EAC Theater Ensemble embeds theater discipline amidst the changing times

Theater still thrives these days. It continuously produces informational, expressive and communicative responses that are all in tangent with the technology of today. And despite of the common challenges such as the lack of funds, audience development in the community of non-arts programs, and promotional support of the media, EAC Theater Ensemble as an educational theater and a platform of ideas, concepts and insights embraces and attempts to ignite threats from opportunities. Hence, the birthing pains of the newest official theater arm of Emilio Aguinaldo College are ways to produce effective and efficient communicative expression and information. 

The EAC Theater Ensemble propels to be one of the leading theater and performing arts centers in the Philippines where the institutional core values of Virtue, Excellence and Service are truly exercised amidst the challenging times that we have today. New Artistic Director of EAC, Joey Ting, faces this challenging task along with equally-recognized media and communication practitioners namely: Yam Espinosa (Managing Direction), Anj Arguelles (Consultant for Promotion and Publicity), and Jae Ramos (Consultant for Production Management). Ambitious as it may sound, the EAC Theater Ensemble starts from nothing, just a handful of new student-artists as part of the cast or as part of the production who would like to experience how theater is done with discipline, integrity and respect for the theater production craftmanship. The cast ensemble includes student-artists in English version namely: Angelika Bautista as Winifred, Dindz Macabalo as Earnest, Elfren Llena as Tony, and Michelle Boter as Laura; in Filipino version namely: Elisha Penales as Winnie, Hana Demerin as Tonyo, Julia Ancla as Lorena, Lexie Ng as Nestor

The artistic team is composed of young breed of z generation namely: Jasmine Cundangan (digital media design), Julius Villoso (choreography), Augustine Ong (set, costumes and lighting), Kim Madrid & Annika Flores (make-up design), Kent Martin (video design), Jet Kevin Delima & Jenny Merida (photography). The production team heads are Raf Marquez (production management), Lester Abordo (stage management) and Augustine Ong (technical direction).

An interesting viewpoint of the play “Impromptu”, written originally in the English version by the American playwright Tad Mosel who went to study in Columbia University among other prestigious colleges and universities for drama and hailed as a 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for another work “All the Way Home”, sets the play inside the theater where the actors were asked by the stage manager to conduct an improvised play for the audience to experience the realm of the performance.

The maiden offering production of EAC Theater Ensemble is on May 16-18, 2024 with 10am and 3pm performances. It will use a theater-in-the-round staging and will be held at the Tanghalang Yaman Lahi, Sports and Cultural Center, Emilio Aguinaldo College. For ticket inquiries and reservations, please contact 0960-2859040 or 0956-2014748.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emilio Aguinaldo College launches its newest theater arm EAC Theater Ensemble

 

Emilio Aguinaldo College launches its newest theater arm EAC Theater Ensemble

As the academic semester ends this May 2024, the Emilio Aguinaldo College in Manila presents the newest theater arm of the institution – EAC Theater Ensemble – with multi-awarded artist-founder and artistic director Joey Ting at its helm.

EAC Theater Ensemble is envisioned to be the leading theater and performing arts training center between and among colleges and universities in Metro Manila. It aims to be the nesting place for artistic and cultural information, expression and communication in commemorating exceptional classical period and historical pieces of literary works and playwrights across the world. Through the work-in-training of students as cast ensemble in the theater and the performing arts, the students are given the rightful and timely opportunity to use their evolving performative skills in body, voice and mind processes.

After a five-year hiatus from the live theatrical productions due to the pandemic, Joey Ting directs a new Filipino adaptation inspired from Tad Mosel’s “Impromptu”, a contemporary American play that playfully uses a narrative of four actors improvising a play. The staging excites theater community with promises of stark futuristic pop-up devices as Ting reconfigures the use of stage as audience area in a 500-seater two-level Yaman-Lahi Theater, Emilio Aguinaldo College.

 The EAC TE is a brainchild of the EAC President Dr. Jose Paulo E. Campos to augment the needs of students in enhancing their communication skills through performances. Dr. Campos is a significant contributor in Philippine education who has earned degrees in highly-respected schools around the world (BS in Industrial Engineering from University of the Philippines, MBA in Finance from Columbia University, City of New York, USA, and his Doctor of Education from University of San Francisco, USA).

Through the generous support of Dr. Jose Paulo E. Campos, President of the institution together with the former Chair of the Board of Trustees, the late Mr. Danny Dolor, who was a prominent artist figure at the Cultural Center of the Philippines during his younger days and had a column specifically in the promotion of the arts seen in the arts and lifestyle section for newspaper Philippine Star back then, established Tanghalang Yaman Lahi, a 500-seater with effective sound acoustics proscenium style auditorium mainly for artists who have wanted to have lavish productions, music recitals, concerts, dance and theater shows. Currently, as Dolor succeeded by his niece, also, the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of EAC Ms. Soledad Dolor-De Leon, continues the legacy in tandem with the current president Dr. Campos.

This production is in tribute to the legacies left behind the two stalwarts of Emilio Aguinaldo College in the development of Philippine Education – National Scientist and Founder Dr. Paulo C. Campos and Owner of Dolor Pharmacy and Founder Ms. Soledad L. Dolor.

 “Impromptu” is a poignant one-act play for students interested in theater and performing arts, literature, history, psychology and multimedia arts and technology. The production starts on May 16 to 18 with 10:00am and 3:00pm shows at the Tanghalang Yaman-Lahi, Sports and Cultural Center, Emilio Aguinaldo College, United Nations Ave., Manila.

 For ticket reservations, inquiries and concerns, please contact Production Manager Raf Marquez with mobile number
09562014748 / 09602859040 or email at eactheaterensemble@gmail.com. 

Stripping the cinematic elements: Jun Lana's 'About Us But Not About Us'

Stripping Cinematic Elements in the film ‘About Us But Not About Us’

By Joey Ting

 

Acclaimed filmmaker, screenwriter and talent builder Jun Lana's "About Us But Not About Us", a film that touches on friendship, love, lust and betrayal in single time, location and action, also popularly called "the three unities" prescribed through the literary arc of an Aristotlean dramatic text, is a fourth-walled cinematic experience where the two main characters Eric played wittingly by ace actor Romnick Sarmenta and Lancelot played refreshingly by young actor Elijah Canlas have been the film's forefront.

 

As the film unfolds to declare the suspension of spectacle as its least concern as stated in the auditory and visual aspects of the filmic production, "About Us But Not About Us" presents the dynamics of cinematic powerplays in its unique rendition of dramatic elements such as its plot, character, idea, language, music (as rhythmical story patterns) while avoiding the theatricalities of spectacle's narrative turn of events in accordance to the rule of a tragedy manifesto where the characters ignite through speeches vis-a-vis dialogues (words) but not merely through visual actions and effects.

 

Excitingly to see this as a theater play rather than a cinematic product, it downplays, however, the idea of presenting film elements as sources of 'supposedly' symbols and metaphors in signified cinematic codes. It has alienated audiences in empathizing with the characters' well-mannered development, and putting a distinct fourth wall among its film viewers to detach themselves from seeping through the characters' enigmatic lenses. Hence, fitting to be a tribute to post-technology drama on the twenty-first century explorations on intellectualized cinematic perversions and orchestrations by simplistic and personified context of cinematic impulse and condensation.

 

Indeed, Lana has proven the vision of crushing the norms of cinematic codes, a brave attempt to diffuse the concretized visible and invisible elements in a narrative-driven experience. The film is a unique filmic masterpiece that has incidental references to Harold Pinter's engaging minimalism, Edward Albee's extreme absurdism, and, Tennessee Williams's poignant magical realism.

 

 

Logos, Pathos, Ethos: Constructive-Destructive Cinematic Devices in the films of Vince Tañada’s “Katips” and Darryl Yap’s “Maid in Malacañang”

By: Joey Ting

            Film is a popular art. After its discovery in the 1850’s by European gamechangers, phenomenally, film has become origins of various sources of purposes, intentions and goals but never as a business. These European innovators didn’t think it would become such popular, hence, taking it as toy for artistic triumphs. Even the American scientists and innovators have enamored themselves to pirate, if not copied, the trajectory insights of the ‘cinematographe’ (the camera itself with the power of recording in one machine) to be an essential framework for this cinematic industry as a profession, like the booming business industry. Moving forward, as it transgresses time and space in world cinema, film has evoked the appeal of the logos (logic), pathos (feelings), and ethos (credibility) through its cinematic devices used to conduct the completion of the filmmaker’s vision. I recently watched two controversial Filipino films, Vince Tañada’s “Katips” (PHILSTAGERS Films) and Darryl Yap’s “Maid in Malacanang” (by VIVAMAX with Sen. Imee Romualdez Marcos as Creative Producer), produced during this pandemic. I say controversial because these two films have made people flock together in cinemas, debated upon on social media platforms (FB, Twitter, Instagram, et. al.), disagreed on various vlogs and audio-visual recording through YT channels, as well as those traditional broadcast media such as the TV, radio and print publication diaspora where the concept of ‘tsismisan’ has made it a Filipino trademark. What a way to start with the 21^st century post-pandemic film arrival!

 

KATIPS: From Stage to Cinema

 

Courtesy: PhilStagers Films

            The film ‘Katips’ is engaged to be the notion of musical cinema. Previously, the title has been staged as a musical theater production of artist-lawyer Vince Tañada-led theater company PhilStagers back before the pandemic has begun. In the theater, Director Tañada has intrinsically left audiences in awe of what they see in their prepared productions as always. The company goes from one province to another to amass the so-called theater arts as an educational tool. Until recently, the company decided to have it in the medium of film, particularly the digital media realm, probably a new space for the company. They chose their ‘acclaimed’ productions such as ‘Ang Bangkay’ and the current, “Katips’ converted into a new popular medium. Director, writer, actor, producer, organizer, publicity honcho and PR man Atty. Vince Tañada seems to be doing the old formula as a single unit head (similar to Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Chekhov, Mabesa, Juan) of what other world artists have tried to do in their traditional theater companies with a new medium, new audiences, post-pandemic mood, and twenty-first century interests.    

 

            The film’s narrative centers on a cluster of activists, students and professionals alike, found in the symbolic ‘Katips Home’, as it is fondly called and emphasized by the group in the duration of the film against the tyrannical disposition of the Marcos regime vis-à-vis during the Martial Law period where hundreds and thousands of activists have suffered from torture, trauma, and oppression. Set during the 70s, the nearby Katipunan Road, where the University of the Philippines main campus is located, becomes their safe space. The area of Diliman-Marikina used to be a terrain and slopes of hills and empty lands until, of course, commercialism came about to that area.

 

 

            The cast of activists include Jerome Ponce (as Greg and Greggy), Vince Tañada (Panyong), Sazchna Laparan (Lira), Nicole Laurel Asensio (Lara), Johnrey Rivas (Art), Adelle Ibarrientos (Alet), Joshua Bulot (Estong), Vean Olmedo (Susie) together with Dexter Doria (Sister Claire), Patricia Ysmael (Sister Josie), Afi Africa (Bebang), Carla Lim (Lally), Liam Tañare (Fidel), OJ Arci (Xander), Chris Lim (Ben), Ricky Brioso (Fr. Raffy) with Nelson Mendoza (Ka-Manding). The abusive policemen as torturers include Mon Confiado (Lt. Sales), Dindo Arroyo (Sgt. Cabigao), JP Lopez (Sgt. Alagao), Bernard Laxa (Sgt. Manubay). Portraying the young and the old characters are Marc Rolan Mendoza (young Greggy), Marie Lupena (old Susie), Domingo Almoete (old Bebang), Annie Pinaverde (old Sister Josie), Pia Moran (old Lally), Krissy Poriscova (old Xander).

           

 

Courtesy: Good News Pilipinas

At the helm of engaging performances come from the versatile Vince Tañada as he performs both theatrically and cinematically the character Panyong. Though there were awkward moments of his mannerisms and distracting tattoos all over his body, he has able to pull the strings successfully especially in the last scene where he finds Alet’s body lying. Jerome Ponce's performance is underrated. He also provides, justifyingly, competent sensibilities in scenes with Vince Tanada. He is, definitely, a brilliant actor of his generation. His scene with the young Greggy is ‘organic’ and magically, hyper-realistic. Afi Africa’s character Bebang should have been explored since the potential performance of Africa is felt and logically, significant. Adelle Ibarrientos (Alet) has similar argument with Bebangs. It lacks the transcendence of the character while being raped and abused by the head villain Confiado (Lt. Sales). Finally, Johnrey Rivas plays the character Art with audiences in shock due to his skeptic image of nudity. His portrayal is convincingly voluminous but his character weighs like a paper. The character should have merited the same ideological representations as that of Bebang and Alet as to why they do it and for what purpose and intention.   

 

Courtesy: InterAksyon

Artistic personnel include Vince Tañada (Director and Writer), Base Hernandez and Ronnie Rodillas (Producers), Pandoy Abanto (Cinematography), Mark Jason Sucgang (Editor), Pipo Cifra (Music). The music, for me, is the strongest cinematic element of the film while the picturesque qualities make the cinematographic properties a potent weapon of ingenuity yet establishes the movements with discomfort and imbalance. Leitmotif tones linger essentially even after the duration of the film. Cifra imagines the music as a key element in storytelling with full of pathos in melodies. Editing did not work for clarity of purpose and transition; color grading should have distinctly shown between illusion and reality. The flavors and rainbows of production design are absent in entirety, almost a failure of imagination. Contrary, the style of narrative (plot and story) it provides is both informative and entertaining, cinematic in its own merits but thinnest in character textures, almost one-dimensionality. The opening musical scene of the film reminds me of a 1979 film “Hair”, also a period opus. I also liked the juxtapositions of the lovely melody music of each love team. The torture scenes of Art and Alet are powerful pieces of pathos. The film stretches much of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’, pretty much sure a work-in-progress for Director Tañada and his platoon.

 

Courtesy: Likas News Philippines

The film "Katips" validates Vince Tanada and the PhilStagers Company their legitimacy in today's Philippine cinema, making a fit-in-the-hole in cinematic craftsmanship.

 

 

MiM: From VinCentiments to VIVAMAX

Courtesy: Manila Bulletin

            Luck has favored Digital Content Creator-Director Darryl Yap, also a native from Olongapo City, Zambales and founder of SaWakas Theater Group in 2018, during the pandemic. Among the directors who have the greatest number of productions, Director Yap has to be recognized as the most prolific of his generation of more than ten full-lengths and regularly posted shorts produced within the limiting pandemic haste. This is regardless whether he does it for mainstream or for his popular vlog site ‘VinCentiments’, a digital media site with short rendezvous affair in regular bastion of thoughts and insights on the current popular conditions, scenarios and socio-political struggles. The director has full potential of becoming edgy, unstoppable, and to say the least, political. Probably, Director Yap is one of the youngest talents in the current twenty-first Philippine entertainment icon with unique and controversial lenses in criticality in the metropolitan society and artistry in the field of cinema and theater.

 

 

Courtesy: Manila Bulletin

            

            The film “Maid in Malacañang” tremors controversy because of its unique theme, which is, the narrative from the lens of the Marcoses, to be hearing it after thirty-six (36) years impoverished. While I consider the presence felt of Senator Imee Marcos’s in the film as a comeback because of the obvious character mock of actress Christine Reyes (playing the role of Ime), Director Yap pushes it still to open the sealed envelope into blasts of anomalous viewpoints, careless manipulations of historicity and putting vagueness in clarity of indoctrinated history when the only reason is to agitate the other political party and make it sound like a game of thrones. The Darryl Yap board game, in my cinematic experience, is a "poison" film - where 'hypnosis of disbelief' begins with an intermittent twist of witty humor and terror interspersing with the silhouettes of subliminal cinematic danger and provocations. That is what makes art a powerful medium of expression and communication, may it be camouflaged to a mock documentary style or a black political comedy. This is Darryl Yap’s logos (reason) while continuously improving pathos (emotions) and ethos (credibility) in his art of craftsmanship through his 2018’s popular VinCentiments Face Book Page and a graduate of Mass Communications from Centro Escolar University (CEU) and incidentally, took up Public Administration degree in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has the guts, the grind, the grit.  

Courtesy: LionhearTV

                 The cast include Cesar Montano (Ferdinand Marcos Sr.), Ruffa Gutierrez (Imelda Romualdez Marcos), Christine Reyes (Imee Marcos), Ella Cruz (Irene Marcos), Diego Loyzaga (Bong Bong Marcos) while supporting characters of Karla Estrada, Beverly Salviejo and Elizabeth Oropesa and the ensemble of cast serves as incidentals and cameos, maids and PSGs are seen to be essential backgrounds. Montano displays his mastery and language of cinema while the lack of his consistent intensity misses its perfection. Gutierrez has refreshed us from her usual loud gestures and styles in acting. In the film, she has behaved like a true Imelda, quieter and soft-spoken. The strength of her scene is with Loyzaga (BBM) on bed. Director Yap intelligently pushes away the camera to the shoes with IRM 2022 contrapuntal statement of Imelda “Hindi na tayo makakabalik.” Loyzaga is as well potentially as that of Ella Cruz, playing the cry-baby interpretation of Irene Marcos character.

 

            Director Yap has proven his talent for the craft, seeping through his early works in VinceCentiments with the most controversial BL (Boys Love) episodes ‘Ang Sakristan’; Shorts of Titser, Pasahero among others and in VIVAMAX with Jowable, Tililing, Revirginized, Paglaki ko Gusto ko maging #Porn Star one after another controversies, an apt platform for the current surge of digital media content creations. In turn, the Rise of UN-Censored Films of Digital Media has been an advantage of VIVAMAX with their listings of produced works week after week, like in the 90s of REGAL FILMS. While Yap’s cinematic elements are the usual and ordinary such as director of photography, editing, music, story and production design, these artistic team members continue to be empowered by Yap’s vision for change and shake them all in proxemics.

 

Scene stealers Karla Estrada (Yaya Santa), Beverly Salviejo (Biday) and Elizabeth Oropesa (Manang Lucy) have become poignant central characters in the film. Estrada plays witty and bully among the maids in the palace. Estrada is effective. Salviejo’s stand-out scene singing in an operatic manner while Gutierrez takes on a last look to her symbolic shoes and finally, coughs to stop the music. What an impeccable timing. Oropesa’s almost perfect performance as Manang Lucy is just about how acting can just be naturalistic and seamless efforts in front of the camera angles. She, for me, is the Meryl Streep of Philippine Cinema from her younger years of bomba films of the 70s-80s to melodramas of the 90s and contemporary indie genres of early 2000s to present.

TO PATRONIZE OR NOT TO PATRONIZE?

 

            The two films “Katips” and “Maid in Malacañang” have stirred up issues and concerns of today’s politics. Did it raise the cinematic experience in Philippine cinema today or not? Did it offer new perspectives? Did it debunk old ways and traditions? Did it affect your logos, pathos and ethos? Did it raise global recognitions among the world cinema market? Are we really on the right track to global cinema? Is this what we want to present as a loving and friendly country?

 

Courtesy: Studiobinder.com

            I consider ‘poison’ films exist in the current Philippine cinema if there are hidden agenda behind the film production and process. Dangerous and edgy because it stirs up possibilities and probabilities. Like in Cassavafilms.com, they enumerated controversial filmmakers who were murdered in whatever capacities like Theo van Gogh, Adrienne Shelly, William Desmond Taylor, Thomas Ince, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francis Boggs, Helen Hill, James Miller, Joan Root. They have their principles with them. They brought not just aesthetics but politics. They have taken their films as their medium of expression and communication, may it be edgy, dangerous, skeptical and they do not care what others might think of their works perplexed with popular culture. The recent killing of Dr. Chao Tiao Yumol is a thought to ponder. He has the highest degree in the field of Medicine (LOGOS vis-à-vis INTELLECT) but he has chosen to believe that the word DR. does not correspond to the primal PATHOS (feelings) and penetrated to enter without the LACK OF CREDIBILITY (ETHOS) faced by Dr. Yumol when entered the campus premsise. The Security Guards will never think he is capable of doing edgy, dangerous platform of anger, frustrations and insecurities. Film is like a gun, a weapon and an ideology where filmmakers do not play for hypocrisy and pretense but taking it with a degree of maturity and discernment.

 

            We teach ART to better the society, not to ruin it. We teach ART to better the livelihood of people in their own capacity. We teach ART to develop new ways and systems and processes of credibility and convenience. We teach ART to introduce the country with a newer paradigm and ideology. We teach ART to narrate all these stories with greatest Filipino aesthetics and criticality.  

 

            With great influence comes with greater power and greatest danger. And ACTION! Think about it, SERIOUSLY.

Exceptional Cognitive and Affective Factors in Netflix’s ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ By Joey Ting

Among the Netflix miniseries that we have today, Creators Scott Frank and Allan Scott’s ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ (2020) assure the viewers of the triumphant cognitive and affective factors of the said latest released Netflix hit. From a 1983 novel by Walter Stone Tevis more popularly known as Walt Tevis, this novel of the same title has been made into a compelling cinematic visual form. Tevis’s other works as novelist include ‘The Hustler’, ‘The Color of Money’, ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ from which have become films in the past years. His work for ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ makes it the most exciting, engaging, and exceptional in both the cognitive and affective aspects of a human being.      

‘The Queen’s Gambit’ is by far Netflix’s most engaging miniseries for the year 2020. It has seven episodes. Each episode is definitely cliff-hanged as the viewer gets into the proceeding one. The major plotline follows the story of the talented orphan Beth Harmon played by an exceptionally-stunning by Anya Taylor-Joy along with brief portrayals of Isla Johnston as the young Beth Harmon and Annabeth Kelly as the five-year old Beth. The character Beth, as a protagonist, hurdles her past and present to achieve a successful future in her career. The first plotline is Beth’s enigmatic past with several twist and turn flashbacks of her parents’ relationship, with her father having another set of family and her single mother’s dilemma in raising her without any support; The second plotline is Beth’s discovery of herself with innate interest on Chess through an incident in the Basement where her considered Chess mentor Mr. Shaibel (played by Bill Camp) works as a maintenance janitor in Methuen Home for Girls in Kentucky. The third plotline, as the most exciting but textured narrative, is Beth’s determined vision as a world class Chess player competing in Russia at a very young age. These three interconnected plotlines have fulfilled the nature of an effective miniseries told in the clearest and well-enunciated manner.

 

American Film director Scott Frank (widely acclaimed screenwriter for his Oscar nominated adapted-screenplay films ‘Out of Sight’ (1998) and ‘Logan’ (2017) provides careful directorial vision for the said miniseries. He takes the cinematic patterns gracefully episode per episode while establishing realities with psychological fantasies of Beth. Scottish screenwriter and stage musicales pseudonym Allan Scott (Allan Shiach) who adds to the thrill, succinctly-written lines, and heart-breaking sequences. Cinematic highlights of elements have played major distinctions to complete the cinematic experience. The music by Carlos Rafael Rivera, an American composer based on Guatamela, captures riveting and captivating episodes. Rivera makes use of rhythms of sentimentality, struggle, fantasy, and catastrophe, very evident in his leitmotif and music patterns from the scoring titles The Scholar’s Mate, Training with Mr. Shaibel, and Playing Townes among the few astounding uses of piano and violin instruments in the series. Production design has also become memorable most especially on the use of costume and hair styling patterns transcribed into a 1950s to 1960s periods. Finally, outstanding acting performances come from, of course, Ana Taylor-Joy whose believable portrayal of the character Beth Harmon has become a thing to follow in the awards race for 2020. Characters Jolene, a fellow orphan (played by Moses Ingram), Helen Deardorff (played by Christiane Seidel), Mrs. Alma Wheatly (played by Marielle Heller), and Harry Beltik (played by Harry Melling) have been noticeable in the series.

 

Because of the change in the new normal set-up due to the global pandemic, Netflix, on huge portable flat screen television sets at the comfort of homes, has become alternative film and film for television exhibits at present instead of attending cinema viewing in nearby theaters and cinema areas. This whole scenario has changed indefinitely the perspectives of the traditional attendance in cinema through an appreciation of our own versions of cinema from home. ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ is a must-see drama genre on the cognitive aspects and the intellectually-driven Chess as a sport and as history unfolds its present limitations where mass gathering is prohibited while the affective domain is strongly delivered in the miniseries.     

 

 

 

 

'Contagion' (2011)

Genre: Medical Drama

From Film to Reality:

Critical Perspectives of the film ‘Contagion’ (2011) during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Joey Ting

The turn from the industrial to information age is definitely a big leap. Having introduced the concepts of technological advancements, media digitization, massive information transference among many other crucial innovations and developments (Jenkins-Ford-Green 2013), films are considered to be a potent force if not the only moving art that could be digitized and preserved cinematically of this period. One of the more significant properties of film these days is otherwise known as the story. How does one explain ‘medical crisis’ to people? What causes it? What cures it?

The film ‘Contagion’ is a 2011 American medical thriller of filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, also known for his hyperlink directorial film style where different characters are presented in multi-narrative devices. In the interconnections of plot, these characters are incidentally intertwined in selected providential circumstances. Second-time collaborator of Soderbergh, Scott Z. Burns writes this engaging fast-paced plot. Cliff Martinez provides a compelling almost emotionally-rhythmic in leitmotif music. Cinematographer Peter Andrews and editor Stephen Mirrione contribute immensely in a suspenseful-driven catastrophe. Canted camera shots and fast cuts successfully offer a more compelling storytelling. Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle and Sanaa Lathan have comprised an effective casting. The film produced by Participant Media (Jeffrey Skoll) and Image Nation (formerly Imagenation Abu Dhabi) with Warner Bros as film’s distributor is a concrete discussion of putting science and communication together.

The premise of these multiple plots has evolved around the beginning discovery of unknown novel virus MEV-1 which eventually determines to be a bat-borne virus and pigs as conduits at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The coronaviruses attack severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) of those who were affected by its origin seen at the end of the film. From Hong Kong, in a well-lit and crowded casino, Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) has been infected by the strain of the virus. As she returns back in Minneapolis to her family, she produces colds, dry coughs, rashes, high-fever and the unexpected seizures in a span of hours. Mitch Emhoff (Damon), also symbolical character of a common man, rushes his wife immediately at the hospital after he sees the saliva-spitting very similar to contusions. Doctors and nurses rapidly attend to Beth as she continuously experienced non-stop seizures until her death. Surgeons have examined the cause of it by peeling off the skin of her back head as an autopsy death verification. While this whole chunk is happening, another incident of a cameo Japanese executive character has suffered the same symptoms similar to Beth and many incidental characters, not realistically connected, have similar cases. The CDC experts are seen in montage reporting of such random incidents including the death of Beth which would call for a pandemic virus outbreak. More characters are introduced. Dr. Leonora Orantes (Cotillard) plays a central character in the film where she represents the World Health Organization (WHO) finding out the host of this virus, hostaged and freed in the end from HK.  Dr. Ellis Cheever (Fishburne), a physician, sees the outbreak as a means to an end and orders everyone else in the CDC to capture the cause of such symptoms as he personally deals with his soon-to-be wife (Lathan) asking not to reveal to others the consequences of all these without the vaccine solution. Alan Krumwiede (Law) is a self-proclaimed journalist-blogger spreading false information causing panic to his viewers. Having been classified as a conspiracy theorist, his thinking expressing renunciation from the CDCs. He becomes the conscience of these doctors, believing in ‘disinformation’ of random speculations from the health organizations. Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet), also has caused herself a victim to the virus, is an epidemiologist-officer from the 1951 established Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) of the biological warfare in the previous Korean War. She frantically but bravely discovers herself infected from the virus while she performs her duties in the virus-infected parameters. Simultaneously, the outbreak has brought other characters on the ground in the film. Dr. Ally Hextall (Ehle) is a research scientist who has helped find a vaccine at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Rear Admiral Lyle Haggerty (Cranston), also from US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, HK government officer Sun Feng (Hang) and CDC Custodian and a friend of Dr. Cheever, Roger (Hawkes) have been added to the multi-narratives and multi-plot-centered characters in the virus-massive killing saga of an animal-origin. The film ends with a founded vaccine where sequential select-few has been picked through a lottery of birthdates. Finally, at the last few frames, the film depicts how the infection has spread out from the bats-borne virus to pigs to cooks to waiters to guests and the infinite display of contagion develops alarmingly until the last.

In the case of local marginalized set-ups, Philippine cities have warranted strict implementation of the term coined as Extreme Community Quarantine (ECQ), a soft-termed lockdown while in search for the absolute vaccine and some alternative medications such as in the film’s ‘forsythia’ which can cure the virus. Though the Local Government Units (LGUs) control the limited movement of their constituents, the crowding of people has seen publicly over a media news report the congregation at the wet markets, groceries, food bakeries, drugstores among other substantial food markets. For 135 days or so seen in the film, the solution vaccine, whether for antibodies or anti-infection, has been detected nearly more than three months of waiting. The idleness of the people, in so far as the medical experiments are concerned, has been approximately measured within the 135-day observation, symbolically identical to the film’s timeline. Anxiety, depression, reduced interest in creativity, loss of appetite in studies, sadness, idleness, insights on absurdity and dead-end home routines have established negligence in promoting objectivity rather than the more emotional, subjective views of human experiences against the virus.    

Over nearly three decades and in a period of information, science communication has become more established as a subject of teaching and research in universities across the world (Trench 2012). The nature of it, being extrapolated further in the study of the novel coronavirus 2019 (CoViD-19), concurrently gives us hope through an informed nation such as the Philippines. Like in the film ‘Contagion’, the setting has paralleled the beginning of the CoViD-19 outbreak. Symptoms of sudden intermittent coughing and sneezing conjoined with high-temperature that causes fever and short of breathing are detected to be the characteristic traits of the virus indicators. While the scenes in the film have made it more thrilling especially in the case of Beth’s sudden seizures and saliva extractions and its quick manifestations of the virus, many of our countrymen have suffered severe weakling of lungs that leads to serious case of pneumonia. Speculations relative to pneumonia could be, as stated in the film, meningitis (an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges) and/or encephalitis (an inflammation of the brain). As the film excitingly progresses initially hiding the virus outbreak in public, while the Pinoys are put into an Extreme Community Quarantine (ECQ) provisioned by the Philippine Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s speech on March 16, 2020 – number of days before the confused and premature knowledge of the pandemic, the internet through the various social media platforms easily spread out the disinformation of fake news and catastrophic information that led to more complex phenomenological attributes of the virus, as synonymous to the blog of Krumwiede.

With the aid of science experts in public communication, as seen in the film through a series of press corps and as seen in our daily news from Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) officials’ conference to the public, clarifications on what to do and medical bulletin updates of recovered, death and probable cases of the affected virus statistics and a ladder-system to fight the infectious disease from the self-imposed home quarantine, the motion to include in the ASEAN-integrated undergraduate curriculum track courses under highly-specialized Media and Communication Departments (2018) of universities and colleges in the tertiary level are implemented. Subject courses relative to public health like Risk, Disaster & Humanitarian Communication, Science and Health Communication, Social Media Communication, Political Economy of Communication are offered to be utilized for possible collaboration from other interdisciplinary strands in Health, Medicine, Economics and Business.

The vision of the filmmaker Soderbergh in the film ‘Contagion’ is uncontestably vital and vulnerable as similar in the case of science communication. In the Philippine context, the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to fight the CoViD-19 is an example of both vitality and vulnerability. Because of the diversified agencies called for, their presence and participation have become vital. However, its existence could be vulnerable, short-lived and temporarily-restrained when everything is put to a halt or an end. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) should continue the existence of it to prevail the continued ally of theory and practice (Clevenger 2019). Moreover, to make it vital for both the professions in media communication and science, scientists and the medical professionals must have appropriate communication training in order to understand fully the sense of immediacy and information transference (2012).

‘Contagion’ (2011) is definitely one significant film that must be accelerated as a form of science communication study. With close tandem in medical professions, media (film as an example) and communication (performative speech preparation for media coverage of plausible indoctrinating science (scientific jargons as examples) to common understanding must be taken conclusively as allies for a better world convergence. While our current quarantine condition manifests the understanding of mythical realm of cinema to real world (Bazin 1967), the real world manifests the understanding and relevance of film in clarifying the unseen forces of the virus to an end through a procedural system on what to do and finally, come up with a resolving vaccine.     

In conclusion, this CoViD-19 global pandemic for sure has positive turn-outs in life experiences. Science communication is seen as a vital component in the medical and health professions as well as in media and communication industries. An immediate convergence must happen. There must be further studies through research and publication to engage and deal with the promising status of the ongoing theories and practices in science and health communication as poignant forces for solidarity despite the interdisciplinary connections of potential agencies against these invisible enemies in an invisible nearly-apocalyptic war.      

References:

Bazin, A. (1967). What is cinema? Vol. 1. University of California Press: Berkeley.

Clevenger, M.R. (2019). Corporate citizenship and higher education: Behavior, engagement, and                    ethics.Palgrave Macmillan: Switzerland.

Jenkins, H., Ford, S., Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a 

            networked culture. New York University Press: New York.

Soderbergh, S. (2011). Contagion. Participant Media & Image Nation: Abu Dhabi.

Trench, B. (2012). Vital and vulnerable: science communication as a university subject in (eds.) Schiele, B., Claessens, M., Shi, S. Science communication in the world: Practices, theories and                        trends. Springer: New York.   

'Hollywood' (2020)

Genre: Drama

Netflix’s ‘Hollywood’ mirrors the decadence of Philippine film and television culture

By Joey Ting

The premiered Netflix’s ‘Hollywood’ this May 1, 2020 has become one of the nicest things I’ve watched so far under an enhanced community quarantine in Manila. Well, I’ve watched it two days after its release and at first, I thought this would be an interesting interpretation of a ‘Hollywoodized’ scenarios for two hypothetical reasons: One, Netflix, I presumed, is known to be helping out a lot of independent film, theater and television artists all over the world which provides courageous attempts in excellent digital web craftsmanship along with compelling storytelling ideologies and of course, a platform for ‘well thought-of’ screenplay structures both catered for film and film for television productions; Two, content is exceptionally attention-getting and subliminally catchy since the day Netflix has produced contextually-driven pieces of digitally-produced works. Netflix has given us equally excellent-produced and distributed films and series through the web such as ‘Freud’ (2020), originally-produced Korean series ‘Kingdom’ (2020), ‘The Two Popes’ (2019), ‘Marriage Story’ (2019), ‘The Witcher’ (2019), ‘The King’ (2019), ‘Dolemite Is My Name’ (2019), ‘Beasts of No Nation’ (2019), and ‘Dead Kids’ (2019) - which actually gave Filipino filmmaker Mikhail Red his cinematic platform and a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase his filmmaking mastery and skill. While early on, ‘Stranger Things’ (2016) has been one of the longest running hit web series with its ongoing season 4 in the making this 2020. Creators of outstanding American series Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan thought ‘Hollywood’ to be added feature on the list of films and series to watch for on Netflix in the time of CoViD-19 outbreak across the world.

‘Hollywood’

The basic premise of story touches on the different individual lives of aspiring ‘wannabe’ stars in Hollywood, may it be on camera actors, writers, filmmakers and even producers. The series is basically set in a post-World War 2 where aspiring group led by the ‘everyman’ characters as follows: military good looking veteran Jack Castello (played by dashing David Corenswet), an aspiring Half-Filipino, yes specifically mentioned, filmmaker Raymond Ainsley (Darren Criss), talented black woman, also Raymond’s girlfriend Camille Washington (Laura Harrier), Ace Studios executive-in-charge of production and closeted gay Richard Samuels aka Dick (Joe Mantello), retired military turned businessman-pimp Ernest West aka Ernie (Dylan McDermott), naïve Roy Fitzgerald aka screenname Rock Hudson (Jake Picking), talented screenwriter Archie Coleman, also Roy’s boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), acting coach-mentor, studio executive Ellen Kincaid (Holland Taylor), beautiful Claire Wood (Samara Weaving), also only daughter of Ace Studios owners Ace and Avis Amberg, talent agent, also a self-proclaimed Ace producer Henry Willson (Jim Parsons), wife of Ace Amberg, also took charge of the Ace Studios Avis Amberg (played beautifully by Patti LuPone), Head of the Ace Studios, also Avis’s husband Ace Amberg (filmmaker Rob Reiner) to complete the principal cast. Exceptional performances come from actress Mira Sorvino (played the actress Jeanne Crandall character, also the mistress of Ace), actress Michelle Krusiec (played the underdog Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, also helped by Raymond to win an Academy award), and finally, actress Queen Latifah (played the black actress character Hattie McDaniel, also the alter-ego and adviser of Camille). These three women actors have played so well and stood-out in the series. There are seven episodes so far completing the first season on Netflix. The series is, of course, not for minors since it has displayed consistently and explicitly contents on sex, nudity and strong language on the episodes. Recurring themes of sexuality, gender, power and race have been the major issues of this very relevant and timely production practices of entertainment particularly of the film and broadcast studio system and the pervading culture of decadence.

Dissipating Power, Energy and Money

After the rise of democratic people power in the original EDSA 1, film and television production studios in Manila have continued in the mid-80s. This continuum has made these studios overwhelmingly acquired a lot of power, energy and money BUT has failed continuously to provide excellent, high-quality and well-planned productions of various mixed-up genres patterned from the world class studios of the Hollywood in the United States. In the long years of film and television studios servicing the Philippine public as referred to the ‘poor mass’ who, almost all of these millions of societal victims, have become continuously ignorant due to the opportunity to be educated, parasitically-driven to the wealth and power of the false gods, hypocritical to its social-economic conditions, are pervasively indoctrinating what Power, Energy and Money can do to twist the continuous fate of our decadent Philippine culture. The culture of the studios in Manila should be put to a halt and to postpone the political empowerment of the abusive(s) and excessive(s) to the innocence of the poor and the fragility of the mass. The conscience of the intellects, as in the academe, provides the soul and wisdom of the nation which many of these academics have witnessed how studio system has thrived to embrace Power, Energy and Money.

Power is not absolute

Loyalty is synonymous to the empires of the Roman emperors. In the Philippine context, loyalty is not objective but more of seeing it as ‘utang na loob at binigyan ako ng break sa pag-arte o pag-direk o pag-prodyus’ (gives false loyalty for the chance of acting or directing or producing) or otherwise, to perform the hypocritical ‘pakikisama’ (conjoining friendships) originated from the Spanish-American confluence. The studios have this kind of a culture, a wronged one. Those who have been offered to sign a contract with them intermittently are those who have submitted themselves to the decadence of this nation. The contract is a pact between the sinners and the sinned which eventually would evolve into a huge networking recruits of more sinners and sinned, a never-ending culture of false worshipping. These television executives who run the studios perform power as absolute regardless of the kind of creative identity and vision produced by the submissive and subordinating followers of power.

Energy for worthless pieces of shits

The publicists or marketing personnel connive unfortunately as these people have signed smaller contracts as well with the false gods, the purveyors of mediocrity in the film and television studios. Hour after hour, one would see, in exchange of the true abilities and creativities of these follower-victims, how each has succumbed to the ideologies of these brainless studio executives whom they think they have acquired the absolute power and authority through their enormous amount of creative energies. Hour after hour, one would see in localized programs, the senseless, almost absurd, decadence of entertainment where it ultimately mirrors the littlest of hopes and ambitions to rise above the manipulative society. Hence, the energies spent to enforce the lowest quality of ideas and concepts in Philippine entertainment are too oblivious. The energies of those who have become part of the studio system through their contracts are the same energies that promote mediocrity, substandard creative juices throughout the period of decadence.

Money makes the world go crazy

Money is the root of all evil and this quote truly makes sense. Every single species who has become part of the studio system wants the pleasure of acquiring the huge amount of money. With money, one can have both the power and the energy. Money makes everyone so powerful yet so vulnerable. Money in the studios comes from the trickery of this materialistic world, the advertisements, the image pronouncements BUT materialistic items are brought to life by those selected few. Still, only a fraction of percentage happens to be those few who have contracts with the system. Studio culture likes and is attractive to money, a lot and so goes with the film and television executives vibrantly amused by the pea brains of those who just nod and follow what pleases them most. Each star devotes their whole time, effort and brainless chores in exchange of huge mansions, luxurious automobiles, expensive jewelries, high-end clothing and accessories because they all thought to establish imagery, symbol like saints and icons to the poor masses. In shows where action scenes take place, actors and actresses should still look good looking and beautiful with make-ups, blushes and lip glosses so they can continue to endorse the decadence of this nation.

Philippine film and television culture is ‘Hollywood’

The system of the studios must change. The culture of studios must change. The people of the studios must be changed. Change is what the Philippine film and television need today. At the turn of the 21^st century and after three decades of impoverished progress, we see the same people running the studios. We see the same film and television executives until we really see them dead, then change might happen. Philippine culture is ‘Hollywood’ culture in a bad way. The influx of interests of the younger generation in appreciating Philippine film and television is definitely an outsider’s view. As you enter the studio gates, an outsider’s view would see the shining, shimmering, splendid things with celebrity stars walking the hallways, producers with their mobile phones, directors puffing their last few fires in their cigarettes and the wannabes continue to bewildered with luxury cars getting of the compound, fans unwavering their support to their idols, some closeted gay film executives sucking the amateurs’ dicks one after another in their well-lit and conducive offices, promising endlessly hopes, dreams and ambitions in this absurdly decaying world of entertainment and the culture of such in this supposedly changed, improved, enhanced realm of world-class Philippine film and television industries.

While the insider continues to produce, to direct, to act even when there seems to be nothing new to offer, receives the pay check because of this five-year contract. Philippine film and television industries lack ‘real’ visionary filmmakers, producers, actors and actresses, those with ‘real’ societal goals and those who can actually change the culture of this nation. The studios must look for them and this is the right time to look for the new ones, principled and still carries ideologies. The existing ones should be replaced and should end their contracts. The culture of ‘utang na loob’ and ‘pakikisama’ must be stopped. This must change so that wider chances to build new concepts and ideas for the ‘poor mass’ to be educated. Those whom they think they are indispensable and those who have acquired material assets and huge amount of money because of the studios, you must be eradicated from this lifetime since the gluttony of everything has given to you - the power, the energy, the money.

The series ‘Hollywood’ provokes one to think, to reflect, to be critical and to be smart. Our country is given another chance, like the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, this is the period where Filipinos must sense the care and selflessness of the world. We have a lot of stories to tell. The challenge is how each Filipino filmmaker or television producer will make the story a potent force to the world.