Vancouver Film School

Man, I seriously lost my head.

It has already been a month or so now, and I still haven't made THE announcement here in my blog.

I am now officially a student at VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL.

When we moved to Vancouver, I immediately zeroed in on one thing: VFS. I had heard of this school before, and I realized that this would be a golden opportunity to achieve one of my greatest aspirations: to be a screenwriter.

I had long bemoaned the lack of support creative types get back in Manila. There, the focus was always more on business, technology, and call centers. The film and television industries (and especially the comics and literary) were sorely lacking in both funding and attention. Even in so called liberal schools like Ateneo, the creative side of life was alwaysseen as secondary to the more serious academic pursuits. It saddened me each time I saw creative talents go to waste behind the number crunching of ledger books and balance sheets.

And even in society, in our culture, creativity was sort of looked down upon. Oh sure, we have our Nick Joaquins and F. Sionil Jose's. Sure, Juan Luna is considered a great artist. But, somehow, we creative types STILL get the impression that it's more of a case of being tolerated, rather than accepted. Or even admired. How many times has the struggling artist with the potential to surpass Juan Luna been stifled by the demands of his society to "Get a real job"? How many times has a brilliant animation student in a school like Benilde been put down... only for him to go on and become a member of PIXAR in the U.S. (Check out Justin's blog lonelypig.blogspot.com to see what I mean).

No wonder people leave the Philippines.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not whining. I understood what was going on and was fully prepared to just go ahead and write a novel and submit it abroad.

But screenwriting? With the kind of nepotistic/incestuous culture that exists in Manila?

I wasn't going to touch that.

And yet, a part of me always wanted to be a screenwriter. With a deepseated love of movies and an even more powerful love for story, I knew that I wanted to try my hand at creating visual stories that would reach thousands... millions.

And yet, living in Manila... that would have been difficult. The kind of stories I want to tell would not work in the Philippine Film Industry. (Oh, dont get me started on what is wrong with the kind of movies released back there...) And worse, I could not find any place in Manila that could help train me. Screenwriting is not a haphazard throwing together of words. IT is not freeform like a novel, or loosely structured like a comic book script.

Screenwriting is an artform that adheres t rigid formats and tropes. If I were to make it abroad, I would need the kind of training that nobody gives in Manila.

The kind of training preset in VFS.

And so, when I got here, I applied right away.

It was a stressful process, with the school informing me that a) there were only 4 slots left, and b) there were a number of hurdles that I would have o pass... based solely on my portfolio. On paper, the portfolio looked easy enough: a 10 page writing sample + a 1 page synopsis for a movie or TV series. Simple, right?

But unlike gaining admission in a regular school, where you can get in based on grades which are achieved through memorization and repetition, VFS actually was going to base it purely on the quality of my writing.

The QUALITY of my WRITING.

As any writer knows, that phrase can acause any number of anxiety attacks.

These people judging my writing, which of course is an extension of my very soul, were professionals. Writers with years of experience in the Hollywood system, with credits in shows like STAR TREK, STARGATE, X-FILES, BAYWATCH, BEAST MASTER, SMALLVILLE, and so on were going to read my words.

My words. Me... whose writing is fueld by passion more than training, by desire more than craft...

So I submitted my carefully chosen portfolio and spent a week agonizing over it.

And then...

It was over.

I got a call.

I was in.

I AM in.

You are now reading the words of a student of VFS's "Writing for Film, Television, and Interactive Media" program. My teachers will be those same professionals who have written for some of my favorite shows. I will learn how to write properly frmatted screenplays. I will learn how to develop tv series bibles and story arcs. I will even learn how to write for computer games, tabletop games, and comics.

And, most importantly, I will make the contacts I need to be a player in that wonderful jungle that is the Film Industry, whether it be here in Canada or in the United States.

A dream come true.

An once I finish, once I start making money, once I get my dream off and running...

INT. CHURCH - DAY

A small gathering of friends and family, each of them dressed impeccably in clothes of celebration. All eyes face the altar, except for two pairs. The man in a white and black tuxedo stares down at the woman before him, a smile on his face as he tries to fight back the tears. She looks up at him, radiant and beautiful, her smile the very essence of joy and rapture. They cannot look away from each other. They wouldn't dare.

PRIEST
Do you, Gino, take Kathy to be your lawfully wedded wife?

GINO
I do.

PRIEST
And do you, Kathy, take Gino to be your lawfully wedded husband?

KATHY
I do.

And you can guess what happens next.

Back...

Well, in case anybody was wondering if I decided to neglect my blog again...

No quite.

I've been sick the past few days, and I've only just started feeling better. I took a whole day for myself today, got stuck watching a SEAQUEST marathon, and read a book.

Feeling better, but will post a nice, long post later on.

P.S. I passed my driving test! Gonna get my official Canadian License in a few days!

World Champs!

Going into this year's World Cup, nobody gave Italy a chance. Nobod believed.

Earlier this year, allegations surfaced about a corruption scandal concerning four of Italy's top clubs... my beloved Juvetus and AC Milan included. Match fixing, ref bribing, and even player bribing accusations abounded, so much so that thecase went to court. This hung a dark, grey cloud over the Italians for several reasons.

1. The four clubs - Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio are now faced with relegation to Serie B or C.
2. About 90% of the Italian National Team plays for those clubs.
3. All of a sudden, people are wondering if the Italians are any good at all. After all, they had to bribe people to win all those championships. And the marquee players of those teams (Shevchenko, Kaka, Ibrahimovic, et al) aren't even Italian.

So this lead to the odds being firmly stacked against the Azzurri, with everyone choosing instead to back teams like Argentina or Brasil or England.

I will admit to some England favoritism as well. Since 2000, I have bee none of the biggest Manchester United fans around. This was simply because a) the Premier League was the only league consistently showing in Manila, and b) my english is better than my Spanish or Italian.

Once the Premier league started showing, I HAD to pick one team to support. Was it Chelsea, with their strong contingent of Italians (at the time)? Was it to be L'Arsenal? Was it to be Liverpool?

Nope. I picked Man Utd because of one thing: Their team chemistry.

I like teams that play like teams. I like teams where the superstars aren't given deferred treatment. Man U is one such team. Case in point: when Beckham's head got too big, Man Utd shipped him out.

And leading up to the World Cup, Wayne Rooney began to shine like magic for Man U, so I couldn't help but support England. I even got myelf a Rooney jersey.

But I couldn't forget Italy.

I stated, right ta the start of the World Cup, that I would love to see an Italy vs England final, at which point I would relinquish my support for England and back Italy all the way.

But I feared for the Azzurri's chances.

I could not shake the accusations surrounding the players I loved best... most of whom made up the starting 11:

Juventus - Gianluigi Buffon (GK), Fabio Cannavarro (D), Gianluca Zambrotta (D), Alessandro Del Piero (F), Mauro Camoranesi (M)

AC Milan - Genarro Gattusso (M), Andrea Pirlo (M), Alessandro Nesta (D), Alberto Gilardino (F)

Fiorentina - Luca Toni (F)

In fact, of the starting 11, only 3 players were not involved - Francesco Totti and Danielle De Rossi of Roma and Fabio Grosso of Palermo.


I feared for my team... I feared that the cloud of scandal would hang over them too much and they woudl be unable to advance even out of the group stage.

My fears vanished after the first game.

Italy started strong. They showed that excellent defense they are known for, Buffon was Superman in goal yet again, and their midfield, led my Pirlo, was the best of the tournament. But most importantly... they were a TEAM.

Brasil relied too much on their stars and it showed. They flopped out. Spain relied too much on inexperienced youth. They flopped out. England used entirely wrong tactics and isolated Ronney, their star player. The flopped out. Portugal morphed into diving little cheats.

And so on.

But Italy, captained by the fabulous Fabio Cannavarro, played like a team. They played like MAnchester United. They played like each and every one of them came from Juventus or AC Milan. They communicated effectively, they worked their asses off, and they used the scandal to propel them to a prize no Italian team had attained since 1982.

The World Cup.

Some would say that the final should be remembered for Zidane's trocious headbutt.

I say "No."

Remeber the final for what it was... a team proving that when you play like a team, when you remember that defense is sometimes better than attack, when your goalie is the best in the world...

And when you play with heart...

The sky is the limit.

And the sky is always... always....

Blue.

Forza Azzurri.

Forza Italia.

Campioni Del Mondo

This post was meant to be a little essay on science fiction and, specifically, the movie Alien. But as I sat down to write, the only words that kept coming to my mind were:

FORZA ITALIA!!!

And so it goes.

Warning: This will be a sports-themed post, so turn away all you anti sports people! :D

Forza Italia.

Forza.

I have been a fan of the Italian National Team for just about 12 years now. It started in 1994, which is just about the time I got interested again in the wonderful game of football. I joined the cult a little too late to catch the entirety of the 94 World Cup, but I somehow managed to catch the final game on a replay. IT wasn't a particularly memorable match between Brasil and Italy, but I was engrossed right away. Even back then, I could see that the BRasilians were more gifted technically and the Italians better defensively. But what caught my attention was one player in particular:

Roberto Baggio.

This tiny man with a tiny pony tail ran himself ragged over the enitre pitch... while injured, I must add. When he stepped up to take the final penalty, you could see in his eyes that he had nothing left. But he tried. He tried so hard. He was the talisman of his team, their unofficial leader. And when he blasted his kick over the bar and handed the trophy to Brasil, the anguish on his face was torture to watch.

This man had passion.

I would see that look again and again so many times on so many players, but Roberto Baggio's was the first one I saw. In that one moment, I became an Azzurri (which means "blues" in Italian) fan and I followed their fortunes religiously from that point on.

As the likes of Roberto Baggio and Roberto Donadoni and Franco Baresi faded, new Italian heroes came rising into power. Paolo Maldini. Francesco Toldo. Dino Baggio. Christian Vieri. Powerful players with powerful passions. And while my friends all looked to the brasilians and french for inspiration, I stubbornly stuck with my Italian Infection.

I began to look at the club sides, narrowing my preference to two traditional powerhouses: Juventus and AC Milan. Over the years I would fluctuate between preferring one over the other, my choice always resting on one telling factor: Who had the better Italians?

In club football, you can have an entire English club made up of Frenchmen, or an entire Italian club made up of Brazilians. I still had loyalty to the Azzurri, and so I tried to stick with the club which had the best of them.

For a time, that was AC Milan. Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Roberto Baggio, and Roberto Donadoni all called Milan home in the mid 90's. And so, for a while, I was a Milan fan.

And then, someone decided to flood the Milan team with Brazilians. So I looked to Juventus.

Ravanelli. Perruzzi. Inzaghi. Vieri. Vialli. This was a Juventus team full of Italian might. But there was one player in particular whom I focused my idolatry.

Alessandro Del Piero.

In each "little generation" of the Azzurri, there was alwasy one player I liked more than any other. In the aftermath of the 94 World Cup, it was Roberto Baggio. After that, it was Paolo MAldini. But after the Euro 2000 Finals, when MAldini retired, I focused entirely on the man who would be my main football hero for many, many years.

The Juventus number 10 is a master of his art. You can take your Romario's and Rivaldo's and Ronaldo's. Me, I'll pick Del Piero first and foremost.

And so it went. 1998 saw my allegiances lie fully with Juventus, so much so that when I look back at my Jersey collection, I have about 5 Juve jerseys to my 2 Milan jerseys. My commitment to the bianconeri was got re-affirmed when the signed Gianluigi Buffon, my favorite goal keeper. As their fortunes rose and fell, I stuck with them.

My allegiance shifted very slightly back to Milan for a little while due to the ascendance of yet another Italian hero in their ranks in 2003: Andrea Pirlo. Pirlo is, in my opinion, the best midfielder on the planet. Sure, Ronaldinho is more skilled, but Pirlo does more than the Brazilian wzard. He defends!

So recently, I am ashamed to admit, my Azzurri heart is divided in two. On one side is the Black and White Juventus heart, supporting Buffon, Fabio Cannavaro, and Alessandro Del Piero. On the other, the Rossoneri side, I'm supporting Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini, Andrea Pirlo, and Genarro Gattusso.

It felt wrong having two allegiances, but for one month of 2006, those allegiances wouldn't matter so much anymore.

For one month, the red and black of Milan met the Black and White of Juventus...

For one month, the color of my blood ran blue.

To be continued.

You can't take the sky from me...

Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care, I'm still free; you can't take the sky from me.

The title song from the show Firefly is one of my favorite themes ever, not just because it is a catchy tune, but because it encapsulates everything that the show is about.

On the surface, Firefly is one of the hardest shows to categorize. On the one hand, it is definitely science fiction, with its interplanetary travel and spaceships. On the other hand, it's a western, with its showdowns at high noon, quickdraw sharpshooters, and prostitutes with hearts of gold. And on yet another hand, it's film noir, with mysteries sparked by mysterious girls, and bad guys luring in every meticulously placed shadow. It is a horror show, with reavers instead of vampires. It is a comedy. It is a study on faith. It is a love story.

In other words...

It's life.

Life, realism, lies at the core of this decidedly fantastic show. As Joss Whedon himself put it, Firefly is not about an anticeptic future where laser rays and transporter beams get our heroes out of trouble. It is, in his words, a story about surviving in a world that, while set hundreds of years in the future, contain the same problems we face today.

Captain Mal Reynolds, actor Nathan Fillion, is a man haunted by his past... as most of Joss whedon's heroes tend to be. A survivor of a vicious civil war, he is a man who has seen everything he has ever believed in taken away from him. Now, 5 years later, he is captain of a little ship called Serenity... and he is on the wrong side of the law.

But he is never on the wrong side of right.

The common theme found early in the series is one everyone faces: survival. Mal is a businessman in te Han Solo mode, a rakish rogue concerned only with fulfilling his contracts so that he can find another job. His second in command is Zoe, an old war buddy of his. Together, they collected a crew with the know-how and skills to undertake and complete almost any job, be it legal or not so much: Jayne, the loveable merc whose loyalty always lies on with the money; Kaylee, genius ship's mechanic extraordinaire who is the happy heart of the ship; and Wash, Zoe's husband who also happens to be the best pilot in the galaxy. Alos joining them are Inara, a "companion" who seems to have... feelings for the captain; Shepherd Book, a preacher who latched onto them who is not what he seems; and the fugitive siblings Simon and River Tam.

The series was short lived but found new life in the feature film "Serenity", which answered a lot of questions I am not gonna give away here.

It is too bad that the series ended because, in my opinion, it was the best written series out there. You can take Lost, Alias, 24, and even CSI. I would give them all up for one more season of Firefly.

In the end, what I like most about Firefly is summed up in its theme song. You can take everything else away from someone... but as long as they can see the sky, as long as they have something to believe in and reach for...

They will never stop flying.

More on SR

Well, after allowing the high of watching a great Superman movie to subside, I was able to rethink and re-evaluate my opinion on the film.

Verdict?

Still great.

MUSIC:
This was what scared me the most. When it was announced thta John Ottman, and not John Williams, would do the music for the film, I was sad and terrified in equal measures. Ottman, a film editor by training, had always proclaimed a love for music like John Williams' and James Horner's. But his works so far (Fantastic Four, X-Men 2, Hide and Seek, House of Wax, etc), while competent, where nowhere near as grand or as excellent as any of John Williams' or James Horner's. They always sounded like... pale imitations.

It was therefore a great reassurance when Bryan Singer came out and emphatically confirmed that John Ottman would use John Williams' music.

From there, I was marginally more hopeful but still trepidatious. And then I watched the movie.

I don't buy CD's willy-nilly anymore. I save my CD purchases for music that is not just exceptional... I save my money for music that is near-perfect.

After the movie, I ran out and bought the soundtrack to Superman Returns.

I am still not 100% convinced of John Ottman's skill with creating original music, but what he did near-perfectly was come up with a score that integrated John WIlliams' classic themes with new music that brought the Superman mythos forward.

All my favorite Williams themes were there (Main theme, Love theme, growing up theme) and Ottman came up with some pretty good ones on his own too. But what Ottman did exceptionally well was in playing with our expectations of music in film and relating that with what was happening in the story.

Take for example the obligatory Superman and Lois flying scene. In the original score, in the original film, John Williams gave us a piece that mirrored the images on screen. When Superman appears on Lois' terrace, we hear playful traces of the love theme flitting in and out... mirroring the playful flirtation playing out in the scene. Then, when Superman and Lois fly off, we hear the love theme in all its grandeur, signifying that, by taking that leap with superman, Lois was opening herself up to falling in love with the big guy. The Love theme played over the rest of the flight, lush and romantic, and ended when they landed. And as Superman said goodbye, the love them trailed of and became more subtle, more subdued... holding the promise for more to come as the relationship developed.

In Superman Returns, Ottman did something similar yet satisfyingly different. When Superman lands and starts speaking to Lois, the music played is a mournful, more subdued version of the love theme. The tones are in a minor key, and there is an overwhelming feeling of sadness to the music... mirroring the conflicted lovers trying to hash out their differences. And when Superman takes Losi flying, we are treated to a lsuh build up of the love theme... except it isn't. The love theme quickly becomes a mournful "what could have been" theme. A sad haunting melody reiminiscent of Phantm of the Opera's Learn to be Lonely" played over the remainder of the scene. But as Superman flew Lois home, you could feel the mournfulness begin to dissipate. Minor tones became major tones and sorrow became love as Lois slowly began to enjoy her midnight flight. And as the couple slowly approached the magnificent art deco construct of the Daily Planet, we are finally treated to a full and lu rendition of Superman and Lois' love theme.
Or at least 30 seconds of it.

For as Lois and Superman land, they stare into each other's eyes and lean in for a kiss. At that moment, the Love theme cuts off in a heartbreaking wrench into the minor key... a musical metaphor of the love that Superman and Lois feel for each other- a love that can no longer be.

And that... that is the only time we hear the Love Theme.

Brilliant.

Cinematography:
There's not much I can say about this. It was brilliant. Every shot had meaning and no shot was wasted. Superman looked appropriately grand, Lex looked appropriately evil, and Lois looked strong and beautiful, big forehead and all. The angles the director of photography chose were brilliant. Upshots of Superman to show his majesty; downshots of Lex to show that, no matter how brilliant or powerful he is, he is just a small, small man; and medium, normal shots of Clark to show his... normalcy.

And I don't know if this was the writing team, the director, or the cinematographer, but the film was full of iconic shots that MADE this movie. Supermn carrying the Daily Planet Globe - Atlas shouldering the weight of the world. Superman carrying the car - a tip of the hat to the cover of Action Comics 1. Superman falling form the sky, his arms spread out to his side as if on a cross.

Iconic shots for the ultimate icon.

Brilliant.

SCRIPT:
I can't comment on this. I was dismayed to find out that much of the film's opening was shot but cut. Therefore, most of the setup for the film, most of the foreshadowing, will only be available to those who read the novelization or the shooting script. I cannot comment on this because, as a writer, I don't feel it's fair to the film's screenwriters.

What I CAN comment on is the dialogue.

Not brilliant. But good.

Well there you have it. That was MY review of a film I had been waiting years to see.

I loved it.

But that's the last I'll write about it, I think. Tune in next time for a look at another creation I recently discovered:

Firefly.