terms of pulling in people due to the fact that his works are all brand new and therefore catches the public’s interest. He strives only to express himself freely, not caring or compromising his work for the approval of others. Seeking not only to create box office gold, but more importantly to give off a sense of his being in the films and screenplays he creates.

The book tells us the different experiences in this industry. From the disappointment of being turned down, to the pain of your work being desecrated to fit the needs of the company paying for the fruit of your labor, the life of a writer is truly a colorful one. One in which you are constantly encountering new things and new people.

Experiences ranging from a last minute revision, an unreasonable deadline, and a hard to get along director are just some of the things that the author has triumphed over. The book mainly uses past experiences as a springboard for young and aspiring writers to propel them from until they finally establish a name for themselves.

The writers approach to teaching is very innovative in terms of how it was presented. The book maintained a casual air on the laying out of its information. The articles were so light and conversational that you cannot help but think that the author is actually saying these things directly to you. I loved how he would use figures of speech and metaphors to illustrate a point. It only shows how great a writer he is. Over the years, he has amassed a lot of experience and so it is only fair to treat him with a certain degree of respect. The book is a phenomenal guide for amateurs for it truly show how he does it by giving us tips and sample situations to practice upon. The writer’s vivid storytelling style also sets the mood really well, making you feel as though you are actually on location.

Honestly, I found the book to be too long text wise. The author’s inclusion of many unnecessary things often left me pondering as to what point he was trying to convey. He would write so many examples to a single subject, that when come time that I was looking back as to what the examples were for, I actually forgot what I was topic I was reading. His use of the dialogue was a creative way of presenting us with the information but it was still too long and the conversation between them actually held no water. It was like listening to 2 different people talking about 2 different things at the same time. Those parts left me wanting to skip 3 or more chapters that consisted of the dialogue. Repetition was also a big issue for me because he kept using the same examples throughout the course of the entire book. It was a prostitute this, a prostitute that……..it all seemed very frustrating and annoying to read. The use of multiple and usually unnecessary examples really just adds to the overall bulk of the book which, for a 180 peso price tag really seems to be just there for the sake of making the book more credible. I admire the fact that he wrote the entire thing in our native language but it really doesn’t seem to be practical due to the fact that he has used some word that are very difficult to understand for even Filipinos themselves find it hard to comprehend them.

One particular thought was also very contradicting to the general notion of society. I disagree that reading more books would actually stimulate creativity. In fact, it is said that reading could actually stunt the way that you express yourself for you gain a very stereotypical way of writing. The wide array of books somehow limits your skill of thinking outside the box by predetermining the outcome of a certain incident to a similar incident that you may have read somewhere before. The sad reality is , reading, over familiarizes us with a certain situation that when time come that a similar situation arises, the response we return is similar, if not the same with the response to the previous occurrence. Freedom also became an issue. Freedom can sometimes be too restricting. How so? Well, too much of a good thing was always a bad thing. Personally, I feel that being too free can actually hinder you from making a good script. The wide array of topics and foci could really take a toll on people.

The manual itself was an extreme drag to read after the first few chapters, giving only a few topics worthy of an ounce of interest coming from the reader. I often found myself reading through two pages without registering a single thing I read. The manual only related the topics in such a way that it seemed that it was more of a diary rather than an actual manual people can learn from. The ‘I am the great Ricky Lee you have to listen to me’ vibe also turned me off from reading the whole thing in one sitting. The fact is the book seemed to revolve around the author so much that he forgot that he would not be the only one reading the damn thing.

In conclusion, I believe my trip to Quiapo was rather on the lower spectrum of productivity. The book is something that you would probably muddle through clumsily without really paying much attention to retaining its content. The lazy end of the student line will probably read this only when it is a requirement. This may be a good book to serve as a guide but they always did say that experience is the best teacher. My advice is that you go write something now and go your own way for that will be the only time that you will be comfortable and be truly able to express those feelings bottled up inside of you.

Directing Seminar

Pretty much absent during the whole thing, I only got smidgens of what was supposed to be a whopping steak of knowledge. Even so, I could not be more greatful for the tremendous effort of the people that made this possible. Even though I wasn't able to witness the full experience of this directing workshop, I still have learned a lot.