Lost and found in local movies’ ‘Blunderland’

When we first got our toes and tootsies wet in the wonderful world of Philippine show business, it didn’t take us long to realize that, like Alice or Alfie in Wonderland, we had inadvertently been squeezed into an occasionally bizarre, alternative and upside-down universe.

It had its own rules and mores—that could, however, be blithely flouted if it was expedient for at least one of the parties involved.

It even had its own language—or, more properly, its unique meanings for words used in the real world, like “truth” meaning no such thing, only an expedient (that all-defining word, again) reinvention or redefinition of the same.

Fresh ideas

For instance, one day, we were invited by a producer to submit a script for a new movie he was making. He wanted fresh ideas, he said, so we obliged him by writing a synopsis so fresh that, if it had been cow’s milk, it would still be within the bovine’s udder, and would have to be squeezed out for the freshest possible delectation!

After a few days, the producer called again, and he was ecstatic—it was the best synopsis he’d read all year—where had we been all his life? —He was going to shoot it tomorrow, with the industry’s biggest stars topbilling, because it deserved nothing less! —We were in seventh heaven!

Then, we didn’t hear from him for weeks, which stretched out into months, which finally became forever. —What about the great concept that he had been raving about? What about our down payment? Nothing, nada, zilch, nix. Lesson learned.

Child talents

We also learned that show business is the most compulsively competitive place in creation. The first movie we directed had a lot of kids in it, and each of those kids had at least one stage parent in tow. —And we quickly realized that, right after we yelled “cut” after a shot, there would be many  mouths that would attach themselves to each of our ears, all of them ferociously building up the child talents they respectively handled—and viciously cutting down the competition!

As for the child talents themselves, they were also competitive, but in their own, “cute” way, impishly doing their best to get on our good side, the better for them to get preferential treatment (or so they thought), in the shot being lined up.

Then, there were the rumormongers who didn’t stop spreading false or wildly exaggerated stories about who said what against us behind our back, and what our self-appointed defenders ostensibly said to loyally put them in their place!

Wild antics

As for the production people, they had their own wild and woolly antics—like, it turned out that, from the production manager down to the lowly guy who delivered talents’ call slips, and the other slave who kept everyone at the shoot full of cheap, hot coffee—all of them had pet talents, bedmates and sundry hangers-on, for whom they relentlessly lobbied to get bigger roles and talent fees!

Due to these and other relentless pushers and pullers, working on a movie then was like being in a huge pressure cooker in which nothing made sense, and everybody was trying to slice the biggest chunk of flesh out of us.

Which was why, after wrapping up work on the film, we slept for more than 24 hours—and, when we finally awoke from that endless sleep of the living dead, we bought a dozen books—to refill our cranium, the contents of which had been depleted by our month-long misadventure in the upside-down show biz universe of—Malice in Blunderland.