“My Additional Taping Day For I Love Betty La Fea”
I really thought that Direk Eric Salud was only kidding when he told me that I will have another taping day when we packed up the airport scene for Betty La Fea three weeks ago. He said that I will still have a scene where there will be a press interview of the deported Filipinas from London. So when I finally got a text message from Levi that I will have a taping for Betty La Fea last week, I was so glad since that means additional income!
The day before the taping, Levi told me that the call time was not yet finalized. She told me that she will text me the call time as soon as the Production Staff would have texted her.
It was already 9:00 p.m. last Tuesday when Levi texted me that my call time last Wednesday was at 8:00 p.m. I was so happy that it was in the evening since it meant that I did not have to take a leave from my office.
However, when I left the office at 5:00 p.m. last Wednesday, I realized that I have to kill time before I will go to the set. The location was the Philtrade Training Center, Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City.
I decided to go malling first. I went to Trinoma – that new Mall owned by Ayala fronting SM City North EDSA. Most of the stalls in Trinoma are already filled up unlike some months back when I last visited the Mall that there were still a lot of stalls that were still under construction. While I enjoyed strolling, I got a new text message that my call time was moved to 10:00 p.m. That meant that I have three and a half hours to "kill" before I will proceed to Philtrade. Time seemed to quickly pass and when I looked at my watch it was already 9:00 p.m. I decided to have a quick chow at ChowKing with my favorite Beef Rice Topping.
I left Trinoma at 9:30 p.m. When I arrived at Philtrade at 10:00 p.m., the place was still dark. I texted Levi to ask where they were. She answered that they were still in Quiapo for a few more sequences to tape. I decided to go to the San Miguel By the Bay, the area in front of the Mall of Asia fronting Manila Bay. You see, after Mayor Lim decided to close down the Bay Walk, this spot in the Mall of Asia has become a popular promenade area.
I was so disgusted even as I enjoyed the sight of the beautiful Manila Bay by night because I could not drink even just a bottle of my favorite San Miguel beer since it is a big NO to go to taping with a chico smell from drinking beer!
It was almost midnight when I finally received a text from Levi that they had left Quiapo and was on their way to Philtrade.
There were only three scenes that were taped and the huge glass façade of Philtrade was used as backdrop to make it appear that it was portion of the airport where the press made an interview on the arriving deportees from London.
I was done at 2:00 a.m. and I was already in bed at 3:00 a.m. but had to wake up at 5:00 a.m. with only two hours of sleep! I have to catch the coaster in our Office at 7:00 a.m. You see, we were going to Subic for our Annual Planning Workshop! Whew! All in a day’s errr… and night’s work!
Egay! Caught up with your past postings; and I don’t think anyone can say that you lead a dull life.
Is Betty La Fea based on Ugly Betty? I think a series like this is a good counterpoint to all the media rhapsodizing up of glamour and good looks. Who was it that said that, “God loves ordinary people, that’s why he made more of them.”
I don’t know if it’s come out in the news there but in a film series recently shown at NYC’s MOMA, one of the films was “Slingshot,” directed by Brilliante Mendoza (sounds like a screen name, ano?). Anyway, it was favorably reviewed in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. I hope to be able to see it (screnings Oct. 32-27).
The New Yorker review:
“IN this interlocking tangle of anecdotal episodes, the Filipino director, Brilliante Medoza, depicts the hell of chronic urban poverty with plenty of heart and not a shred of sentimentality. The action, centered on a densely inhahbited warren of shanties, begins with a night-time police raid, which allows Mendoza’s hyper-kinetic camera to dash through corridors and up and down rickety staircases and present a rapid fire cross-section of its residents and their activities, ranging from sex and prayer to drug use and dividing the spoils of robbery. Honest work is hard to find (one young man, working as a pedicab driver, loses his vehicle to loan sharks and becomes a thief), violence rampant, health care prohibitive, (in one of them most moving sequences, a young woman steals to buy dentures), effort unrewarded (university students fall prey to the young “jammers” who rob them), law enfoprcement capricious and brutal, and politicians part of the problem. Young men swept up in the raid are sprung from jail by a councilman seeking their votes, crowds form in the street to pocket cash payments from competing candidtes, and campaign rallies which are joined with religious celerattions, are hardly more than stomping grounds for pickpockets. Mendoza offers little psychological insight and proposes no solution; his direction is chaotic but his fleeting portraits of people struggling yo survive will long remain in memory. In Tagalog.”
Egay, I don’t know if this film will give foreigners the impression that what’s shown in the film is typical of the Philippines and Filipinos. Offhand, I don’t think so. To those who criticize the Philippines and the Pinoy – all I tell them is to look at their own American media where you can find all sorts of political corruption, racism and official stupidity. And I remind them that at least, the Pinoy does kill people of a different skin color; nor do we harass and maim those of a different sexual orirntation. I like to think that the Pinoy is more Christian than those bigots in America who claim that if you are not for McCain-Palin you are doomed to hell.
Sorry, humaba nang masyado ito. I got carried away.
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