Helter Skelter

I feel like I left my brain somewhere at the North Expressway.

The idea that I am home still hasn't sunk in, and I feel like I'm floating on air half the time. The only time I got some sleep when I was there was on the first day--I got a full six hours. The succeeding days, I only got two hours.

The first night, I did some homework. The seconds night, I polished the script that my group wrote. The third night, we shot a movie. The fourth night...well, everyone was getting drunk while I was negotiationg a project with one of the student directors. Discussion went on until 4am, when we were so tired no ideas were flowing into our heads.

The following day we had to get up early so that we could trek back home.

It was an interesting five days.

I got a lot of praises for the story that I made, which I was quick to correct that it was the brainchild of 6 people writing one over the other. We weren't even making a script, it was just a writing excercise to come up with a scene that just turned into a short.

Half the group wanted to kill me when I wrote a line that turned it into a horror, which was why gave me free reign when we had to go back and polish the damn thing. Six people means six voices, and I went back to make it just one voice--mainly mine, but HEY, you can't have six different speaking styles, neh?

Anyway, the script was given to two directors to interpret. One ego-inflated prick wanted to make a porn flick, and I had to negotiate--quite firmly--that it was not written as a porn flick, you cannot do a porn flick ("dude, you're actress is scared shittles"), and there was absolutely no way that we were going to attach our names to a student film that may not have any nudity, but had some SOP that we didn't frigging write. (With me as the fucking voice on the phone, no less)

Normally, directors have free reign in changing the script. And for the sake of realism, I as the writer representing my group allowed him to change the ending and some parts of the script. Which is why a five paged script turned into a fucking 14 minute film with a really screwed ending.

One thing: a writer can be a fairly decent to a good director, but it's a rare thing that a director turns into a good writer.

I knew before we shot that the film was going to flop despite the excellent cinematography, mainly because he fucked up the story. Some directors forget that it's the story that most people want to see. Otherwise, all you have is a piece of film with wonderful shots and no sense.

But I let him do it anyway. Call it revenge, but it was his name that was going to be attached to this film in the end. And I knew the second director would do a much better job at interpreting the script (since we get along, THANK GOD)

There's a lot of bruhaha that went one with him, since everybody hated him and wondered why I was willing to put up with his shit.

The fact is, the guy is just about as big a prick as he is a great cinematographer. The dude took great shots, so I was willing to stay up all night and clapping for TAKE 22 of just one frigging scene. Out of about 19 scenes, we had only five good first takes, he averaged 9 takes to a scene. It was fucking insane, but the rushes/dailies were darn beautiful.

But good shots do not make a good film, and his attitude made him one lousy director. And that's the lesson I wanted to teach him, including the lesson I gave him when I yelled at him in the editing room in front of the editors and everyone else for being crass and insulting.

I am so fucking used to being the center of something, that when the news spread like wildfire that I--zen calm to the annoying prick--finally cracked, I didn't fucking care. I was more concerned that the guru's would never hire me for being such a difficult writer, but I explained that I "fired" him (or threatened to pull my script) as a producer, and not my capacity as a writer.

I felt so bad for losing my cool, even when everyone kept telling me that I did the right thing. Even the gurus understood that he made the working conditions so bad, and that if I hadn't blown up, the film might not have been made because of his irrational perfectionism (and to add to his karma, as soon as I told him that I was pulling out his film, the iMAC that he was working on went dead because some dude accidentaly yanked a cable)

The funny part was, it was the second film that made such a huge hit. And it was the complete opposite of the first one.

The first one took around two hours for preproduction, and was shot from 9pm to 5:30 am. It also took all morning to edit (mainly because the prick wanted to edit it himself even though he didn't fucking know Final Cut Pro) and since he ended up changing most of the script, he ended up with a 14 minute film.

The second one had almost no preprod, about half an hour for the actors to take a crash course in performance dynamics, an hour to shoot and two hours in editing and sounds. the director stuck to the script and it came out amazing.

People were congratulating Jowee--the director, and asking me what my next script was.

It was overwhelming.

Especially when the film that we made was a fucking horror flick/urban chiller.

My group wanted to kill me when I wrote a one liner that made it into a horror flick, mainly because it was my genre and...well, it was a little selfish. It's not an easy genre--to write for, to direct, and to shoot. So when I steered the story--which was already begging to be one, since the beginning--into an urban chiller, everyone save for Jack (who's brain is connected to mine) screamed bloody murder.

But it turned out to be a good thing.

What I didn't know until the fucking workshop was that the local industry was screaming for a horror flick just to edge out the other local asian horrors. Not a lot of writers were willing to do horror, and the local industry is in trouble of losing out to American and now these local horror films.

So when they found out that horror was my genre, they were all suddenly very interested. Which I was quick to point out that it is not purely my genre.

I don't do classic horror, I do mostly fantasy and suspense.

I cannot pull stuff like The Ring or The Eye or The Grudge out of my head. Are you kidding? Writing the five page script already gave me nightmares. Back at the hotel I was hearing strange knocks in the middle of the night, what more if I wrote some psycho supernatural horror like The Eye?

I'd have a heart attack!

It was amazing to have some of these small (amateur) production companies come to me and Jowee at the end of the showing asking us to work with them when they were so skeptical to even commit when I was looking for people to help me do my urban chiller shorts.

I haven't been approached by a major studio or anything, but for me, just having these small breaks--such as a start up studio or minor production company--ask me for my scripts--unwritten ones at that--is kind of...flattering.

Plus, I pitched my "callcenter story" since my intended story turned out to be Jersey Girl, and that got some heat. My guru asked me to develop it and to call him for when I want to write it. Because even though I had some great idas, it became glaringly apparent that I could not write very good Filipino, and that I needed to practice very hard to get the rhythm of the language.

Which means, I will be hanging around malls and churches with my tape recorder.

But really. The whole horror kick just...shocked me.

I never once thought that there would be a demand for it. When I tried to lobby a drama that I wanted to write, they were all "That's great...but can you write more of those urban chillers?"

Holy cow.

So I guess I will be the scared girl for awhile. I still can't promise Ju-On or The Ring, that's not me. But hopefully, the story that I've got in my head (that should--hopefully, keep your fingers crossed--start preprod late,late this year) will be scary enough.

Because heaven knows, I now cannot go out to lock our windows at nine fucking thirty PM withough feeling like someone is watching me.