Posts tagged with UP Mass Comm
A few days ago, some of my orgmates in UP Cinema Arts Society asked me if Tisay could act for one of our orgmate’s thesis short film production. I was hesitant at first, since Tisay was just two years old, and I was doubting if she could deliver lines or any acting of that sort. Plus, she could be a brat. And I sort of have an idea how coaching a child to act can be a headache. Despite that, I said yes, and for that they even gave me the role of his father, too. Anyhow, it was a largely cameo role.
True enough, however, Tisay was such a brat during the shoot. She was okay at first, but since shoots are always vulnerable to delays, and delayed the shoot was, Tisay got pretty bored and tired before we got to shoot the sequence she was in. By the time it was our turn, she was on tantrums.
Indeed, directing or coaching a child to act can prove to be one of the most difficult aspects of directing. She couldn’t quite grasp what acting was and how pretending is different from what is real and apparent. She got pretty confused when I kept telling her that for a while I would pretend to be our dad. Kunwari ako si papa, ganyan. She couldn’t get it. Ha ha. Oh well, dinaan na lang sa impromptu script-revisions to allow her tantrums and crying to be part of the sequence.
Anyhow, I’ve been having bad dreams every night the past week. Apocalypse, death of loved ones, and even myself, tragedies, etcetera. It has become regular, it’s scary. It has come to a point that I don’t want to sleep anymore. Gabi-gabi bangungot na lang palagi. Well, it’s not as if I can avoid sleep altogether. I think I should re-learn to pray before sleeping at night.
So there goes some random blurbs.
I just came home a few hours ago from the first day of shoot of a group of Broadcast Communication and Film majors for a term project short video. Haha. I know, hindi na talaga ako gumraduate sa pag-”bida” sa productions. One semester right after my Mass Comm batchmates in a Broadcast Communication 130 (BC 130) class invited me to act in their production, I’m getting myself into another one. Even if I’ve graduated from Mass Comm!
I didn’t ask for it, really. But how could I say no to a role like this: Patrick; law student, fratman, student council president, forced into marriage by unwanted pregnancy, went to the spiritual world to save the unwanted wife, and all-around nice guy (nah, dagdag ko lang ‘yun). It sounds… interesting. He he.
Let’s see how this will turn out. It felt nice being in student production-mode for a day. Relieved me quite of some current stress by reliving my past days as a Mass Comm student.
Now I have to go back to Criminal Law readings. Law student pala talaga ako in real life. He he.
Mass Comm graduates are fortunate enough to have their recognition rites and the university graduation rites fall within the same day, with ample time in between for a luncheon celebration. Graduates from other colleges in UP Diliman had theirs on separate days.
My family and I had to wake up really early last April 27, because we were repeatedly advised to arrive early at 7 AM because seats for guests were apparently limited, and that the college recognition rites were to start strictly at 8 AM. Wake up early we did, but the rites didn’t really start on time.
It was a relatively brief recognition rites. Everyone was called on stage together with their parents to receive their certificates of merit and rolled pieces of blank paper. There were the usual speeches and a couple of intermission numbers. One of which was an audio-visual presentation prepared by one of our batchmates. I appeared in the video, lying at the Sunken Garden musing at the sky.
I sort of got irked with what the college dean said in her speech, that as part of growing up we should become pragmatists instead of idealists. The guest speaker, Maryo de los Reyes, said something with the same thought, that we should always learn to work with the prevailing order and compromise. My goodness, what kind of uninspiring commencement speeches are these?
Anyway, the program ended a little more than an hour before noontime. My family proceeded to have lunch with my parents’ godparents at some buffet restaurant. I went in famished and I ended up eating too much. We even had to go home right after lunch before going back to UP for the university graduation rites because I had to spend some time in the toilet.
It’s been more than a week since I graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication with an undergraduate degree in Film & Audio-Visual Communication.
Sigh. It was a long, tiring day. Not to mention, quite hot, especially during the beginning of the university graduation rites at the Ampitheater behind Quezon Hall.
I passed by UP last Monday to do some errands. I didn’t have any more undergraduate classes left, only a handful of final academic requirements. I met with some friends at the Batibot in Mass Comm, and hung out for an hour or so. I also quarreled with my thesis partner one last time, regarding our written thesis.
Last Friday, I passed my last academic requirement ever for my undergraduate years in college. It was a final paper for PI 100. After sending it by email and receiving my grade, it felt quite anticlimactic. Was that it? Am I done with BA Film & Audio-Visual Communication? I don’t have anything else to do to complete my course? I had expected it to feel liberating of some sort. It wasn’t quite like that.
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a film school graduate, a former law student and student council officer in UP Diliman, currently part of the legislative staff of the sole youth party-list in Philippine Congress.