Thursday, October 20, 2005

On not directing the Slipstream babe shoot

I had beeen looking forward to directing the next batch of Slipstream's babes for a number of days. This was after Lorrie Uy, one of the bosses of Slipstream's production outfit, brought up the idea after realizing that no one would probably be around to direct the shoot.

Pong De Leon, our "line/executive producer", was said to have been attending to another project with another company (as this is often the case with most of us who have to survive by taking on a number of projects simultaneously) and Mikko David had previously said he would concentrate on directing the video shoot for the PNTCC races. Usually, one or the other would direct the shoots for the show. But in recent days, neither had been available.

During those days when neither Pong or Mikko could direct the shoots lined up for the week, Paul Guerrero and I were, for lack of a better phrase or term, compelled to direct a number of shoots twice at the Batangas Racing Circuit -- which included the spiels and two babe shoots (Dang Palma and curing shots for Kisses Atilano) as well as a little news gathering.

This was something I did a bit begrudgingly for Slipstream, but nevertheless, agreed to do. This was because, at the very onset of things, I was hired as the show's script writer and agreeing to direct the shoot meant doing more than what I was being paid for. Nevertheless, I wanted to be a nice guy in that situation and also realized that it wouldn't hurt to build up more good will with the show's producers.

In anycase, at the time Lorrie opened up the idea of me directing the Slipstream babe shoot by way of saying "do you think we can do something that would be a bit more daring but tasteful with Vanessa Khain"... which, I have to admit, was in retrospect somewhat of a sly way of signing me on to direct the shoot without actually committing herself or Slipstream to actually hiring me to direct that shoot (which can mean that I would not have an additional talent fee, but would atleast guarantee me credit for the work done)...

In anycase, despite my misgivings, I was also a bit delighted to have the opportunity to do the shoots because, after all, it would allow me to execute a couple of 'artistic' ideas -- well, there's a budding Playboy videographer/photographer in all guys.

This wasn't going to be a big break for me as a 'director', because I had directed a dozen or so other projects for other companies before and had been compensated for the work I did -- a 30 second commercial for Don Juan de Marco horse racing club and a couple of AVPs.

Well, moving on, the day before I was supposed to direct the video shoot for the babes, I sent a text message to Pong De Leon to get his clearance on a rule I wanted imposed on the set and that was, the almost universal rule of having just one guy (the director on the set) give out all the instructions.

I had texted Pong, "Pare, ang understanding ko kasi bukas ako ang magdi-direct nang babe shoot. Hihilingin ko lang sana na isa lang ang magbibigay nang instructions sa set. Thanks."
(translation: Padre, as I understand it, I'll be directing the babe shoot tomorrow. I would like to request for only one guy to issue instructions to everybody on the set.)

He came back with the response: "Who said that?" (probably asking who decided that I would direct the shoot)

I texted back, "Si Lorrie, mali ba ako?" (Translation, "Lorrie said so, am I wrong.")

Realizing that Lorrie had to clarify the matter, I texted Lorrie asking her to explain the situation to Pong.

In anycase, Lorrie came back to me to say that Pong had been offended by my text message and in a later conversation said that Pong would resign if he wasn't going to direct the babe shoot. HAAAAHAHAHA! What a prick!

So, in the next few episodes, you'll be watching babe segments directed by Pong De Leon...

Mind you, we've been receiving comments about the babe segments and they were asking us to come up with more tasteful shots and more pleasant interviews... I wrote the interview questions and posed all of them to the girls, it's usually the director's prerogative to look over the interview questions first and before approving it for the shoot... Pong glanced at it and asked me to pose the question, so I guess it came with his approval...

All of the shots for the Slipstream babes were Pong's since he actually held the camera through out all the four babe shoots that day.

If you like the visual treatment for the babes, that's pong's work... a regular spielberg, for sure.

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