Director Lester Pimentel Ong (center) with Richard Gutierrez (left) and Ian Veneracion in The Iron Heart
If there’s one thing that the action director of “The Iron Heart” aims for, it is to present a visually action-packed TV series that can be at par with the world’s best.
“We wanted to attract foreign audience other than the Filipino audience to make our niche bigger particularly the Southeast Asian neighbors like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand,” action director Lester Pimentel Ong said in an interview with entertainment reporters during a set visit to the show’s set in Cebu.
“Actually, we shoot it and mount it with the intention of at least closing the gap between the local teleseryes and the international scenes,” Ong added.
It’s his luck that his lead star, Richard Gutierrez and co-star Jake Cuenca were skilled in martial arts, making their action scenes go seamless onscreen.
“They’re really premiere actors, first and foremost. I am really fortunate to work with them and they were able to give the characters of the TV series more life and zest to it,” the filmmaker said, noting that Richard is a real martial artist.
“He practiced martial arts since he was young, six or seven years old and he continued practicing it over the years kaya ‘yung proficiency niya sa martial arts is really good and nagagamit ngayon (it is used) because ‘yung power style action really needs martial arts,” he said.
For him, there’s no pressure in directing Gutierrez in his action scenes.
“Actually, it is a welcome challenge for me to work with him because the goal is to really make him shine and make his skills shine on screen because again sa international market di tayo kilala sa action, mas kilala tayo sa rom-com and drama. This time, we at ABS-CBN wanted to showcase that Filipinos are good martial artists. Filipinos deserve good action and we can really design the action with a proficient martial artist as the lead character. It is a welcome challenge,” he said.
Ong, however, conceded that processing the entire action sequence up to its execution is not a walk in the park.
“Before we start the show, we already have a blueprint. We already have a master plan on how to execute each and every character and as the script comes in, I will sit down with the action team. Actually, it’s a whole team – action choreographers, action directors. We shoot it on our camera and edit it. Once it’s ready, pagdating sa set ay madali na natin siyang makakasa (when it comes to the set, it will be easy to execute it),” he explained. EDV