Rahyan Carlos (top, right) with Christian Bables and Ynna Asistio (below).
There’s no pandemic lockdown that can hinder our development in the performing arts. Artists will continue to find innovative ways to create and express art.”
Thus said Rahyan Carlos, head of Star Magic artist training and workshop, who recently announced that the Kapamilya network will go full blast in its online classes in acting, voice, dance and conversational Tagalog starting in May.
Even while a lot of businesses were folding up as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March 2020, Carlos and his team of instructors still found themselves immersed in work. This was also despite the eventual shutdown of Star Magic’s mother company, ABS-CBN, in July 2020.
“Even I was surprised that for the virtual workshops we organized last year, which happened during the strictest implementation of the pandemic lockdown, we had 250 workshoppers from all over the world,” Carlos told Inquirer Entertainment in a recent exclusive Zoom meet.
More students
Carlos, who is also a professor of film production management at the De La Salle University in Dasmariñas, Cavite, added: “A staff member there tried to tease me by saying, ‘Direk, you have more enrollees than us!’ This is considering the fact that we’re not essential, but we still got so many students. This time, from different countries in the world.”
According to Star Magic, participants were from England, New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Canada, as well as from the states of Virginia, New York, Los Angeles and Guam in the United States.
Carlos explained that prior to the pandemic, Star Magic used to hold “physical” training sessions everyday, from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, in seven workshop rooms inside ABS-CBN compound in Quezon City.
In 2019, the number of enrollees reached a record 1,100 just for the summer season alone, Carlos said. “I thought, ‘there must be a way to train them even online.’ That’s what I did in April 2020. I began to study how to transpose all my lectures and syllabus into something suited for online classes,” Carlos said.
Also at that time, Carlos discovered that American acting coach Ivana Chubbuck also began conducting lessons via Zoom. “I studied endlessly. I met with my teachers almost every day. We did a test run in May. We called out students of the classes that got halted and continued them virtually. In June, we had a ‘soft launch’ of all the workshops online, and I’m proud to say it worked!”
Full blast
In October 2020, Star Magic collaborated with the Canada-based Artist Movement Productions and offered workshops “solely for Canadians,” Carlos explained. “I was so happy because it actually worked! 40 participants graduated from the intensive workshop.”
Soon after he renewed his contract with the Kapamilya network this 2021, Carlos decided to go full blast with the online classes.
In 2011, Carlos met a male student in his scriptwriting class whom he thought was too shy and insecure. To help the boy “loosen up,” Carlos asked the latter to attend and observe his one-on-one workshop with actress Kathryn Bernardo.
Talent and hard work
“The session must have gotten him really interested in acting that he eventually joined Star Magic’s workshop, where he stood out from his batch as someone who is talented and hardworking. He didn’t stop training even while he was already auditioning for various roles. Then one day, I received messages from people saying he thanked me after winning an award for ‘Die Beautiful.’ I’m talking about Christian Bables,” Carlos said.
Also in 2011, Carlos and his team did a regional workshops tour in Cebu, Bacolod and Davao. “In the Davao recital, of all the 360 students present, one stood out. She is a nurse from Iligan. When I eventually presented a group of workshop ‘graduates’ to Mr. M. (Johnny Manahan, former head of Star Magic), the girl caught his attention. That same night, she signed as a contract artist of Star Magic. I’m referring to comedian Alora Sasam,” he recalled.
Carlos is the only Filipino-certified Chubbuck Technique acting teacher. He is behind the training of some of the most sought-after and award-winning actors today, such as Coco Martin, Julia Barretto, Jake Cuenca, EJ Falcon, Arjo Atayde, Paulo Avelino, Joshua Garcia and Charlie Dizon.
To register, visit https://www.facebook.com/Starmagicworkshops. Or email starmagicworkshops@abs-cbn.com or call 0949-3975417.