At The Movies

Since the start of December I have been busy with a new “job” – doing production and costume design for a feature-length film that a friend is doing on grant. The project is as “indie” as it gets, budget-wise, and while I am tempted to blame our difficulties on this, I don’t think it is entirely budget’s fault.

I can’t say either that I am not enjoying it, because I am. I’m glad to be putting my film school degree to use. There is still that rush that always comes from film-production work, and from being in the company of people who genuinely love the movies. I’ve had the privilege of working with cool new filmmakers, fresh film grads, and veteran actors (I *heart* “Manoy”).

But the work is more tedious than anyone expected, unnecessarily tedious. It is sad to note that morale is low among the production staff, and everyone feels exhausted. My two-man art/prop and costume department (that would be me and my assistant Stan, who is a college senior doing his internship) is unbelievably wigged out. Our last shoot was at a hospital in Intramuros, where we worked from 6am to 4 am the next day. I’ve had worse shoot schedules but this one just left everyone half-dead. We have two shooting days to go, (dates subject to the availability of our actors) one just before Christmas and the other before month’s end. Everyone just wants to finally finish the job.

Two shooting days to go. In the meantime, I am still trying to figure out how to make this easier for my assistant and me.