Multimedia monster

I allowed myself to get duped and paid fifty bucks for the first installment of the Take 6: Directors Lecture Series at the UP Film Center. Institute this afternoon. Jose Javier Reyes gave a talk on "Directing and Scriptwriting."

Nothing really mindblowing except that he affirmed several things that I already knew somehow. He shattered the myth going around that he only directs his own scripts. He said that not many people offer him scripts to read, so he writes his own projects. Plus he said that the greatest gift he probably has is his ability to write very very fast. Damn. Wish I had that. And oh, he said that if you wanted to make a lot of money, you should write for tv, but only if you could really hack it and don't mind at all. Damn.

He also has this observation: That film making is no longer the director's medium, but that of the "creative committee." Everyone has a say now on how to make a movie and how to sell it. There are a lot of things to be considered--product positioning, marketable ideas, creating your own hype. Film is a product that has to be sold, and film making is a business blah blah blah, so the producer has to make money so s/he would make more movies. But for movies to sell, it's no longer wise to be just a stand-alone movie outfit. You have to be a multimedia conglomerate. It's not just a movie after all--there's the soundtrack, the t-shirts, the mugs and calendars, posters plus all the cute artistas, the product placements, the video release, and the dvd release among the pirates of Quiapo.

He also says that it's no accident that the most successful "conglomerates" now are also the tv stations. Television jolts the necessary machinery into a film franchise for it to be sold. We are bombarded with all the ads proclaiming the thing to be the "best movie ever, and if you don't believe that you're stoned!" So we are conditioned that it must be a good movie, and we watch it. In the end, we are being fed our own tails and we eagerly chew on it.

Yeah, multimedia is the way to go. I'd say more things about the lecture, and that Joey Reyes is an entertaining guy, but I'm sleepy na. Maybe we should all go out and slay the multimedia monster or maybe learn how to ride it? But damn, do I wish I have his gift.