No rest for the wicked.

Holy Week + Day of Valour = Shooting galore.

• ‘Tadhana’ (cliche2k11-2k12, as much as it kills me) Music Video
• Case Documentary Shooting (reenactment, interviews et al.)
• Directing
• Edit-coaching
• Relieved that I don’t have to do everything anymore.
• YAY for responsible and highly-skilled groupmates.
• YAY for proper equipments and softwares.

Everything’s getting better, plus the Mass Communication Awards Night is tomorrow.

I remember my classmate describing the photo she took as ‘Sperm of the moment.’

Featurized

I’m currently on the verge of snapping. I just discovered the challenge of formulating topics for the Feature Pages of our school’s publication.

I am pressured, to be honest. Our Editor-in-Chief explained during one of our meetings that most of the existing Editorial Board will be graduating this year thus, a need to replenish the empty slots is imperative.

He told me that I was one of the people who’re still in the running towards becoming America’s Next Top Model the next Feature Editor. My eyes widened at the remark, never have I thought about being a part of the Editorial Board as I see my capabilities not up to par.

Not self-deprecating but I find my writings a bit mediocre. I believe that there are people better than me. Please refer to Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata and be enlightened.

Now I must work as tongue-tied I am today.

Ivory Pulp

I have this ‘thing’ for buying reams of Bond Paper. I don’t know why but I get this sense of fulfillment just by staring at the stack of clean, white paper without actually using them.

Have I lost my sanity yet? No? Okay.

Walking on Sunshine

That’s the title of our mini-documentary about this year’s Panagbenga. What’s it about? Well…

Every year, Panagbenga hauls in its largest volume of tourists in these two days: The Grand Street Parade and Grand Float Parade. The question left to answer is ‘What makes these days THAT special?’

That’s what we wanted to unearth, but we focused on the Grand Street Parade. The aforesaid features street-dancers coming from various universities and provinces. The archipelago is nuts about streets being flooded with colorful costumes and music coming from drums, lyres and other native instruments matched with elegant flights of rhythmic movements. They also go wild for natives in their bahag or g-strings.

Anyway, we followed one elementary school, Baguio Central School. They’re actually the defending champion in the elementary category and so we coordinated with them if we could set them as the subject for this documentary. It was a relief that their advisers were absolutely dandy, they weren’t the paranoid-turned-nosy types. They obliged and we were pleased.

So our story turned out something like this: we would tape their practices, interview the coaches and participants in pursuit of the struggles they had to go through just to present a flawless performance and ultimately win the crowd over.

It was overwhelming to witness how the students were that passionate about their craft, how they would painstakingly stay under the beating heat of the sun just to practice the whole day. How hard they worked just to please the crowd and not make them regret visiting the mountain city.

If you see them smiling as they sashay at Session Road, the smiles that radiate from their vividly colored tunics are pure and real. Like what a respondent of ours narrated, “When the crowd cheers and we seem them happy, it makes us happy. They make us feel that what we did during our practices were worth it.”

I wish that people would be able to fully appreciate what they have to offer. That’s the only thing they’re after, actually: being appreciated.
So the next time you watch them work the streets of Session Road, give them a holler or two for they worked so hard just to come up with something for your senses to feast on.

The Panagbenga 2012 Ordeal

People are raving about how classes are suspended tomorrow in lieu of the Grand Street Parade. When I say ‘people’, I mean students coming from various courses other than Communication.

February, as dubbed by my seniors, is hell month. It’s that time of the year Communication students of Baguio City are fearing. It’s that 2 days where they are set out to the field to cover the Grand Street and Float Parade. You might think it’s an easy task and we are just being our ‘maarte’ selves but that, my dear, is a big, fat NO.

Having to stay under the beating heat of the sun, having to take an expendition just to move around a packed crowd and having to look for the perfect spot are just a few things I have to brace myself for tomorrow.

Battling claustrophobia and escaping the deathly grasp of heatstroke, we have to complete the whole duration of the Parade even if we, ourselves, look at the event as a snore.

Another sentiment I carry within this dreary heart of mine is that we’re not just there to ‘cover’ the event, we are there to make a documentary.
Taking you two days back, we had to decide on an angle. Ideas rushed like chariots in my veins as I thought of controversial angles for our story like ‘Contrasting Panagbenga with the planned earthballing of trees’ and ‘Panagbenga behind the scenes’ just to name a few.

We decided to go with the angle wherein we are going to relate the recent ‘Trash slide’ that ravaged the mountain city weeks before with the current festivity. We already planned the whole thing when suddenly, our professor said ‘NOTHING NEGATIVE’.

Everything came crashing down. We had to start anew.
Nothing juicy comes from highlighting the already obvious ups of the celebration. All the interesting angles are coming from the rear ends of positivity.

We ended up going with something else but still going against the flow. While other groups are going to focus on the Tourism aspect of this event, we are focusing on the competitors.

I’ll talk more about this when I feel like it. I’m drained and I must recharge for a heavy-duty day tomorrow which starts at 5 in the morning.

So help me God.

Green Light

The red light shines, the striped ground remains empty.
We look at the opposite side of the road.
We were born to look that way

You are looking.
Speeding vehicles distort my vision.
I am looking.

Maybe we’re just waiting for the green light.
Waiting for our paths to cross.
Waiting for that second in time.
Waiting that maybe, just maybe, it could be.

Red turns green, I stand frozen.
We’re on the same side of the road.

The Oxford Comma

People are like the Oxford Comma. Some think they’re irrelevant, some see themselves not that important, some might even play with the thought of being downright useless. However, there are still people who are capable of seeing past the things presented in the former. They are able to do such perhaps because of self-discovery. Because of constant growth and introspection. People will only then see one’s worth, one’s right of belongingness, and one’s rightful importance.

And then I learn, everyone’s an Oxford Comma.